Recruitment review

The future of work is here

Pete Gwilliam

owner, Virtus Search

The last two years have been a waiting game – waiting to get back to normal. But what we once considered normal is nowhere to be found. We have entered a new era in which employees are based in the office, at home, or a hybrid of the two.

The many layers of the debate over where and how we work have come to the fore again following our prime minister’s declaration that he can’t focus while working at home because coffee and cheese are available – completely overlooking the fact that people spend time making drinks and getting food in an office, too. Lord Sugar cast aspersions on the motives of those now using home more regularly as a place of work, labelling work-from-homers “lazy gits,” while there are many in the mortgage sector who would argue that they’ve worked harder during this period than in any previous era, and that the flexible nature of homeworking has allowed them to find a way through the unrelenting workload. The irrationality of such sweeping statements is accentuated when you consider the irony of travelling to the office only to then spend eight hours on virtual calls – hardly achieving the in-person teamwork objective, wasting travel time/cost, and costing the environment, too.

The argument that empowering people to decide where and how they deliver their work will enable them to perform at their best is a compelling one – and some companies have committed to allowing workers to remain fully remote if they desire, with Revolut and Zopa as two examples. This is being balanced against the desire not to damage company culture. If organisations are not careful, hybrid work will have the potential to disrupt the human connection, engagement, and sense of belonging that business leaders have worked to achieve. Moreover, remote work can make it difficult for new employees to integrate into company culture, as they do not have the advantage of building a connection with that culture by working in the office full-time.

There will be plenty who love being in the office with colleagues, and miss the camaraderie and belonging when working at home. But on the flip side, there are many who have found real benefit in being able to do a mix of both, and have felt their wellbeing has improved as a result of not being part of the commuter rat race five days a week. Moreover, disposable income has also increased because of reduced travel costs in particular.

The meaning and balance of work have changed for many people through the transition to hybrid working. This is a perfect time for companies to evaluate their culture and determine which aspects need modernising, and a genuine chance for cultures to emerge fully committed to trust, integrity, and inclusivity and to ensuring that hybridisation works well for both employees and employers.

A lot of these changes were slowly unfolding before the pandemic, and the enforced restrictions merely accelerated them, giving employees a much greater chance for flexible working practices to become their norm.

In the mortgage sector, hybrid working hasn’t appeared to raise significant security and control oversight issues of the sort that might have compromised the ability to follow regulatory standards.

What is noticeable, though, is that it takes extra effort for employees in the office to connect with those who are remote to ensure that colleagues are not left out of the loop when it comes to critical decisions. It is vital to have a strategy (and specific processes and procedures) to ensure all formal communication and outcomes are shared with employees outside of the office.

Employees should be encouraged to communicate as much as possible with one another to prevent any divisiveness. Now that restrictions have been lifted, good practices such as away days and in-person meetups in/outside of regular working hours have become a part of relationship management again, but I have learned from listening to operational leaders that leading a hybrid workforce means harder work.

Hybrid working models have to strike the right balance between oversight and autonomy. Employers need to make sure managers can provide adequate feedback whilst allowing employees to feel trusted to do their jobs. And leaders need to challenge the inevitable unconscious bias that in-office employees are inherently more reliable and productive. As well, leaders need to ensure that special projects and opportunities are not exclusively granted to those working on-site.

Fundamentally, work is what you do, not where you are, and evaluation of the quality of outputs is the right way to consider an individual’s productivity. However, for people embracing remote work, it is imperative that professional networks, mentoring, and personal connections not be weakened to the point where they are gaining flexibility but losing opportunities.

We are entering an era in which the power of face-to-face interaction will combine with effective remote work to create a hybrid model that empowers employees and encourages company-wide collaboration. I envisage that those who get this right will build more diverse, creative, and adaptable teams that can meet the future head-on. M I