Making ‘Hybrid Working’ Work!

As we reach the second anniversary of the first lockdown, it is an ideal time to reflect on how professional firms have been transitioning their working practices since the removal of restrictions in the summer of 2021.

A minority of firms have reverted back to their previous practices of requiring their workforce to return to the office for the full working week, as they were prior to lockdown in March 2020.  A smaller minority of firms have decided to fully embrace the remote working model and are now looking to offload their office spaces which they see as being unnecessary for the future of their business. 

For the majority of firms there has been a recognition that a hybrid work model can offer the best of both worlds, with a mix of working in the office and remotely.  A common version of this has been asking team members to work from home three days a week and spend two days in the office or vice-versa. This is then adapted for when there may need to be specific days where leaders expect team members to attend meetings in person. This kind of arrangement allows employees to retain the flexibility they've enjoyed when working from home yet still have those important face-to-face connections with colleagues that are so important for collaboration, learning and wellbeing.  The hybrid work model is also becoming an increasingly important and integral element of a firm’s talent recruitment and retention strategy.

Whilst in principle it may seem relatively easy to offer a hybrid model, making it work in practice requires careful thought and planning.  It also requires the offer of additional support for team members who have found the new decentralised, multi-locational way of working challenging to deal with.

For any firm wanting to create the right environment to enable hybrid working to succeed there are some key elements that need to be considered.

Clarity and transparency

The firm needs to clearly communicate the terms of their hybrid working policies and the rationale behind them, otherwise conflict and resentment can arise.  Questions to consider include:

• How many days should team members be required to be in the office?
• What work is to be done remotely and what in person?
• When do we require team members to be in the office at the same time? (e.g. for collaborative work or team meetings).

These policies will need to adapt and evolve as firms find the hybrid model that works best for their firm, their team and their clients.  Getting regular feedback from the team and clients as to how the model is working will form an essential part of this evolution.

The firm will also need to ensure there is a robust digital infrastructure to support these policies and ensure the team are provided with the necessary equipment and resources to perform their role effectively.

Trust and autonomy

In the early days of lockdown, many managers struggled with the idea that their team members could be trusted to get their work done without their manager having continuous oversight of that work; some managers still struggle with this.  This overly-controlling approach to managing a colleagues’ work has been a function of the professions focusing on the inputs to a job, supported through the use of timesheets, rather than focusing on the outputs of peoples’ work.

For hybrid working to be effective, managers need to give their team members the autonomy to carry out their work and not micro-manage them. At the same time, they need to develop the skills to know when and how often to check in on their team members to see if they need any support or to confirm that the work is going to be carried out in line with expectations.  Team members that are trusted are much more likely to be more motivated and engaged than those who are not. 

Inclusion

There has often been the perception of an unconscious bias against home workers and part-timers.  The hybrid work environment can make this situation worse, so thought needs to be given as to how to ensure those that working remotely are given the same opportunities and feel as valued as those working in the office. Every communication must be considered from the perspective of the whole team not just those present in the office.  Effective and structured communication strategies will be vital to achieving this and ensuring that ‘out of sight’ is not ‘out of mind’.  

Embedding learning

The experience of lockdown highlighted for many firms that they had not fully appreciated the important part unconscious learning plays in the workplace, particularly for those at the start of their careers. For new starters, firms should ensure they spend most of their early months in the office and allocating them a buddy or mentor who is also present in the office.  This will not only allow them the opportunity to be trained in the skills they need to do their job, but also to pick up the customs, practices and culture of the firm.

The hybrid work environment can never and will never be a constant; it will need to continuously evolve to ensure the firm’s working practices meet the needs of the practice, its team members and its clients. Likewise managers and leaders must adapt and develop their skills, behaviours and mindsets to this new working environment.   

The first 3Qhub virtual conference of the year ‘Managing and Leading in the Hybrid Environment’ on 7th July 2022 provides managers and leaders with the ideal opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills to overcome the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that the hybrid working environment presents.  The conference also provides an ideal chance to network with managers and leaders from other firms and learn from their experiences of hybrid working in their practices.