The Future of Work is Here. Is Your Business Ready?
The last two years have seen both employees and employers thrust head-first into unknown territory as they've had to grapple with the realities of fully remote and hybrid working environments. The shift has impacted everything from organizational culture to real estate, and it's here to stay.
While the arrival of COVID-19 was an abrupt and unwelcomed forcing function, leading to the reinvention of work as we know it, the virus was a mere accelerator of what was already inevitable - the death of the five-day in-office work week.
Gone are the days when working from home was the exception among a workforce clamoring to get to the office before their first-morning meeting Monday through Friday. In fact, being in the office is now the exception among that very same workforce. A workforce that has discovered a more powerful voice when it comes to determining when, where, and how they want to work and how they want to engage with their employers, their colleagues, and their peers. What exactly are those voices saying? A recent Harvard Business School survey found that 81% of employees who have been working from home through the pandemic either don't want to go back or prefer a hybrid schedule.
Employees want to work from home 2.5 days a week on average, according to a recent monthly Harvard Business Review survey of 5,000 Americans. The study notes that “Desires to work from home and cut commuting have strengthened as the pandemic has lingered, and many have become increasingly comfortable with remote interactions.”
In this context, the shift to a more remote workforce has been a long time in the making. The notion of a hybrid work environment is not new by any means, but it took a global pandemic to prove that it could work effectively.
Now that we know that hybrid is here for the long haul and we have a blank slate to define what that looks like, where do we go from here? There are several critical guiding elements that will help employers of all sizes blaze a sustainable path forward with a rich culture.
Be nimble
Our new way of working more closely resembles a rubber band than it does a rigid scaffolding, and it requires a response that’s equally as flexible - one that embraces change and quickly answers with agility.
Organizations that aren’t already thinking this way will soon find themselves facing an increasing number of barriers when it comes to their hybrid aspirations. In fact, Forrester recently predicted that one in three firms that make the shift to hybrid work models will fail. While 60% of organizations are expected to move to a hybrid work model in 2022, one-third of them will fail at their first attempts. They will fail not because they don’t take the shift seriously or were careless in its execution, but because they are still stuck in old mindsets and ways of doing things from operations to culture and collaboration.
As you think about your hybrid policies and guidelines, it’s important to develop those parameters with an understanding that we all still have a lot to learn about our brave, new world of work.
Be flexible in how you identify and evaluate top talent. Be open to non-traditional job descriptions in order to attract the best candidates.
Always be prepared with a plan B and plan C in case plan A doesn’t pan out the way you anticipate.
Be ready for anything. Look out for key learnings and opportunities that can improve your model and act quickly to seize them.
Invest in your technology stack to help support the transition
Trust who you’ve hired
Nothing will ruin a hybrid culture into the ground faster than a lack of communication, transparency, and most of all, trust between managers and their teams. A recent Future of Work report by Capgemini Research revealed a trusted work culture to be one of the most critical building blocks for the new hybrid working paradigm.
Despite the clear benefits of building a culture of trust, Capgemini’s report also notes that 38% of managers are still skeptical of remote workers, and nearly half of all employees (48%) feel micromanaged. Until this disconnect is bridged, lack of trust will only serve as another potential point of failure among even the best-intentioned organizations. Avoid the pitfall by asking a few key questions:
Are you truly empowering your teams to do their absolute best work outside of the office?
Are you communicating clearly and consistently around hybrid policies and guidelines?
Are you bringing your authentic self to the table as a leader each and every day?
Be a culture driver and champion
How’s your team doing? Are they stressed and has culture and morale suffered? Has their bandwidth decreased even though they’re not commuting? With everyone working remotely, it’s hard to find ways to align people and keep them motivated, let alone build and maintain a vibrant and unique culture. To make matters worse, employers have struggled to recruit and retain top talent in recent months. And according to a new report from Glassdoor, the tight labor market trends will continue into 2022.
According to culture leader and Luman CEO Tirza Hollinghorst, “In an office, relationship building can be a by-product of time and proximity. For remote teams, relationships need to be consciously cultivated to build commitment and belonging. Teams who invest time in learning, play, and connection will realize more resilient teams and better outcomes.” Now, more than ever, your people need to feel like they are part of something special - something bigger than just a good job with a good paycheck. We create marketing organizations with the capacity to:
Keep a finger on the pulse of the broad organization, not just the individual.
Continuously learn and adapt core cultural elements as conditions change.
Be an empathic, relationship-oriented leader.
Navigate complex, dynamic staff needs with flexibility.
AND NOW...act in concert from anywhere, anytime.
Assessing the culture of your organization and team is critical, but more importantly, be part of what defines that culture - be a champion of your employees and they will be champions of your brand.
Forge new partnerships
Don’t go it alone. Now is the time to look externally for experts who can serve as navigators and guides along with your Future of Work journey. We work with many team leaders and executives to empower them to become change agents within their organizations during challenging times.
While the transition to a hybrid workforce model is no easy feat, it can help to work with someone who is looking at the challenges and opportunities from the outside in, with fresh perspective and insight to drive growth through change. This is what we do every day!
Ask us for a quick assessment. It’s like free therapy.
If you’re refining your approach to marketing and need help deciding where to focus first, we’d love to chat. Within about 45 minutes, we can get to the heart of your biggest challenges and help you determine where you need to prioritize to up-level your game. Schedule some time to tell us about your “Ready for Anything” challenges.
About Us
Infinite Edge is a consultancy of marketing and culture experts that helps companies build trust and navigate today’s rapidly evolving market environment while providing all the marketing services you'd expect from a top-tier integrated agency. Invite us in to help you transition your marketing operation from reactive to responsive and develop a roadmap to help you thrive through the coming unknown.
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