Published : 3 years ago, on 05/08/2021

By Gilmar Wendt, Principal, GW+Co   

My morning’s work starts not with a train journey into central London, but with a run around Wimbledon Common. Others in GW+Co’s team of creatives and strategists have cultivated all sorts of nurturing activities in the space previously occupied by the commute, from yoga to sea swimming, hiking and fencing. As with many others in the ‘knowledge economy’, our productivity is up as we’ve adapted to the everyday reality of remote working.

We’re settling into a new routine of one day in the office, one day working from home. During days in the office and in-person client meetings, energy and creativity are high. We have a renewed appreciation of the unplanned interactions that lead to fresh ideas and possibilities. After 18 months, people are enjoying just being together again. It feels right not to tie times like these too tightly to productivity goals, in order to honour what we lost out on in all those months of Zoom calls.

Early in the pandemic, we hosted a virtual roundtable with leaders from finance, engineering, non-profit and technology firms. The one thing they all reported was that nobody wanted to go back to the old ways of presenteeism, and rigorous working hours. The divide between ‘work selves’ and ‘home selves’ has been erased over years of increased working from home. In 2017 when the kids of political analyst Robert Kelly walked into shot in a live BBC interview from home, it caused a viral sensation. Five years later, this sort of thing has become commonplace. So what else should we accept as ‘normal’?

Everybody’s changing…

Over the last year and a half, many business leaders realised that the established work culture was at risk and needed to somehow be supported. It has thrown into relief the importance of social cues for professional effectiveness. For example, on trading floors, emotional contagion is a key factor in decision making, and traders depend on impromptu conversations to figure out complex situations. The shift to home working may have contributed to the market crash on 9 March last year. As we move towards so-called hybrid working, which typically combines people in one place with others in remote locations, business leaders need to recognise the importance of the social glue that binds us, and make sure in-person interactions support rich engagement among the people in their organisation.

Business leaders undoubtedly took a particular psychological hit in the pandemic, reacting to sudden fundamental change and experiencing a loss of control. Some clung to the idea that we could all get back to ‘normal’ even as it became clear nothing would ever be the same again. And as we move towards the hybrid model, others are focusing on issues that feel more controllable, like the number of days spent in the office, training teams in the use of online collaboration tools, and data security.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was accused of a failure of emotional intelligence, having sent out a note to his employees saying they would need to return to the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays starting in early September. Employees have pushed back, saying the policy, and the communication around it, had forced some colleagues to quit, and they “felt not just unheard, but at times actively ignored.”

Moves like these fail to recognise the shift in priorities that has happened throughout the last year and a half. Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trends Index found that 40 percent of the global workforce actively considered leaving their employer this year, and 70 percent want flexible remote work options to continue, yet 65 percent crave more in-person time with their teams. The challenge for business leaders is to overcome the disconnect between their own hopes and fears and those of their employees.

…and I don’t feel the same

The shift to hybrid working is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the future of work. Now is the time to move away from a top-down, command and control approach to a systemic approach that allows more people to contribute to how the organisation works. There are big, immediate questions that require collective answers, such as:

• What’s the best way to conduct meetings?
• What work is best done in person?
• What work is best done virtually?
• How can influence be balanced between those who are on site and those who aren’t?
• How can we maintain the closeness/personal connection created by seeing everyone in their own environments?

Design is a powerful strategic tool in business, particularly for engaging the workforce on these issues. It can help visualise new ideas in ways that make it easier to share them. It can promote empathy, bringing people together across disciplines and departments. Involving people in the decision making about future working patterns makes them more likely to buy into change, rather than feeling that it is being imposed.

And there are more things that need to be looked at than just who’s in the room and who’s on Zoom. Positive change can be found through a deeper approach to hybridisation. We can use this reconfiguration of work life to question long-held dichotomies – for example, between older and younger employees, male and female, leaders and followers. Does ‘hybrid’ just mean appropriating elements of one thing to another, or can it liberate the best of both worlds?

None of us can know exactly what the future holds, but the shift to hybrid work is a unique opportunity for positive, lasting change. Business leaders who approach it creatively, in partnership with employees, can fashion a new mode that aligns the values of the company with those of its people. And where diverse viewpoints are included, it strengthens innovation in the long term.

Five tips for business leaders to approach hybrid working:

1. Trust your people. If you can’t, you have a culture problem, not a productivity one.
2. We’ve started to break down silos. Don’t let them be built back up. For example, all the gossiping changed when people were forced apart, and people made new connections across functions, how do you keep this up?
3. Remote working can be incredibly productive. And it is not a problem if someone has to pick up kids or home school during the day, because the vast majority of people will more than make up that time.
4. When you are together, celebrate this. Make time for lunch together, take time for people.
5. Use design to power positive, lasting change. Visualise new ideas in ways that make it easier to share them and set up processes that support interaction and collaboration.

About GW+Co

GW+Co is a London-based creative consultancy that helps transform businesses by aligning strategy, culture and brand. It has won numerous creative and design effectiveness awards. Clients include CoinShares, PayPal, Peel Hunt, Ergo Group and Yale. https://www.gilmarwendt.com

Gilmar Wendt, Principal, GW+Co