Time to face facts. Hybrid working is now firmly on the agenda.
THE CONTEXT
Time to face facts. Hybrid working is now firmly on the agenda.
And working 'elsewhere', a little or a lot, just isn't the same for every business or every person.
You must define what this means for your business, short term and long term.
Getting this right is imperative.
Talking to the right people, at the right time, with the right processes, will save you and your business time, effort and money.
You must be safe, prepared and ready for change.
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Based on the deluge of data there are many opinions, which keep changing…
Work from home, go to the office, work from home if you can, where possible stay 2m apart, the 6ft office (that’s 182.88cm btw), Tier 1, 2, 3 (& 4) UK guidelines, local country guidelines, hub and spoke, hybrid working... the list seems endless. And now that a coronavirus vaccine will be rolled out over the coming months, there will be more guides and phrases that we will need to become familiar with very soon.
But to get to the heart of this, no one knows how many of the changes we are seeing as a result of COVID-19 will become permanent, and how it may affect you and your business. Yet, many of us must start making decisions, perhaps before we would really like. The reality is, to not make decisions or communicate the direction of travel, may see you fall behind. Every business needs a plan to navigate these choppy waters.
The foundation of any plan is unique to every business but there are some headlines which keep rising to the top of the discussion, all of which are interlinked and need to be addressed:
1. Operational change
2. Health and wellbeing
3. Space and infrastructure
Our major takeaways are:
1. Operational change
From the start of the pandemic until now, the feedback has been consistent through every poll and survey that we have read. Most of us feel we do not need to be in the office all the time. While percentages of who thinks what, have and will continue to change, the overall message is that we are experiencing a fundamental shift in terms of adopting hybrid working.
YouGov’s latest opinion poll (1) on from working from home presents a very clear message:
"Prior to COVID, 68% of British employees had never worked from home. Now amongst those, 91% say that they want to continue at least part of the time and three-quarters of staff currently working from home think it is likely that post-COVID, their employer will continue to let them do so”.
Pre Covid-19
Post covid-19
2. Health and wellbeing
It has been high on the work agenda for some time and never more so than now. Familiar COVID-19 related topics include better work/life balance, family time, loneliness, ergonomics, serendipity, social bonds and learning. We are also having insights into personal worlds like never before. While the office is generally a ‘neutral space’ (a bit like wearing a uniform), your home situation is somewhat of a reveal and each of our working from home experience is different. It is important for us all to stop and consider this bigger picture then, because whilst working elsewhere has clearly been positive for some, for others, less ‘office time’ has had a negative impact, much of which we do not necessarily see or hear.
Let’s start with the positives...
The spring lockdown and subsequent government measures has meant almost all of us have had to experience working from home. Multiple sources tell us that benefits include less commute stress which has resulted in a nation able to eat and sleep properly. (A study by finder.com found that working from home saved almost 5 hours a week of commuting time).
Leesman’s global home working study (2), which the consultancy began in March 2020 (interviewing global home based workplace populations of 1,109 in 88 countries) found that 72.2% agreed ‘when I work from home I am able to maintain a healthy work-life balance.’ Those taking part also said that they have been 15% more productive working from home.
A ZenBusiness survey of 1,035 remote workers (3), dated April 2020 – 60% said that their diet had improved, 44% said that they did more exercise as a result of working from home. This survey also found that people in large companies experienced the most positive outcomes (55%).
And most recently, The Guardian (4), dated 19 Nov 2020, reported on how the pandemic could lead to a major shift in parenting roles. In May, the Office for National Statistics found that the first COVID lockdown had led to a 58% increase in childcare undertaken by men, whose working hours dropped by one hour and 37 minutes per day. While women still did more childcare, the gender care gap narrowed. In 2015, the ONS found that men were spending 39% of the time that women spent on childcare, compared to 64% during lockdown (5). Just as World War Two brought about a huge societal change by accelerating women into work, this pandemic has changed family structures and dynamics, giving men a taste of home life and re-balanced priorities. It is unlikely that these will revert straight back to pre-COVID times when we are all able to live without restrictions.
However, there are also negative statistics arising as a result of the huge move to working from home which must be considered with every business’s next move plan. On the surface it appears the younger generation has been the worst affected by home working in several ways. On the very practical level, according to the Leesman global home working study, younger workers who are more likely to be living in shared accommodation are less likely to have an optimum home working environment. As the Leesman study reports, 30% of home workers do not have a dedicated work setting at home and are consequently surfing from the sofa, kitchen table or even their bed, Leesman, ‘A Crisis of Learning’ (6). The report continues – revealing that ‘learning from others’ has also been hit hard by COVID and again, it is likely to be the younger generation who miss the benefits of this the most. Statistically this group of employees are most likely to feel less connected with their organisation and colleagues as a result of not being in the office.
But whatever age box you tick, human connection and social bonding are suffering, impacting the connection to corporate culture and learning and the basic enjoyment of ‘going to work’(7).
We see confirmation of this in the CIPD report (8) which presents a decline in work-related health and wellbeing and with working from home, problems around not being able to separate work and home life. For example, in 2018, 43% of respondents believed work had a positive impact on their mental health, but this slipped to 38% in 2019 and 35% in 2020. CIPD, Good Work Index 2020
“Ultimately, the performance and relationship between an individual and the business is key and it stands to reason that embedding positivity in a company, will help drive corporate performance.
So a business now needs to find a balance between the offer of home working and the provision of an office. Even slight changes in employee productivity can have a significant impact on shareholder returns”.
A study in 2015, by the University of Warwick (9), for example, found that happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity.
3. Space and infrastructure
Where, what and how we work has changed for most people. The office, home, or elsewhere is now part of a network of places where we do business in some shape or form. Inside these networks, location matters less and less: connectivity is king. As long as you can get the job done, trust has been granted (often unintentionally).
Co-working is increasing in popularity. And organisations are looking to find spaces on the outskirts of expensive cities to attract talent. Cross business collaboration and social connections with colleagues and others outside your organisation will lead to cross-fertilisation of ideas, with resulting innovation 10).
There is also the issue of measuring space, not purely in volume but how it contributes to productivity. Historically, office ‘space benchmarks’ have provided real estate teams a tool to measure cost per head, based on the amount of space per person, a pretty flat calculation. Now the question seems much more holistic with a new equation of space that encompasses wellness, employee engagement and productivity as the meaningful metric.
“In offices there is a potential reversal of a decades-long trend of densification in which businesses have been absorbing less space per office-using employee”.
We will see a reversion to larger workstations and an emphasis on personal space in the workplace(11).
At the same time, wellness factors will rise to the forefront in space decisions, favouring newer construction, gut rehabilitations of older buildings and greater occupier control over HVAC, entrances and building-within-a-building options. Businesses are likely to want the cleanest and most accessible offices where social distancing is possible (12).
Smart buildings, apps, and on hand data can provide us with a wealth of information towards a new metric, but how much each company adopts to set the right perception is key.
When British Land and WorkTech Academy carried out a survey in London in 2019 (13), to get the views of decision-makers about smart buildings, they found that 90% saw a business reason for working in a smart office. The most popular smart office features included self-adjusting lighting, personalised heat and lighting settings with circadian lighting mimicking natural daylight.
However, collecting large amounts of data in the workplace comes with a price – individual privacy and security risks to name two examples - and so businesses need to consider very carefully how much information to gather for metrics that will be good for the business and employee health.
Fundamentally, the overall workplace experience is set to take centre stage and the choice, space, and amenities will be different for everyone, and every business. The value and measurement of the workplace to employees will most certainly vary between organisations and that means this is not the case of one size fits all.
Hybrid working is now firmly on the agenda. And working ‘elsewhere’, a little or a lot, just isn’t the same for every business or every person.
It’s not a new model but COVID has accelerated hybrid working to Board agendas across the globe and is one many companies have had to adopt.
At last, here is a phase that should last. For all of the terminology that has bombarded workplace for too long, perhaps this phrase is the umbrella to house ‘home working’, ‘activity-based working’, ‘part time working’, ‘full time working’, ‘flexible working’, ‘my space’, ‘your space’, ‘hub and spoke’, ‘hot desking’, ‘hotelling’ and more. For every business and every individual, the right arrangement will be different. How much choice, independence, flexibility is the preserve of each individual company and it will need to decide what % of each ingredient they will adopt and be flexible enough to change when it needs to.
You must define what this means for your business, short term and long term.
Going back to ‘normal’ whatever your ‘normal’ was – will be almost impossible and it is clear that employees are expecting ‘working elsewhere’ to continue, in some shape or form. But, what does your business want and need? And what message does it want to communicate about the policies and culture within the company, to clients and business partners and to the employees it hopes to attract?
Getting this right is imperative.
Your data will exist. The question is, how do you filter this into something meaningful, expediently, efficiently, and effectively? A framework that is specific to your current needs and which is adaptable as plans change.
Talking to the right people, at the right time, with the right processes, will save you and your business time, effort and money.
Now is the time to clarify the direction of your workplace and by blending the best for your business through HR, IT, Real Estate, Finance and Brand... You WILL be safe, prepared, and ready for your change.
Never before have we had such an opportunity to embrace change in the workplace. The creation of a flexible workplace framework for today and tomorrow will make you ready for whatever your ‘next’ looks like.
Navigating the ‘Now’ to ‘Next’ can be simple. Contact our experts in workplace and change communications management.
You must be safe, prepared and ready for change.
CONTACT OUR EXPERTS IN WORKPLACE AND CHANGE COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT