adjusting your reality – when WFH becomes simply working

If you are walking back from the kitchen after another hopeful snuffle in the snack drawer when you read this, you’ll be well aware that working practices have changed significantly and that home working is here to stay.

If the first lockdown didn’t convince you of that, then the second one probably did. Even if, or more optimistically, when, we are all able to go about our everyday business without fear of being struck down by Covid-19, it is unlikely that we will all immediately to return to the daily office commute. Indeed, a recent survey of 1,000 firms by the IoD showed that 74% of those firms planned to maintain the increase in home working.

For business leaders looking to the future it is important to realise that getting home working right goes deeper than the more obvious issues about ensuring employees have the appropriate technology and ergonomic home-working spaces. If, as a company, you are to successfully embrace home working and reap all the possible rewards from it, you need to step back and critically evaluate some of your most entrenched work practices.

Trust your workforce

Prioritise productivity over presentism. It’s easier, when in an office, to keep tabs on your employees and recent press articles reporting a spike in demand for surveillance software, reveal that some organisations have tried to replicate this visibility remotely. A culture that relies on the threat of ‘big brother’ watching over you to get your work done, is an unhealthy culture and worse, it will likely have the opposite effect to the one you intend. If your employees are motivated, clear on their priorities and know they are trusted to deliver, they will deliver. If, however, they are aware they are being watched for the hours they put in, rather than for the output they produce, you are rewarding time spent at the desk rather than output and the climate you create will grow into one of resentment and resistance. To ensure high productivity, you need a robust performance appraisal process, clear and visible KPIs aligned to your overall business strategy and cascaded down from the senior leadership to the frontline and, most importantly, you need line managers who know how to get the best out of their teams.

Be ruthless with your meetings

How many times do you hear ‘I have a day of back to back Zoom meetings’? And talking of backs, how physically damaging is it to sit still all day without shifting position? It is time to call a halt on meetings without structure or a clear purpose. Time to critically re-evaluate which meetings provide demonstrable value, and which could be improved, replaced or ditched. There’s nothing as demoralising as knowing you have a day full of meetings which prevent you from getting on with your work. A recent snapshot survey we conducted on LinkedIn suggested that most people spend more time in meetings now they work from home and only some of those meetings are effective, principally because of a lack of decision making or agreed actions.

Broaden your horizons

Why limit your recruitment catchment area? Suddenly, the potential pool of employees has opened up if you do not require them to be in the office every day. This is fantasy football for the workplace! Who would be your ideal candidates and how can you get them? Think also about the potential to hire a more diverse workforce: perhaps your ideal candidate is one who has caring responsibilities or a disability that has prevented them for applying for a office-based job before, but now that working from home is an option, their horizons have opened up. Recent conversations have shown that many organisations are now rethinking their hiring strategy. However, if you do go down this route, this also has salary implications: if, for instance, you’re based in the North of England and traditionally your salaries are lower than those for identical roles based in the South, you may need to re-assess what you are prepared to offer for the best candidate.

Home sweet home?

Home working works well for some, and not for others. It is important to consider whether every employee even has a suitable workspace at home. The senior team planning a work from home strategy may not remember the joy of the shared rented house, where a bedroom now doubles as an office. This is where a blended approach works well. The office will likely become the place for collaborative working and social interaction. Some will want to be there every day, because they just can’t stand being penned into their homes. Some will want a couple of days a week and some maybe no more than once a month. It’s not a one-size fits all. This obviously has implications on the size and cost of the office space that you intend to keep. Maybe, you don’t need an office at all, but you do need to rent co-working spaces on an ad-hoc basis.

No one is an island

It’s important that you don’t let anyone become invisible. A lot has been shared during this pandemic about the importance of mental health. As a line manager, the same principles and duty of care apply, only you may have to make a more conscious effort to make sure each member of your team feels motivated, included and valued. Don’t let doubts linger, don’t avoid difficult conversations: face into them as soon as you notice there may be an issue. Equally, find ways to visibly recognise good work.

Lessons learned so far

Like many of our clients, we have moved from a near 100% model of working in an office to a near 100% home working model. We love the lost commute, the ability to engage people across multiple locations simultaneously through the use of new technology, the focus we can have when working alone and the coming together for collaboration when we need it. We have missed the “corridor conversations” with colleagues and clients alike, the social release at the end of a hard day, the ability to read a room through body language cues. We have found that sometimes a phone call is better than a video call, that providing an online space to hang out as a team and share what’s going on is essential to maintain the bonds that make work fun.

Take a step back and look at what’s worked and what hasn’t since you’ve had to work from home. Listen to your people. Understand their different needs. Rethink the norms that have governed your business, perhaps for decades. This is a real opportunity to create something fresh, new ways of working, which attract new talent and retain existing talent. Think big. What kind of employer do you want to be?

To find out more please get in touch / +44 (0) 20 7298 7878