The age of hybrid work in Africa is here. Are we ready?

As part of our Big Ideas 2023, LinkedIn News Africa predicts that hybrid work is here to stay. We’ve seen the reluctance of many employees in Africa to return to the office, because they have embraced this new way of working – not fully remote, but not fully in the office either. The best of both worlds.

Yet some companies continue to mandate a return to full-on office work, including in South Africa, where nearly half of all workers have elected to work away from the office at least once a week. So can we ever go back to the way things were before the pandemic upended our working and personal lives?

To answer that question, LinkedIn News Africa reached out to Lee Naik , the chief executive of TransUnion Africa. The global consumer credit reporting agency operates in eight countries on the continent, and Naik is responsible for growing the company’s broad range of information solutions in the region.

Below he shares his thoughts on what we can expect from the world of work in 2023, and whether hybrid will truly reign supreme.

By Lee Naik ?

Will 2023 be the year we go back to the office – again? Or will the growing demand for flexibility keep the remote working agenda on the table?

As the CEO of a company operating across multiple countries in Africa, and with clients ranging from fintechs to large corporations, I can safely say it’s neither. The future is firmly hybrid, but with far more structure and purpose than before.

A growing number of company leaders in Africa are calling their people back to the office. Many feel they don’t know what’s happening in their business, how work is getting done, and whether the right work is being done in the right way. In a tough global economic climate, they’re re-contemplating how they drive growth and whether they need to go back to the old ways of working to make this growth possible.

The fact is that a blanket return to the office doesn’t answer those questions. As leaders, our challenge is to conceive ways of working for our new context. We have to show our humanity and empathy for our people through our employee value propositions, whilst being able to achieve growth numbers and manage the expectations of our shareholders, investors, and clients alike.?

Remote working during the pandemic was a necessity given our restricted movement and this resulted in structural changes for employees. We cannot ignore how lives and budgets changed to adapt to remote working amidst the tough global context. We need to carefully consider how we make the necessary adjustments to enable people to perform at their best, and in return, extract the best results for our clients and our business performance.

Our clients will also expect us to be changing as they change. Many are spending more time in the office, and they will expect their partners and service providers to provide them with in-person services again. As we chart a way forward, we will have to align ourselves to our customer expectations – and adjust accordingly.

Clayton Christensen’s “Jobs-to-be-Done” framework may provide a useful tool alongside other operating model frameworks as we try to figure out how our businesses will deliver on our strategies and expectations.?

At the same time, we must consider the needs of our existing and future employees – after all, remote working shows that many workers now have clear global options. In the US, as of October 2022, there were 1.7 job openings for every unemployed person. How do we accommodate people with critical skills who demand more flexibility or are even based in other markets? How do you maintain company culture and values – and drive diversity and inclusion – when your workforce is so dispersed? We will have to relearn how to collaborate and engage, and to remember who we are and what our organisation stands for.?

One answer I believe lies in identifying specific moments when employees have to physically come together and equally so when working remotely better suits the task at hand. Some examples include monthly management meetings, strategy development, and joint product design.

In my recent experiences post-pandemic, building collaboration and culture in person is a lot more effective than doing so remotely. Many of our employees joined us during the pandemic – and they now get to experience the culture in-person but also help create a new paradigm of hybrid work.

We have been able to achieve this through in-person town halls, brown-bag lunch-and-learn sessions, and team-building activities. Of course, being in the office and having back-to-back Zoom calls is not why we should be coming to the office. We will continue to identify and refine these moments of physical interaction – something we, at TransUnion, are starting to call “purposeful collaboration”.

As we grapple with the return to the office question, we are taking into account local nuances, such as industry and client expectations, as well as employee expectations, to ensure we create an optimal way to deliver on our business strategy.

In my home country of South Africa, we have had to consider the impact of rolling electricity blackouts, and how we marry expectations with employee value propositions. In the future, I expect that our employees will work an average of two days in the office, driven by purposeful collaboration moments.

Pre-pandemic was in-person. The pandemic was remote. In my view, the post-pandemic era will blend the best of both. The age of hybrid work in Africa is indeed here to stay.

This article is part of LinkedIn News Africa's?Big Ideas 2023. What’s your prediction for the coming year? Share your thoughts with?#BigIdeas2023.

Edited and proofread by: Solange Uwimana

Creator Manager:? Queen Elizabeth Ihowa

Managing Editor:?Emily Spaven

Special Projects Leads:?Marie Malzac?(EMEA),?Michele Pierri?(International)

Regional Lead:?Julien Wettstein

International Executive Editor:?Sandrine Chauvin