What’s the secret to making a success of hybrid working?

Is anyone else tired of talking about ‘the future of work’? Do we really need yet another debate about WFH? Or another headline about ‘how to get people back to the office’?

It seems the conversation has become polarised – we keep hearing the same arguments from those who push for a return to the office and those who want WFH to become the new normal.

The debate gets caught in a loop, focusing on what the latest survey said or the most recent footfall data, or some new ruse by a company to get its workers to return to office-based working. It can sometimes seem that we’ve not moved on from that enforced experiment in remote working during the pandemic.

But the reality for many businesses is that the world has turned and most of us have moved on. Certainly, the more progressive employers are now settling into a new normal of hybrid working, implementing some version of work from the office plus WFH/anywhere. Often that is a variation of three days at the office and two days remote – or vice versa. Those moving forward in this way have much more interesting conversations now about how enterprises can best make hybrid working arrangements work for their business and people. So, what is the secret to thriving in a world that demands flex?

Well, the answer is: there’s no silver bullet. No one single arrangement, process or system of flexible working can be taken off the shelf and implemented across all enterprises. And that’s precisely the point. There are as many hybrid work solutions as there are businesses. The workforce strategy a business implements should be designed to work to reflect the specifics of that business, no other. And critically, whatever is implemented must be based on evidence and data.

This may seem to be stating the obvious, but it’s easily overlooked. Take, for example, the businesses that implemented long-term workforce strategies following the pandemic, without supporting data or evidence as to whether what they were proposing might be right. It may well be what they thought they needed or wanted (at the time). But what if they were wrong?

WFH revolution

There are a number of high-profile corporates – some global tech giants come to mind – which eagerly embraced the WFH revolution following the pandemic and made bold decisions based on the assumption that workers would never need to come back to the office. Only to later reconsider and try to row back on what had been decided.

This doesn’t surprise me. These sort of decisions should be based on evidence and data, because often what you think your people want or need – or even what they think they want – may not turn out to be how your business and people actually work. At Upflex we are in the business of empowering enterprises to harness the benefits of hybrid working and implementing a strategy that works for them. To do this though we have to understand how a business and its employees operate.

With all clients we begin with a discovery phase that allows them to implement a hybrid work solution, with access to a certain number of flexible workspaces and certain locations with differing levels of service depending on their requirements. Throughout that project we capture usage data, identify individual and group preferences and measure employee satisfaction. Using this intelligence, we then design a bespoke cost-effective workspace solution that fits an enterprise’s requirements, as well as supporting other objectives such as sustainability and employee productivity and satisfaction.

Almost every time a business goes through this discipline, they come out of it with a solution very different to what they assumed they would need. Take a recent Upflex client, for example. The organisation was adamant that they knew what was needed to best serve their employees across EMEA. We put the solution in place and after three months, it was clear that the solution was not meeting employee needs. The assumption that certain groups and geographies would only be interested in utilising co-working desks proved incorrect, with these teams regularly coming together to collaborate in meeting rooms and private offices.

Other teams expected to use meeting rooms regularly had a high use of co-working desks. Finally, they thought usage would be limited to the countries and cities where the teams were based, again the data proved this to be incorrect, with a broader geographical use outside of the initial assumptions. Thanks to that process the client now has an optimised workforce strategy to its unique user ID, with the fundamentals tested before commitment is finalised – which is how it should be for a business decision of such importance.

Getting the workplace strategy right means many of the attendant issues that are disproportionately dominating the office vs WFH debate become less relevant. Instead, enterprises are able to move forward and maximise the benefits of a properly implemented workplace solution, whether that be the improved work life balance and consequent uptick in productivity associated with flex working – or the collaborative and creative work, serendipitous encounters, knowledge and learning and culture building that flows from work in the office. What matters is making sure the solution for each business is tailored for each organisation – and isn’t borrowed from someone else.