The Role of the Office Is Still TBC
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LDS Commentary
Future-seeing companies are dissolving heavily instantiated structures and business siloes as new behaviors -- such as systems-thinking, problem-solving, and experimentation -- dovetail with innovation and the rise of cognitive human work. The speed and magnitude of such changes will accelerate exponentially as hybrid and remote work continues to flourish.
Agile responses to a rapidly changing competitive landscape will require dynamic and instantaneous collaboration where hybrid or remote workers will closely communicate to avoid organizational fragmentation.
Panelists: Martin Kocher , Federal Minister of Labour and Economy, Austria; Manny Maceda , Chief Executive Officer, Bain & Company Inc.; Lieve Mostrey ; Chief Executive Officer, Euroclear SA/NV; Amy Bernstein , Editor, Harvard Business Review Magazine, Harvard Business Review Group; Allen Blue , Co-Founder and Vice-President, Products, LinkedIn Corporation
Summary
The contemporary workplace seemingly carries contradictions – remote work as well as an impetus to return to the office, and experiments with the four-day week as well as 24/7 connectivity. The question is what is the relationship between flexibility and productivity and how can leaders get the balance right?
Allen Blue, Co-Founder and Vice-President of Products at LinkedIn Corporation, started by saying that 20% of all the roles offered via LinkedIn in April 2022 were remote. Today, that number has been cut in half, even though the employee interest in working remotely remains just as strong as ever. There is a set of best practices – restructuring an office to be more hotel-oriented is in vogue. Figuring out a way to cluster the right people together, so that every trip to the office is worthwhile.
Lieve Mostrey; Chief Executive Officer of Euroclear, said that they adopted a unique approach to hybrid or remote work – taking a team-by-team approach based on three criteria. Firstly, client service – above all, secondly the team’s efficiency, and thirdly, the worker’s preferences. The company expected a minimum presence of four days per month. This approach realized a huge increase in staff engagement. This flexibility is an advantage in what she called ‘the war for talent.’ It’s a collective social experiment.
The question was asked ‘How can flexible work arrangements contribute to positive outcomes for economies and societies?’ Martin Kocher, Federal Minister of Labour and Economy, Austria, responded that sixty percent of the workforce simply cannot work remotely. The minority that can work from home one or two days each week is protected by law in Austria, which has resulted in an eighty percent approval rating.
Manny Maceda, Chief Executive Officer, Bain & Company Inc., says that flexibility ranked highly behind compensation in a recent Bain survey. The results differed by country and by city. Is it easier to build a company culture when the workforce is centralized? Is collaboration enhanced? What about apprenticeship? Is information better protected today in a physical location? Bain determined that a hybrid approach with three days per week in the office or at a client location is optimal, but it’s not one size fits all.
There is a critical mass of activity required. San Francisco was cited as a city that has been extremely impacted by the onset and aftermath of covid, whereby many buildings are empty and businesses have disappeared, leaving workers wondering if it is worth coming into a place that has a paucity of facilities and people.
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