Home, Office or Hybrid?
As the current global infection moves from pandemic to endemic the ways in which many of us work will almost certainly evolve.?
Although history has showed us that as a working population in the UK our working habits rarely change quickly, when we are forced into doing things differently over a significant period of time, we will develop new ways of working.?
But, I hear you ask; surely this only impacts those who are “office based” and that is a relatively small number?
After around 18 months of the pandemic the UK Office of National Statistics has stated that the number of people “completing duties from their place of residence” has settled back to about 26% of the working population or 8.4 Million people. (This rose to around 37% during the last surge in infections). [1]
However a second group of people have now adopted a “Hybrid way of working”, spending some time at home and some in the office. This group is around 11% or 3.5 Million people. [2]
Together these represent well over a third of our UK working population and if predictions of future working practices are to be believed, a percentage that will increase.
The sector with the greatest influence on these statistics is the Information and Communications area closely followed by the Professional, Scientific and Technical sector.
ONS Survey June 2021.?
Also geography has been a factor, with those in London reporting around 48% who had worked from home. [3]
“Lockdowns” in the UK have forced us to re-think the way in which we carry out our daily routines. If we had been “office based” then, over time, we started to question the need to be in an office. [4]
Coupled with this need to rethink where we carry out our work has been the availability of new technologies and collaboration tools, enhancements to communications networks and a change in how those who work from home are viewed by their employers. [5]
And these new ways of working have benefits for both employees and employers, these can be summarised as follows:
When questioned about the positives and negatives of homeworking by the ONS, working adults stated work-life balance was the greatest positive, while challenges of collaboration were the greatest negative.
The view of employers can be judged by these two interesting findings:
Impact.
However we should not underestimate the impact of these changes on our economy, services, management practices and health!
Businesses who are able to successfully embrace both home and hybrid working will almost certainly increase their profitability and reduce their costs while attracting talent and increasing retention.
But they will also need to retrain many of their managers and supervisors, as a new approach with new skills will be needed to maximise these benefits. For example, those who manage people or teams working remotely must adopt a new model of “Trust”. [6], [7]
Less travel will have a very positive impact on our environment, but the funding model for public transport will need to change radically with fewer travelling and the times of travel being staggered or just changed. [8], [9]
Our communications infrastructure will need to be able to cope with the enormous increase in video services, and the days of watching “video freeze” when people call into news programmes or when we participate in team conference calls, will need to become a distant memory! [10], [11]
….
Much has been made of the “work life balance” improvement brought about by working from home, but we must not forget that video conferencing can never replace the “chat around the water cooler” and that as human beings we thrive on human contact and conversation!
From a recent article in “Wired”, Feb 2021 [12]
“While remote working is generally considered more productive than office work, as it allows for greater focus (domestic distractions allowing), the office is still the best place for collaboration, sparking innovation and creativity – not to mention the camaraderie that can be hard to replicate via videoconferencing”.?
And from a Washington Post Article, June 2021 [13]
“Before we had these cookie-cutter expectations of working processes,” said Lacie Barber, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, who specializes in occupational health psychology. “The benefit of covid is it made us change everything.” Rather than “rushing to go back to the way things were,” Barber said, organizations should “actually think about how it could be better than where we were.”
And
For at-home employees, experts suggested learning to psychologically detach from their work. Possibilities include creating a “fake commute,” taking a walk after work or even just closing the laptop. Such habits can send “a signal that you’re done with work,”
Our NHS in the UK has recently published a very useful guide, “7 simple tips to tackle working from home”. [14]
Their introduction is as follows:
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has meant big life changes for us all, including adjusting to new ways of working. While some of us have returned to our normal workplace, many are still working from home or going through a phased return.
Working from home does have perks that some of us enjoy (bye bye commute!), but for many among us, changes like these have been challenging too.
Feeling stress, lack of motivation, anxiety and uncertainty is completely normal. Alongside this, many of us might be worried about future job prospects or the best way to juggle work with our personal and family life.
Their closing statement is worth some thought:?
领英推荐
Be kind to yourself and acknowledge that you might not be as productive as you usually would be. Be realistic about what you can achieve given the circumstances, and relax when your work is done.
…
With “how we work” changing for millions of people in the UK, getting the maximum benefit for both the organisation and its employees is essential.?There are really significant gains to be made for individuals, organisations, the country and the planet, but we need to ensure that we learn from the last couple of years and embed the positives, while managing carefully the negatives.
With a seismic change such as this there are major challenges, but also major and sustainable benefits! [15]
The Author:
For eight years (2003 to 2011) Jeff managed a team with members in the UK, US and China, from locations in both the US and UK.
In some cases he did not meet face-to-face with his team members for months at a time. However by utilising the latest on-line communication and collaboration tools, holding regular on-line catch-up meetings [daily/weekly depending on needs] and maintaining a focus on trust and well-being, his exceptional team were able to successfully complete, within both time and budget constraints, every one of the ground breaking high profile global research projects that they were involved in.
References:
[1] - Business and individual attitudes towards the future of homeworking, UK: April to May 2021, ONS, June 2021
[2] - Office, hybrid or home? Businesses ponder future of work – Guardian, June 2021
[3] - Most people in UK did not work from home in 2020, says ONS, Guardian, May 2021
[4] – Five ways we think office work will change – BBC, September 2021
[5] - How could COVID-19 change the world of work? CIPD, October 2020?
[6] - Trust in the 2021 workplace, Jeff Patmore, March 2021
[7] - Remote Managers Are Having Trust Issues, HBR, July 2020
[8] - The future of public transport and the role of Local Government – report – January 2021
[9] - Public transport funding post-Covid, Institute of Civil Engineers, June 2021
[10] – Impact of digital surge during Covid-19 pandemic: A viewpoint on research and practice– US NIH, December 2020
[11] - Building Digital UK, UK Gov, August 2021.
[12] – The digital tools to expect in the workplace of the future – Wired, February 2021
[13] - What we learned about wellness while working from home, and how to use those insights, Washington Post, June 2021
[14] - 7 simple tips to tackle working from home, NHS,?
[15] - A seismic shift is coming, Jeff Patmore, May 2020
Principal Data Architect/Engineer | Delivering Data & Digital Transformation in the Cloud
3 年I try to start a teams meeting like I would a face to face, 'how are you?' or talk about something amusing that happened today. Maybe I post a funny meme in a teams chat. A real meeting is morw than an exchange of information, where possible its good if a teams meeting is the same.
Helping organisations achieve more with technology
3 年Good look at the stats Jeff. Melbourne has set the record for the City that has longest period of lockdown. This had led to the uptake of video meetings and setting up "office zones at home where practical. From a personal perspective I am finding that without the daily commute of around 4 hours return and with the use of Teams for video meetings I am more in touch with the clients I manage and no longer have to plan weeks ahead for a meeting. A number of organisations are changing their work habits to have offices aligned to "Collaboration zones" which comes to your point of hybrid working.