Working from Home The New Normal? Think Again, Hybrid Is The Future Of The Workplace

Recently Twitter and Square have made headlines and newsfeeds with their move to allow all employees to permanently work from home or remotely.

This is something that is being applauded by many people and publications and potentially right to do so.

What we have been experiencing is not working from home in the traditional sense or ‘in the normal sense’, it is working from home with many caveats and adjusting to many different lockdown situations. Sitting on constant video calls, fighting for the spare room or dining room table and for those seeking deep work it’s impossible with kids and pets at home.

The new normal looks and acts very different to what we are experiencing and what we previously experienced.

There have been and will be many businesses questioning the requirement for a large building or a number of offices for their teams and whether or not they are a good or smart investment.

There is a but, the but is the business world has a responsibility to the staff, to onboard, re-onboard and support their staff in ways that they never have before.

Yes, we have worked from home for the last three months however it is very different to the traditional working from home or remote working. For those who are not returning to the office, there is going to be a huge impact and cultural shift required.

This deepdive is a starter guide to help you adapt and question what is right for you, your business and the important areas to consider with your future planning and adapting your business for the near future.

The three important areas of support required are:

1. Emotional (mental health)
2. Physical (physical health)
3. Professional (development and career progression)

1/ Emotional Health 💟

For many people, the working from home honeymoon or bubble has burst.

Or worse still many are suffering from working from home burnout.

Screen time has shot up, the delayed responses over your video call of choice is increasing, fatigue and the standard of communication has decreased and for many defaulting to another video call over effective asynchronous communication or effective written communication.

This has created a “new normal” and in many cases increased the emotional charge around decisions. We have had to provide feedback in the moment, the flow of meetings are harder to understand and interruptions can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, respecting the person talking or presenting is more important remotely.

Emotionally working from home can and has taken its toll for many, why?

• Less time to yourself (parents and guardians have been hugely impacted)
• Less productive
• Less micro moments with colleagues
• Less walks to refresh, recharge and digest work, form and create ideas
• Less chance to understand the workplace politics
• Less gossiping — this can be seen as a negative and positive
• More challenges while at home
• More distractions
• More objects to try and juggle
• Difficult to understand tone — across video calls, on instant message, on direct emails
• Difficult to interpret emotion and body language of your colleagues, managers or employees
• There is no clear line between work and home and very little space for most. Boundaries are vital for many personality types.

As business owners and leaders we have responsibilities to help our staff navigate these questions and prepare for a new WFH world.

The WFH phase has likely been as positive as it is negative, with many employees being able to work to a schedule that helps them. less stress of a commute and be able to manage their time and projects with a new more time specific perspective.

Working from home schedules have also enabled smart and productive managers to offer dedicated one to ones and have better conversation where distractions can be lowered or being caught between meetings.

When this phase of lockdown is transitioning, we are going to see that many people have struggled silently, some have greatly missed their colleagues, others have thrived and some just crave some “normalcy”.

2/ Physical Health 🏃‍♂️

Physical health will be impacted, as an employer you encourage exercise, whilst many working from home have had to look after their children or have had fear to leave their home, there has been a reduction in exercise.

Recent surveys and polls have suggested people are eating worse with less access to a variety of foods or the convenience of food chains and outlets in cities and towns. This will likely continue and something employers and managers should keep in mind.

The new phase of not having to go into the office, there are less excuses to go to the shop, go for lunch or commute twice a day, be wary of the impact that will have and encourage staff to remain active, take regular breaks and break the negative cycle of being always glued to a video call or screen in the same part of the house.

Additionally the important, informal habits and goings on in the office that are missed, walking between meetings, ability to grab a hot drink or grab some fruit from the kitchen, alongside the quick interaction with colleagues.

3/ Professional Health 👔

Professional health is going to be a challenge for many, understanding and voicing frustrations is never easy in person, typically whilst on text chat or a video call, raising professional concern is a challenge while on a video call, tone can be much harder to read, body language and facial expressions are hard to interpret especially if the video freezes or slow to respond. Reactions and actions can come across more aggressively or be ignored completely.

Train and enable your employees and managers to have a new way of communicating their frustration, empower your staff to have more productive 1:2:1’s and enable each person to have a GROW (or equivalent) professional development plan.

Some managers will feel empowered and want to take these steps others just aren’t trained well enough or do not think of this. As an employee push for this, as an employer, manager or leader ensure these are the base level expectations.

Good managers are typically always going to be good managers and with adjustment could improve themselves and their teams, Unfortunately, bad managers might get worse, without the support of the company and feedback from their team members it is likely they may struggle to adapt and improve their EQ to a different situation.

Employers should offer pulse surveys and help to build out managers and employees in the transitional period, survey them, ask both managers and their team to rate and rank their abilities and enable this to evolve and build grow plans. We have seen in many instances when working remotely that trust can come into question, there is an opportunity to raise this as an employee or as an employer or manager, you have the opportunity to address trust and delivery while working remotely. This is also something to keep in mind when the ‘office’ becomes more flexible and hybrid for many forward thinking businesses.

Preparing Your Managers And Management Team

Businesses are going to be facing a number of questions they have yet to face or have never had to answer.

Here are a few to think through:

• What protection have you put into place?
• Why should I be the first back in the office?
• What business benefit is it that I come back to the office?
• How will you keep me safe?
• You may have put me at risk previously (please remember many offices and leaders were slow to react and slow to close their offices, especially international offices not experiencing the same level of infections), how are you going to protect my health and wellbeing?
• How did you come to pick me or my team in the first rounds of back to the office?
• Why can’t you provide me an office that I can return to?
• I cannot work from home anymore, what is your solution to that?
• How are you going to fill those heads you let go or assign the work fairly?
• How can you make my work schedule more flexible?

Working remotely or working from home can restrict team development, delivering on projects, interpersonal relationships, idea generation, idea filtering, all are components of the centralised office. Younger members of the team often require more structure and to observe how to work and etiquettes of the workplaces, especially being invited into meetings, interviews and workshops.

Trust is often the most important element of working together, trust of the team is going to be stretched and strained for employees and for managers. There will be plenty of training that has to happen.

Working remotely or from home can be limiting for the extroverted team members who gain energy from their colleagues and teams around them. Ensure you are considering how you replace these points if you are making the decision to remove your office.

The Future

The future has many if, buts and maybes, I do not pretend to have all of the answers, however, the future will look different and different between locations, departments and organisations. Here are some ways you can shape your thinking and start thinking as a business leader or employee who wants to be proactive and make positive change:

• Working remotely — Working from home is not always a viable option, there will be a surge of people who will want to work out of the office but not at home, (risks aside for now) this could be a coffee shop, a local library, a friend and family members or a paid for workplace. It is important these are considered and are viable. There is a duty of care from the employer for the employee and mapping out the risk will be important.
• Working from home — WFH or ‘Work’ for some will be different, there will be adjustment periods and there will be days where people will clearly struggle as will teams to build a bond or rebuild. Many people and large teams are fed up with video calls (think from stand up → WIP’s → status updates → management team meetings) and constant instant messaging notifications. Proactively think how you can support this new wave and set staff up with the right WFH / office set up and encourage the right equipment, whether that is the company paying for this or supporting you.
• Co-working space — (risks aside) Will there be a move against co-working spaces, even the tech bros and small companies will question the requirement or the risk factor. Co-working offices will have its place in the new world but the buzz and cool factor will dampen and lead to an even more flexible model or membership model.
• The new smaller co-working spaces — (risks aside) There was a small movement towards spaces being created by small companies or freelancers where they work in renovated spaces, think large living rooms, unused rooms, renting large enough spaces with other people similar to you or in the same industry, this is likely to escalate. The commute for many people has had an effect on their work and home life, we are likely to see more spaces open and be used that is closer to home and without the commute or demand of large cities. This is likely a trend for creatives, writers, newly formed agencies and the wave of new consultants.
• Satellite offices — With the move from huge offices, we are likely see a demand for an office to be made available or spaces available for meetings, satellite offices are not new but renting spaces or having smaller offices or spaces for those needing collaborative spaces is a likely phase we will see and many businesses will have to research in near future.
• Hot desking — Hot desking was either loved or hated, typically it was an escape for some and a way to collaborate for others. We are unlikely to see the end of the office as we know it for a few years, but it does beg the question will hot desking be something that continues or will it be a new style of hot desking with new office set ups or new tech set ups. Virtually sitting with your team and being on camera (think avatar, live (camera on), camera off but status as online, BRB, in meeting but with mic on that reacts) likely is something we will want to embrace and being able to join teams or departments will be something that could reconnect or boost focus.

Businesses and leaders need to do everything they can to make this new world as accessible as possible for everyone and increase the morale of the business, proactively working with your department leads to help to increase confidence, trust and increase productivity. Ask yourself and fellow management teams if we have ensured our people are set up to be mentally and physically well and successful.

The future for many will fill employees with some anxiety and rightly so, it has been a life changing event.

We have missed the human connection we as humans are engineered to seek out and develop from collective intelligence.

We have missed many important experiences, the informal conversation, the pep talks we all need from time to time from our boss or the internal mentor you have or that chat we have in the hallway that inspires us to take action or a chance on something that will move that important needle.

With industry leading businesses like Google and Facebook phasing the return to the office from July to the middle of 2021, there will be pressure applied to get the teams back in the office and phase a plan that works for the business. If you are a company who thrives from innovation and having to have complete internal secrecy around projects and products like Apple this might be a luxury.

This is where you leaders will have to question is this right for our people, will this improve our employee experience with our business and can we take this opportunity to make work more flexible and relevant for our people and our customers.

Whether you are an “individual contributor”, a manager of a small team, a HR professional or a leader of an important organisation, this is your opportunity to take the time to question what works for you, to understand what works for your team and your business and apply a flexible and hybrid approach to the virtualising workplace.

Take this opportunity to rethink what trust is and where you can help your teams receive emotional support, be put in a place to take advantage of managing their time to get out of their workspace and go for a walk or take part in exercise and essentially for your workforce to create personal professional development plans together for all of your staff. Some businesses are in a place where the long term might be questionable however wherever possible plan, invest and action for the mid to long term.

One well thought through dedicated company wide strategy (aka Focus) has never been more important.
Business and company leaders ensure you are transparent, show how you got to this overarching strategy, enable buy-in (studies have proven this is essential) and empower your teams to build long term action plans for the departments.

With all this said, one benefit we are all going to see with less office space requirements is a reduction in unnecessary stress aka fighting for meeting rooms and navigating office politics over meeting rooms and board rooms.

The TLDR

• Working from home or working from the office is not the only solutions on the table
• Be quicker to react than before various lockdowns
• Be meticulous in planning the future, use second and third order thinking to really map out and detail your thinking
• There are three important areas of support required for the new hybrid world
  1)Emotional (mental health) 2) Physical (physical health), 3) Professional (development and career progression)
• Use pulse surveys to understand where you teams are really at
• Cater for the different teams and different personality types
• Although there are many options for the virtual workplace, really work out what is best for long term success by putting people first
• Flexibility is key future company success — for both staff, managers and business leads
• Enable company wide focus by reducing anxieties and stresses
• Take the time to develop one long term overarching company wide strategy

Huge thanks to Paddy Moogan, Paula Holmes and Beth Gladstone for their insights and recommended tweaks.