In a drive to increase productivity, employers are revisiting the critical issue of employee experience. The mass adoption of hybrid work means many of the touchpoints employers previously focused on to create a great employee experience have fundamentally changed. Employers can no longer assume employees will be working together in person in the same place. And that means they need to rethink employee experience in the context of hybrid working.
Hybrid mediates employee experience
While there’s no right way to evolve a hybrid organisation, incorporating five design principles will help ensure new ways of working can deliver business performance while creating a competitive employee experience.
The first is to develop a shared mindset across the organisation that cultural change is key to effective hybrid working.
Lockdown showed that having the right technology and kit enabled staff to work from home but didn’t make up for impaired collaboration, relationships or wellbeing or disruption to work processes. Cultural change can only be effective if the people, IT and property elements are truly integrated.
Second, communications need to be framed in this context. To work effectively, hybrid working requires a change of mindset for leaders and workers around performance management, collaboration within and across teams, and staff wellbeing.
It also requires careful management of expectations, otherwise mismatched expectations around workplace presence, flexibility business priorities alongside managing staff wellbeing and performance, can create discontent.
Tailoring solutions to different teams is a third imperative. One size fits all solutions won’t be effective because every team works differently, shaped by business needs and how they interact with other teams and clients. To get hybrid working “right” requires input from all stakeholders to tackle what is a multi-faceted challenge.
A fourth necessity is working with each team, including team members, managers and clients to map out what they need to work effectively. Here the critical task is to balance the needs of the business, good working relationships, collaboration and the behaviours that drive effective ways of working, as well as location and technology. Staff are more likely to support a solution they have co-created, that as a result makes sense to them.
Finally, invest in reskilling managers to support and engage teams in dispersed locations. Working from home can be isolating for individuals and hard for managers to spot any dips in morale.
Employers need to support managers in building the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to help their people thrive in a hybrid environment: training onwellbeing, building community, managing performance, team dynamics, onboarding new joiners, cross-team communication..
organisations also need to help staff take responsibility for developing their personal effectiveness in a hybrid environment. Facilitated team sessions are an effective way to encourage staff to think about the knowledge skills and behaviours they need to contribute as an effective team. Focus on the psychological aspects of being part of a community and staying connected while working in different locations.
With a solid foundation in place you can start to consider how to finesse employee experience to address other talent shortages that currently impact business growth – women with childcare responsibilities and over 50’s to unretire. Or to experiment with new ways of working such as a four-day week.
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