Hybrid, flexible work pose a challenge for managers

Hybrid and flexible work are now the norm, and a tight labour market only adds to the challenge employers face.

Employers and employees in many white-collar jobs are developing their own way of working.

Three months ago, the chief executive of ASX-listed wealth manager Clearview, Simon Swanson, ­returned to his office in Sydney’s CBD after the Christmas holidays and was surprised that few people were coming into the office.

With the state government suggesting that ­employees should work from home if they could – a new strain of Covid-19, Omicron, had begun to spread – Swanson found the city almost deserted.

Now, as governments around the country progressively lift layers of pandemic-related restrictions, Swanson is doing what he wanted to do in January: asking his staff to come into the office for three days a week.

Two of those days must be used for meaningful face-to-face meetings with their team members or clients. “We don’t want people sitting in the office having Microsoft Teams meetings,” he told The Deal.

“We are looking at a cycle for the week – one day you are in for meetings with your team and the next day you are in meetings with your customers – whether it be internal or external customers.”

The third is less structured.

Employees have to make bookings for a desk for the days they want to come in.

After the sale of one of the arms of the company’s business, there is no longer enough space in Clearview offices to house all their staff at the one time.

“Right now, we couldn’t get everyone back in the office on the same day,” Swanson says.

“We have an online system where people can make a reservation for a desk.”

He says the system is working itself out.

Clearview CEO Simon Swanson in George St. Picture: John Feder

“After a while, it becomes fairly structured. People know, almost by osmosis, what teams are going to be in what days. They make sure they come in for their particular team meeting.”

Swanson acknowledges that this new era of hybrid working can be challenging for managers to handle.

“It’s a new way of managing people, when they are at home and in the office as well. I don’t think you can just say, ‘We’ve all got to do it this way or that way.’ ”

He has introduced a training course – which he ­attended himself this week – to help team leaders manage staff in the new permanent era of hybrid work. “There can be complex conversations around organising hybrid teams,” he says.

“You actually have to proactively manage it.”

Swanson says hybrid and flexible work is now the new norm.

As government restrictions are lifting, employers are now wanting to see more of their staff coming to the office, but – after more than two years of pandemic – employers and employees in many white-collar jobs are developing their own way of working, with flexibility now baked into many employee expectations.

“The pendulum is swinging back from employers telling staff to work from home, when there were health concerns, to them saying: ‘We’ve got an organisation and work premises and infrastructure and we want to see you,’ ” says executive recruitment specialist Ben Derwent, founder of Derwent Search.

“That much is clear. What is less clear is how far that pendulum is swinging back. I don’t think it is going to go back fully to everyone being in the office for five days a week.”

Derwent says the tight labour market at the ­moment for certain professional jobs is also making employers wary of being too dictatorial about getting staff back into the office full time.

“Employers have to think how hard they want to press the point (about getting back to the office) given that it is a tight labour market,” he says.

“There is a need for flexibility. If you want to be an employer of choice and attract great people, you have to show some flexibility and some willingness to let people work out what works best for them.”

He says a requirement for three days in the office seems to becoming more prevalent now that employers are no longer bound by state government health restrictions.

Derwent says employees need to realise that if they choose to work from home full time they could miss out on opportunities to work on good projects and with some top people, which could ultimately affect opportunities for their promotion.

“Employers have accepted for a while that people are working from home,” he says.

“But, over time, it will become evident that if people are at home all the time, they are missing out on things – professional development, getting attached to the best projects and working with the best people.”

While many jobs require people to be at a workplace, such as those in hospitality, the big shift is happening among employers in white-collar jobs where employees have shown they can work from home for the past two years.

“The shift to work from home has been most dramatic in the financial services sector, with 69 per cent of companies reporting employees working from home, the highest of any industry,” Financial Services Council chief executive Blake Briggs says.

But he says there is now a “clear mood among senior executives in the financial services industry that the time is right to encourage people to return to the office”.

“Financial services would be one of the industries that would benefit the most from having employees back in the office,” he says. “In-person meetings foster greater collaboration and trust, which are essential to the sector. Nothing can replace face-to-face interactions among staff and their clients.”

Employers say staff members are enjoying coming back to work and meeting up with colleagues.

“We’re starting to see our people returning progressively to the office and enjoying that deeper connection with colleagues beyond what remote working allows,” says Sian Lewis, the group executive of human resources for the Commonwealth Bank.

“Whether it’s a morning coffee so they can have an ‘agenda-less’ chat, getting together on complex issues or renewing social connection at lunchtime or after work, there are real and positive mental health ­benefits from working together in the same place at the same time.”

Lewis says she believes that most of the bank’s staff would “prefer to return to the office to have some form of face-to-face connection with their colleagues”.

But she says the bank is taking a flexible approach, allowing a “hybrid working approach which supports working both in the office as well as remotely”.

She says staff need to prioritise the needs of customers and consider team and personal circumstances when deciding the best place to work.

At Westpac, there is a slightly different approach, emphasising a hybrid working policy under which most people spend two or three days in the office.

“Westpac is a flexible workplace and operates a hybrid model of work for those employees not required on site permanently,” a spokesman says.

“Our hybrid model gives employees the opportunity to connect and collaborate with colleagues face-to-face while retaining the flexibility of working from home some of the time. Employee surveys show strong support for this approach.” But he says the bank is continuing to “refine and embed” the policy.

Accounting and advice firm KMPG, which has around 10,000 staff in Australia, introduced a “work anywhere” policy at the end of last year, describing it as a “market-leading hybrid working model”.

“The policy allows our people to work in a way which makes sense and suits them,” says Dorothy Hisgrove, KPMG’s national managing partner for people and inclusion.

“There are many options including working from home, onsite with clients, in our offices or even in other countries when visiting friends and family.”

She says the policy has allowed many staff members who were disconnected from their friends and family during the pandemic to spend some time with them – including working from another state or overseas for a period. The program’s current rules involve a cap of six weeks a stint if people are working from overseas for family or personal reasons, although Hisgrove says it does try to accommodate requests for an extension “where it makes sense for our people and the ­business”.

“We recognise that many of our people were significantly impacted by border closures over the past few years, so we are taking a very human ­approach in the application of our … policy and try to accommodate all requests where possible.”

Hisgrove says the firm’s approach to flexible work has involved a shift to a focus on output and performance. The firm is continuing to adapt the policy and is currently conducting a survey of its staff to “better understand what works for them and the business”.

“The workplace has shifted to supporting flexibility,” she says. “Where once it was seen as a benefit, it has now become an expectation.”

KPMG’s policy has been very popular with working parents, younger employees and those who have family overseas.

Hisgrove says the firm also has a compressed work week policy for people who want to do so, which has been popular with working parents, allowing them the flexibility to do school drop-offs

The policies have been a factor in staff engagement remaining strong “through a protracted and challenging period”.

Andrew McKellar, the Canberra-based chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says there is now a “hybrid arrangement” in place across his members, allowing for a combination of working from home and the office.

“There is no longer a legal requirement or legal ­directions which require employees to work from home,” he tells The Deal.

“For most organisations there is now a hybrid arrangement. The guidance now is that there needs to be an agreement or accommodation between what suits the employer and what suits the employee. We’re in a transition period where many organisations are progressively seeking to bring people back into the office working environment.

“But they are doing it one step at a time.”

McKellar says the practices are different in different states, with Victoria, which had some of the strictest lockdown periods, seeing a much slower return to the office than NSW and Queensland.

He says there is still a recognition in the workforce that Covid-19 is still in the community and needs to be managed.

There needs to be nationally consistent policies on those pandemic-related restrictions that are still in place, such as those involving close contacts.

“The removal of the close contact restrictions in a number of states has been a big assistance but we need a nationally consistent approach,” McKellar says.

Atlassian adopted a “Team Anywhere” approach in August 2020 for its 7000 staff across the globe that is now a permanent part of its culture.

“Our choice is pro-flexibility,” says its work futurist, Dom Price, who prefers to work from home. “Whatever works for you and your team, you do.

“Some people are coming back into the office – not all of the time but some of the time.

“There is a complete spectrum with some preferring to be in the office and some from home and some who may have moved out of Sydney (the group’s Australian headquarters) but want to use a co-working space,” Price adds.

“We are seeing some days in the office are quite busy and other days are quite quiet.”

Atlassian’s one rule is that its staff must be prepared to be available for face-to-face get-togethers with their team four times a year.

He says the policy now means Atlassian in Australia can hire staff from anywhere around the country, not just those who can come to its Sydney CBD office.

“We can hire anywhere across Australia right now,” he says.

“I am not restricted to anyone who can get into the Sydney CBD. Suddenly, I have access to a whole workforce of people we can attract which has given us access to a huge talent pool.”

He says the Team Anywhere approach involves some structured processes.

Introducing new employees to the company is one of the biggest challenges, with a 90-day onboarding program specifically designed to help them become part of the company wherever they are working.

Despite the policy, Atlassian is still going ahead with its plans to build a $1bn state-of-the-art 40-storey building near Sydney’s Central Railway, which is still several years away from completion.

“If you want people to come into the office, you have to earn it,” Price says.

“We have to work out how we can make the space so dynamic, so powerful, so collaborative that people want to come in.”

But he says the Team Anywhere approach that was prompted by the pandemic is now a permanent part of the Atlassian approach to work.

“There will never be a time when 100 per cent of Atlassians return to the office,” he says.

Price says the shift has led to a big increase in employee engagement and has been a “differentiator” for Atlassian in attracting new talented staff.

“Flexibility is the secret to hiring great people,” he says. “If you look at the Great Resignation and the availability of talent, everyone is scrapping for the same smart people.

“If you want to hire really smart people, you’ve got to give them some flexibility.”