The global pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we work and it will not be reversed

This month, Rachael Brassey, Global Lead on People and Change at PA Consulting argues a return to full in-person working could be detrimental to companies.

In your opinion, are hybrid work arrangements working?

Hybrid working models can work – but only those which maximise personalisation, empathy and inclusion. Fully understanding the different segments and personas within your workforce is important – there is a real mix across the workforce in terms of working preferences. The most successful models are typically co-designed by diverse talent segments of the workforce with the sponsorship of the C-Suite, rather than with just a top-down approach.

It’s also critically important to ensure that the design of hybrid working operating models are not destination-focused and one-time fixes, but instead operate on a feedback and iteration loop to keep them adaptive, relevant and serving a continued, evolving purpose.

Will issues with hybrid working, such as workers feeling excluded, simply be resolved with time, or are these deeper structural flaws?

Inclusion and exclusion were issues in the workplace long before the introduction of hybrid working and the COVID-19 pandemic, however they were perhaps less visible.

Ensuring a culture of inclusion doesn’t happen on its own – it requires effort and work. Putting in place the right systems and processes is important – particularly when it comes to hybrid meetings, team gatherings such as socials and away days, and using technology to support all of that.

A good rule of thumb for organisations to follow is to ensure that they are managing both physical and digital cultures in line with their employee value proposition and employee experience targets following the pandemic to minimise cultural toxicity.

More than two years into hybrid/remote working, are managers now confident handling remote workers?

With a recent survey revealing that 60 per cent of UK managers don’t feel that they have adequate training in how to manage remote workers, it’s an interesting challenge. Many of the skills needed to manage hybrid workers are the same as the skills needed to be a good manager regardless of location – those managers that performed well prior to the pandemic have tended to continue performing well when it comes to managing hybrid workers. Managers need to focus on building positive working relationships with their team, understanding their strengths, motivations and career aspirations.

However, organisations need to respond to and recruit diverse talent needs effectively, ensuring they have the right training, support and guidance in place to create positive experiences for those joining in a hybrid world. Organisations with high maturity will have found a hybrid working model with high adoption success that meets the needs of diverse talent types, whilst empowering their managers to live by the model’s principles and training them in how to do so. Best practice change management will maximise adoption through empathy, training and iteration.

How do you ensure that hybrid teams are high-performing? What three characteristics/information sets are necessary for high-performing teams and how do you ensure remote/hybrid teams have access to such information?

Regardless of location, high-performing teams are typically those that work in the growth zone – an area where they push themselves out of their comfort zone and beyond their boundaries in order to allow innovative and creative thinking space to flourish.

High-performing teams also understand one another’s strengths – allowing for diverse experiences and perspectives to capitalise on. Teams that use a strengths-based approach are often the most successful, working together as one.

And finally, in high-performing teams there is also a high degree of trust between team members, with psychological safety at the core. This creates a culture where all team members feel as though they can get into positive conflict to improve outcomes, fail fast to learn and grow, and support one another to develop. The right leadership is crucial in creating a culture of psychological safety.

In the long term, will we return to a pre-pandemic work environment, or have HR and people management been irrevocably transformed?

The global pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we work and it will not be reversed. Many people have valued the additional flexibility the move to hybrid working created. There has been a mass shift in the values that the workforce hold, and the way in which they view their careers. To return to working fully in-person would be detrimental when it comes to organisations’ ability to attract, recruit and retain talent – particularly with a new generation entering into the workforce. There has been a huge investment by organisations and their HR departments into the success of hybrid working, and it would be a mistake to let that investment go to waste.

With thanks also to Chris Manning and Katherine O’Halloran, PA Consulting.