Nobody Wants to Work (in the office) Anymore
The battle continues around hybrid and remote work. Employees are unhappy and no one is showing up. Recent months have seen multinationals ordering their staff back into the office. From Meta to Amazon, and even the pandemic unicorn, champion of remote work, Zoom. The pattern has been broadly similar. Employers are asking for 2-3 days in the office; staff compliance becomes an issue. Then the request becomes a demand, and no one is happy.
While there are undeniable benefits to some in-office work – including the ability to effectively train and mentor, collaborate, and socialise with our colleagues – it’s an unfortunate reality that many employers are pushing their staff back into the office out of fear and a lack of trust. And the employees know this.
Despite countless studies presenting the productivity and profitability of remote and hybrid work models, the push to put the genie back in the bottle continues. But the unfortunate reality for employers is that we cannot go back to February 2020. The flexibility, work-life balance, and happiness our staff have seen are worth more than what any job can offer. Like the advent of the 40-hour work week in the 1920s, hybrid work is here to stay.
Create your own hybrid model
At Celtic Careers, we pride ourselves on the success of our own hybrid model, asking our staff to attend core office hours two days per week, with the flexibility to accommodate both their own personal needs and the requirements to fulfil their roles effectively. We schedule our office time with intent, making sure it is used effectively for meetings, training, team building, and collaboration. This approach falls in line with both the spirit and sentiment of The Right to Request Remote Work legislation and our own values as an organisation.
We advocate that organisations that are moving from remote to hybrid consider how meaningful their time spent in the office is.
Understand that:
Traditional offices can be more distracting than the home office spaces curated by employees over the past three years.
Productivity in the office cannot be judged on the same metrics.
Home-work and office-work have different types of output, and both can be embraced.
Employers and managers need to develop frameworks to maximise the in-office time in the most effective way. That could mean scheduling your stand-ups, knowledge transfers, retrospectives, or in-person workshops during in-office days; or having core office hours (e.g. 10am-3pm) where employees have more flexibility depending on the level of in-office time required each week.
As more companies demand a return to the office or cease listing flexibility in their new roles, we hope they are considering the bigger picture. From industry research, as well as our own data, the benefits of offering remote work are clear. You’ll find a larger pool of applicants, a higher likelihood of filling the role, and a much quicker lead time for remote and hybrid jobs when compared to 100% in-office roles.
As we experiment with how we work and engage with our colleagues, we need to redesign how we use the office with intentionality. If you’re demanding your employees come back to work just so you can see them physically typing, you’ve missed the point.
