The future of work is… hybrid

I am very passionate about creating an inclusive, progressive workplace where each of us can be at our best and grow. A hybrid work model plays a key part in achieving this vision. The concept of hybrid work was born before, but accelerated by the Covid lockdown – when we experienced a “totally” remote and virtual way of working from our homes – and aims to strike a balance between business needs and personal needs for flexibility by allowing a mix of in-person and remote ways of working. Hybrid to me means more than just where we work. It is about deciding how we want to work together, interact with each other, with our external customers and business partners, in order to achieve our goals.

We speak of the broader concept of smart working to indicate the flexibility to work anywhere, including for example from a holiday home, and to engage with our stakeholders where, when and how it suits them.

The Italian model

In Italy, we explored models for flexible work arrangements prior to the pandemic to empower our people to make choices that best align with their personal life stage and commitments. We were about to start with 1 day of home working per week, to be followed by 2 days after a testing period, only for office-based employees. We were going to be pioneers in this approach in pre-pandemic times, when not even 600 thousand people worked remotely in Italy (source: Smart working, dopo la pandemia resterà in 9 grandi aziende su 10 - la Repubblica).?

Following the pandemic experience and Takeda’s introduction of guidelines to support flexible hybrid work, we developed our model by listening to the needs of our people through a dedicated employee survey and focus groups. Our main goal is ensuring high flexibility in how people organize their work and their personal life, by reinforcing the principle of accountability.

We have formalized and agreed a new framework with our Works Council, effective from April 1, which I believe sets Takeda apart as a forward-thinking employer in Italy. We have chosen a monthly approach, where employees may spend 12 days a month working from any location, which can be distributed flexibly throughout the month, in line with business commitments and personal circumstances. In addition, we have set a minimum of 8 days a month to be dedicated to face-to-face interactions to enhance socialization, team building, collaboration, continuous learning and innovation.

In the summer months, during the long school holiday time, we propose an even more flexible model of 36 days of smart working during the three-month period from July to September. This means that some colleagues may choose to work more days remotely from their holiday home to be closer to their family, while being available in case of urgent business needs, and then make up for this with more presence in the office when the children are back to school in September.

Working in a hybrid model with customers

For our commercial organization, building and maintaining relationships is critical. The lockdown was particularly hard for our field-based colleagues who were used to spending most of their time on the road visiting customers.

During the Covid lockdown, we learned how remote engagement works best when the customer relationship is pre-existing, while building a new relationship face to face becomes more important. Some customers adapted quickly to digital technologies and video calls, while others missed the more personal face to face interactions. Most customers said that they prefer a mix of in-person and virtual interactions.

Our engagement model consists of 70% face to face and 30% remote, which is tailored to customer preferences and business objectives. For example, it is more effective to use virtual communications tools to deliver 20 minutes of easy content. And for field-based employees, we have designated one day a week to work from home to focus on remote engagement, training and development.

What it takes to make the hybrid model work

"Hybrid work is a culture change, which requires mental, emotional, physical and technical ingredients to be successful and rewarding for everyone".

In my experience, these ingredients include:

• Taking responsibility to embrace new models and make it work
• Sharpening planning & organizational skills to structure the day efficiently and prioritize when in-person is required versus virtual meetings
• Respecting people’s plans: for example, avoid scheduling an important meeting when a colleague is not available due to personal commitments outside of work
• Setting personal boundaries and common rules to reinforce connection: for example, by committing to attend a team lunch face to face
• Learning to use technology to increase engagement and collaboration

At an organizational level, we can support this evolution in how we work, besides policies and guidelines, with learning and education. For example, in Italy to support digital capability building, we launched an initiative called “Digital-mente” – a word that has the double meaning in Italian language of both “digitally” and “digital mind”. This is a virtual platform that takes people on a journey to develop a digital mindset and to make the best use of virtual tools and practices around real work experiences, like managing meetings and events, or sharing information and collaborating effectively in a virtual environment.

Experimenting & learning together

"Hybrid work is one of the largest human experiments of our times: we will learn by doing it. It is a time for testing, listening and adjusting".

Feedback has been very positive so far. Office-based colleagues have appreciated the flexibility and the Company’s support. On the other hand, for our commercial function, this is a significant change from past ways of working which they have to get used to. We engage in an ongoing dialogue to address some of their concerns about replacing in-person contact in part with virtual customer engagement tools. Our intention is to meet customer needs and preferences with organizational flexibility.

Longer term, I am convinced that the hybrid model will bring more positive aspects than downsides: better quality of life, less travel away from home, more efficiencies in scheduling quality conversations with customers, and a better flow of uninterrupted work from home.

A positive aspect of the Covid lockdown has been the permission given to us to enter - virtually - into people’s homes, meeting their families, their children, their pets. This has brought us closer while being physically far apart. With a hybrid model we want to feel as one team, where each of us is unique, with diverse needs, ideas, contributions and talents, that together make us stronger and better equipped to build our own future of work.

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