Four years after the pandemic that changed the world, we – the desk-based working population – are nowhere closer to figuring out how to organise our workforces to support both organisational needs and individual employee wellbeing. Companies have taken many and varied approaches to the challenge, with some offering fully remote and flexible options – in some cases doing away with an office space altogether – and others at the other end of the spectrum mandating a full, pre-Covid style return to office.
Both approaches have apparent benefits and drawbacks. The media tells us stories of employee groups taking their employers to court when faced with return to office mandates, or instituting ‘work to rule’ policies – creating a headache for HR teams everywhere and perhaps providing a cautionary tale for others considering the same course of action. But there is no doubt that companies with bigger brand power and higher salaries have the upper hand in this kind of power dynamic, and can probably mandate whatever they like, and people will come. But for the vast majority of businesses in the UK, who have less than 250 staff and minimal brand power, the challenge of pleasing leaders, teams and individuals is real.
It’s worth looking under the skin to try and understand the dynamics at play. Organisations are, after all, only groups of people, and where policies associated with ways of working are codified and enforced, they are reflections of the needs and wants of a particular cohort. The return to office mandates appear to come from leadership teams, citing a need for collaboration and connection to support culture development, innovation and learning. Yet do we have evidence of previously successful companies failing due to a switch to a flexible way of working? Maybe it is too early to say. There is no doubt that tried and tested leadership tactics – like walking the floor, role modelling organisational values, and building relationships – are much, much more difficult, if not impossible, when people are not physically co-located, and that directive leadership styles work less well with remote teams – could this also be driving the urge to get bums back on office seats?
Since the Covid lockdowns, individual employees are feeling their power and, en masse, have gained confidence in asserting their rights to work in a more flexible manner of their choosing, pointing to the numerous wellbeing and financial benefits associated with working flexibly and remotely, and voting with their feet when not getting what they want. Businesses too are benefiting from throwing the recruitment net more widely, allowing them to bring in expertise hitherto unavailable due to distance, creating a conflict of interest at the top, and a potential route to inequitable treatment of different employee groups.
There is no easy or quick solution to this challenge. The workplace is a complex system, and as such the ‘probe-sense-respond’ approach is likely to work best in developing solutions, especially if leadership teams can ask difficult questions of themselves, be reflective and honest about their needs and drivers, and patient enough to gather useful data to underpin effective decision-making.
There is no silver bullet solution, because each organisation is as individual as the people inside it. But whatever your approach to there is methodology that can help.
- Consult with individuals and give them a voice, not just via surveys, but also focus groups and informal conversations. Make sure they are representative of the whole workforce. Check in regularly. Don’t make promises to act – but make promises to listen.
- Use data and evidence to support decision-making. Weigh the needs of the leadership teams with the needs of the employees, recognising different job roles and personality types. Be reflective and honest about drivers and motivations.
- Set and implement policy with organisational justice in mind. Apply policy in a fair and equitable way – or be transparent about why you can’t.
- Encourage managers to adopt a transformational leadership style, that seeks to motivate and inspire people to work autonomously towards common goals, rather than direct them to courses of action and procedures – this builds trust and a sense of agency, regardless of working location.
- Whatever your policies and ways of working, monitor and evaluate the outcomes that are important to your business – whether they are performance, wellbeing, innovation, or value modelling. Over time a pattern will emerge that tells you if your policy is supportive of or detrimental to these outcomes.