Hybrid Working: Cure or Curse?

Creative businesses thrive on collaboration: the buzz of being in an office where teams can bounce ideas off one another has always been a big draw for talent. But the trend towards office working is creeping back in.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, has declared himself a remote-work skeptic; Mark Zuckerberg has declared that engineers “get more done” in the office; and Google’s chief people officer recently told employees that office attendance would factor into performance reviews. Even Zoom’s leadership wants employees back in person two days a week. The question is: should companies be forcing people back to the office knowing this will increase absenteeism and resignations through burnout and poor mental health?

Tacita Small, founder of The Small HR Company says: “it was never going to last. Working from home during lockdown was the biggest workplace shift since the industrial revolution. It has been very difficult for a lot of businesses to accommodate this change - and as a rule, people do not like change.”  

Tacita believes that when businesses enforce a full time return to the office they know they will lose people.

“Many business owners feel that they’re paying for office space so they want people to use it. Some owners feel they lost a certain amount of control during lockdown and they want to see people back at their desks working.

Tacita warns that leaders who think like this should expect to be prepared for a culture of ‘quit and stay,’ in other words, people who stay in the job but are only prepared to give the bare minimum. 

The benefits of flexible working and the 4-day week

In contrast to this approach, there are an increasing number of companies trialling the 4-day week, an incentive designed to mitigate burnout. In some companies, employees are given the flexibility to work 35 hours across 4 days or 5. According to Creative Review, early findings around the trial of these flexible working schemes are encouraging. Employees who took part in trials reported less stress and burnout, and higher rates of life satisfaction. There was less absenteeism and resignations, with revenue increasing by an average of 8% over six months.

If you want to attract the best talent to your business, you need to listen to what top talent wants. There have been multiple studies that show if you want to increase productivity, you need to reduce office hours. When people burn out, productivity drops. We also know that the best people are more productive if they are given a degree of freedom and autonomy to manage their lives around work. Companies who put trust in their people are more likely to retain loyal staff.

Recent research from the Guardian highlights the divide in opinion and the recruitment issues that may lie ahead. More than a third of UK workers have said they would quit their jobs if their employer demanded to work the office full-time. Remote job listings have shrunk from 30% of postings to 11% this year. Demand for remote roles is outstripping supply in the UK, with remote roles receiving 22% of all job applications.

Despite this, almost half of company leaders in the UK would prefer employees more frequently worked from the office. In one major UK media company senior management have been overheard referring to hybrid workers as TWATs (an unfortunate acronym for people who only come to the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays).

Something has to give.

Studies find that working from home is valued by employees about the same as an 8% pay increase, on average. It’s a huge amenity and helps reduce turnover — in one recent, large study, by as much as 35%.

What about worries that remote work lowers productivity? Research suggests that fully remote work is up to 10% less productive than onsite work, on average. But it’s also much cheaper, because it cuts space needs and enables hiring from anywhere. 

As recruiters, Thrive has seen first-hand the potential of remote working for opening up talent pools, and the opportunity to make hiring less London-centric and more diverse. When geographical location is removed so too is an enormous barrier to entry, allowing talent from all over the UK and from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds to take up prized roles. The expense of living in a major city often excludes those who cannot afford to live where the majority of creative opportunities lie.

Remote working also opens roles to highly skilled working parents and carers, and disabled candidates. Time is one of our most precious commodities these days, and for many living in larger cities, commute times alone can add 2+ hours to the working day. For some, commuting is impossible, but they would be able to work effectively if travel was no longer an issue. Allowing people to work from home eliminates a financial and time burden which can improve their energy, morale and efficiency.  

Back to work, slaves

So why is there such a push for businesses to bring people back to the office? For many, there is a lot of value in being able to pop over to someone’s desk, ask a question and get a quick answer. The administrative effort of wording an email to capture the nuanced meaning or setting up Zooms for minor matters can slow down processes. This is a particular challenge for larger teams, or where clear line management structures are not in place. When it comes to giving feedback or notes on work, emails and written messages can feel impersonal, miss the nuances of in-person conversations, or be more easily misconstrued. 

When it comes to teams that are hybrid or remote, it is more important than ever to have open lines of communication, where people can get in touch quickly without feeling like a hindrance. 

In other words, companies that are poorly structured or struggle with clear comms are the ones that suffer most with hybrid working. Maybe these companies need to examine their own processes before laying the blame for poor performance on their remote workers.

Companies with robust internal communication strategies, meeting schedules and well-managed team goals and objectives can efficiently operate remote and hybrid working strategies – and offer a major incentive for attracting new talent.

At Thrive & Partners, we help our clients build flexible talent strategies that allow creative teams to flourish. And our partners can help develop the ideal operation processes and workflows to make hybrid work better for you, too.

To find out more or discuss how we can help your team please contact hello@thr-v.com