Working Differently
The key theme emerging from the many employee surveys taking place at the moment, designed to help guide employers to redesign their future working model, is how to manage expectations around future work flexibility.
Companies as diverse as Google and Infosys have already declared their adoption of a hybrid 3:2 model, formalising the option to work from home for two to three days per week. A logical development following months of enforced homeworking for many of us. The logic is sound; this new approach formalises and endorses an unprecedented flexibility and shift in working paradigm that has come of age.
So far so good, but many employers embracing this new model are wrestling with big practical issues such as redefining floor space need and usage, who comes in when, IT consistency, etc. But it’s tricky; many companies are already finding that it was a lot easier to have thirty people all working remotely rather than twenty in a room and ten remote. This certainly changes the basic workplace dynamics but perhaps more critically starts to reshape an organisation’s social capital.
We know from our work on social capital over the last fifteen years that social connectivity has a disproportionately positive impact on productivity and that certainly could be in for an organisational wobble.
If the role of the office as ‘mother ship’, the hub where employees meet, collaborate and spark off each other is diluted, then organisations need to look carefully at how to ensure that changing behaviours and distanced ways of interacting don’t negatively impact on culture and performance. If not addressed then the social cohesion that builds trust and underpins a common, shared culture is weakened.
At forward thinking inc we have worked with a diverse range of organisations, supporting many of them through periods of change to create stronger, more productive cultures. We believe that the pressures created by Covid-19 could actually be a launch pad for reinventing the workplace. The almost inevitable mix of ‘in person’ and remote working can be a dynamic stimulus for positive change, but it needs some planning.
It starts with your most valuable asset, your people, understanding how to harness their ideas and ensuring you are addressing the drivers of improved mental and physical wellbeing. As we start this new year it is definitely the right time for everyone to come off mute and contribute to the plan.
Undoubtedly 2021 will continue this somewhat rocky and uncertain period for all businesses but it potentially presents business leaders with a unique opportunity to evolve a successful new working model and press the reset button on costs, culture and collaboration.