Hybrid Working Patterns - How to Make the Best of Both Worlds
Hybrid working patterns have given us the opportunities to be part of our local communities more as well as going back into the offices with our colleagues. But how do we make the best of both worlds?
As we get into the firs winter of hybrid working 2022/23, post pandemic working, we want to take with us the good stuff of our hybrid working patterns where we want to and when we want.
Hybrid Working Patterns are made of two worlds.
Working from Home and City Office Building
World 1 is the places where we live and is our local community that sustains and helps us be the full person we are. Much like the left hand part of this picture where someone is in their own environment surrounded by their own stuff.
World 2 is our employers workspaces, where we build relationships with colleagues and co-create a supportive work environment. Perhaps like these office blocks in the right hand side of the picture, where whole cafe’s and working environments have been build by combinations of major employers creating a working environment.
I believe we can work towards having the best of Both Worlds in the Hybrid Working Patterns we co-create.
As we head into winter 2022/23, post pandemic working, we want to take with us the good stuff of our hybrid working patterns choosing where we want to and when we want to work. We have the energy crisis and cost of living rise to really focus our minds. Deloitte Gen Z & Millennial’s survey says that "The majority of respondents (17% of Gen Zs and 25% of millennials) would prioritise flexible working if they were in charge at work. However, only 32% of UK Gen Zs and 17% of millennials currently have a hybrid working arrangement." Which means there is a massive gap in what employers are offering compared to what is needed, and the survey authors conclude that “pay and burnout are top factors driving job turnover; work-life balance is the top consideration when choosing a new job.”
Being connected is what makes organisations work. Meetings and workplaces connect us with each other. In this new time of a combination of face to face and online the balance is shifting to a blended reality. One which at its best allows us more home and community connection, alongside the right meetings and interactions face to face.
Organisations are very important structures for our functioning as humans. In 1988 Isabel Mezies-Lyth wrote up articles based on the theme of organisations being ‘containers of anxiety’ and I think getting the balance right is what we have been missing during the pandemic. We now have the opportunity to think deeply about this and be intentional about the solutions. I want us to all be part of #buildbackbetter, consciously choosing the best mixture of both worlds and hybrid working patterns. This is why I have founded PlacesWork Ltd. Watch my video explaining this here.
Working from home is a really important part of our lives knowing where we are being grounded, resilient, and able to cope with this ever-changing context, well actually, the home base of work where our organisation has contracted with us to work from, that sense of solidity of an office or a base that is separate from home maintains that sense. Yet we are all learning that we also like to work from where we want to work from and when we want to work and that is different as diverse as the human species.
Computers can’t fix this dilemma alone.
Some organisations are hoping that computer solutions will fix the best of both worlds dilemma. Indeed there are some very sophisticated solutions already available to organise #hybridworking patterns. These range from the very practical calendar integrations that help managers know who is where on what day; up to the various experiments with using virtual reality headsets to provide filmic simulation of being in the same physical space with colleagues.
However, I think that the reality is that meetings and culture are social system issues that require complex intelligence. Whereas Artificial Intelligence is mainly about simple objectives being pursued without diversity of thought. (I think this is what the excellent 2021 Reith Lectures helps us realise).
Computers do help us connect, and when used well are powerful tools for enabling workplace meetings to be efficient. For example when collaborating on strategy discussions, we can now all be inside shared documentation platforms like Miro, JamBoard, MentiMetre or Mural seeing what everyone is doing as we talk.
To make hybrid working patterns as good as they can be there are steps that need to be taken. We need managers, team leaders, trainers and facilitators to have planned the meetings, practiced using the software, worked out the camera angles showing the body language of participants, got familiar with the audio so everyone can hear each other, and most of all decided what will make the whole thing work. We will also need venues and rooms that are set up correctly with layout and equipment, including for physical hybrid break out rooms that don’t have audio feedback problems.
These are many of the issues that our online training courses explore in ways that enable you and your staff to improve your hybrid meetings. You can find them at https://www.duncanwallace.org.uk/hybrid-working
What we need is a new paradigm and it's already happening. We are (through hybrid working patterns), beginning to vote with our feet about where we work which then affects when we work. There will be less travel to and from places of work because we don't need to unless we need to connect but:
Connection is vital, the connection speed is vital and a well-organised meeting does both of those things. We do not like the term hybrid meetings because actually, that sounds like you're sticking it together. Badly planned meetings stuck together have been going on in organisations, boring us, being inefficient, not connecting us, leaving us with a sense of that was a waste of time, creating pain, distrust, and dissatisfaction. These are the pains of a normal that we are not going back to.
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