Before Covid, employees were likely to spend no more than one day a week working from home. Now, it’s more likely to be one or two days in the office. The workplace is now hybrid, but how do we make sure it’s a level playing field for everyone?
“If you’re in the office every day, you see snippets of people’s lives. You see how they receive personal news. Or just how they make their tea or wash their cup,” says Maritsa Inglessis. She’s an HR consultant who left her office job in London just before the pandemic to live and work from Kefalonia, in Greece. “All of this tells us something about our colleagues that you wouldn’t necessarily see on a Zoom call.”
Moments of connection are important for the collaboration, creativity and inclusion that successful teams need. Companies must find ways for employees to connect even when they’re not all in the same place.
According to a 2021 McKinsey survey, nine out of ten organizations plan to combine remote and on-site working in the post-pandemic world. What started as a huge, unplanned experiment, has produced many positive results. Employees enjoy the flexibility of hybrid work, better work-life balance and reduced stress from commuting, while the chance to save costs on office space is attractive for employers.
Bringing your whole self to work
The McKinsey survey also showed the importance of connection. It found that organizations that supported “small moments of engagement” among employees had the biggest productivity increases during the pandemic. “It’s important to create ‘water-cooler moments’, like a virtual coffee break, and make sure you schedule in time for non-work chat,” says Inglessis, who also recommends having in-person events several times a year, if possible.
Why is this important? “People need to know that their leader sees the person behind the work — and they want to be able to bring their whole authentic selves to work,” she says. “Plus, if we want people to be engaged, they need to know that they aren’t working for some ‘faceless’ organization.”
Janine Lechermann is helping to establish just such an inclusive workplace. She is one of PR Report magazine’s “30 under 30” talents and a senior communications specialist at Siemens. In her experience, connection helps companies deal with the transformation we’re seeing in the world. “I find it hard to brainstorm alone,” she says. “Creativity is one of the top skills we need to succeed in our digital world. But how do you transfer the creativity process to a digital environment?”
Lechermann has some advice, having co-organized one of the first major online events for her company. “For our event platform, we didn’t neglect the personal side. We ran a chat alongside the event and we built a networking platform where people could gather, with virtual avatars meeting on an ‘island’. We held two networking sessions across different time zones for people to meet and chat. Another tip for meetings is to ask fun questions, like: ‘If your mood was a song, what would it be?’ It’s important to have these check-in elements and make people really feel included.”
The risks of a hybrid workplace
Connection among teams doesn’t happen automatically. If it’s not nurtured, there’s a risk that some employees may get left behind. Proximity bias is the idea that we unconsciously give better treatment to those who are physically closest to us. This bias existed before the pandemic, of course, but now that remote working is so common, it could have a much greater effect.
According to new research by Workplace Intelligence and Kahoot!, around six out of ten business leaders say that employees who work in the office are more likely to get promoted and enjoy other advantages, and be seen as harder workers. Future Forum, a research group supported by Slack, also sees proximity bias as a growing danger because it could make racial and gender inequalities worse. In the US, white knowledge workers are spending significantly more time in the office than people of colour, women and working mothers.
What can be done?
Improving virtual and in-person meetings, as well as using the most up-to-date collaboration technologies, are a good start. But companies can do more.
Consistent processes: Make sure processes around performance management, appraisals and recognition are the same for everyone. “If you want your people to feel like they’re in a fair workplace, you have to be transparent,” Inglessis says. “Processes provide transparency, and employees know where they stand.”
Trust and open communication: In a remote environment, results are important, not attendance. Lechermann says: “Appreciation is critical. It says: ‘I don’t see what you’re doing, but I trust you.’ Leaders need to have an interest in their people, and employees need to trust their leader to be honest with them.”
And Inglessis says: “Managers must be explicit regarding their expectations. We have to communicate with real purpose.” She adds that education (learning new skills and raising awareness of biases) is essential.
Well-being comes first: “One challenge for me is that work never stops — the pressure to be available takes a toll,” Lechermann says. “It’s important to be able to say when you need balance, but bringing these things up takes courage.”
No one size fits all
There’s a fine line between having the freedom to work wher–ever and whenever and feeling pressure to be “always on”. Inglessis says some people enjoy this freedom while others need more structure. And Lechermann points out that we’re still at the beginning of this transformation, in which no one size fits all. Each person needs to find what works best for them. “Keep in mind that no one’s perfect and we’re all still learning,” she says. “My motto is: sprinkle kindness like confetti!”