Setting up hybrid working

At most organisations I speak to, hybrid working has long been the norm. And yet something does not sit right. Tuesday is packed, on Friday the place is deserted. Teams just miss each other, and if you ask what the agreements actually are, three people give you three different answers.

It is rarely a lack of good intentions, though. What is usually missing is the foundation. Which choices have we actually made, and does everyone know them?

That is what this article is about. It is not about tools or office design, but about the choices underneath them. Those choices decide whether hybrid working brings calm or friction.

When hybrid working falters, the discussion quickly turns to tooling. A different booking system, a refurbishment, more meeting rooms. Understandable, but in my experience the problem almost always lies a layer deeper.

Without clear choices, everyone fills in the gaps themselves. One person comes in three days, another almost never, and both think they are doing it right.

Before you think about models or ground rules, there is one question that should go on the table first. Why do you actually want hybrid working? It sounds obvious, yet I rarely come across organisations that have a sharp answer.

Usually three goals are mixed together.

Goal 1. Satisfied and engaged employees.
Less travel time, more freedom, a better balance between work and private life. A fine goal, but for many people freedom without clarity mostly feels like uncertainty. Am I allowed to work from home, or is someone quietly keeping count?

Goal 2. Improving efficiency and collaboration.
Here the emphasis is on really seeing each other. Bouncing ideas around, aligning, working on something together. That calls for deliberate moments at the office. Complete freedom actually works against you here, because collaboration then depends on chance.

Goal 3. Making better use of office space.
Offices are expensive and are far from full every day. In fact, you will be surprised how inefficiently a building is used once you look at the actual figures. That is why more and more organisations spread occupancy, close parts of the building on quiet days or rethink their office space. And there is a social side to it, with fewer unnecessary journeys and less energy use. It is rarely the main goal, but a welcome bonus.

These goals do not clash, but they do call for different choices. As long as you do not say which goal comes first, hybrid working lacks direction.

Once the goal is clear, the question is how you organise it. In practice I keep seeing the same four models. Almost every organisation uses one of them. It is just rarely a conscious choice, and that is where it goes wrong.

Model 1. Full freedom per employee
Everyone decides for themselves when they come in. No fixed days, no central agreements.

It feels good and signals trust. In a small team it often works fine, but as soon as collaboration becomes more important you will notice it. Teams see each other less than expected and office occupancy becomes unpredictable.

Model 2. Fixed team days
Teams agree when they are at the office together. That can differ per team, within the team it is clear.

This gives predictability and the office regains a purpose. Do make sure not every team picks Tuesday, and it takes discipline to actually stick to the agreements.

Model 3. Attendance by appointment
You come to the office when there is a reason. A meeting, a workshop, a session with the team.

Efficient and purposeful. The risk lies in what you do not plan, such as the chat at the coffee machine and the quick question you ask in passing. You have to organise something for that, or it disappears.

Model 4. Guidelines instead of rules
No hard agreements but an expectation, for example two days a week on average.

Flexible and easy to adopt, but it stands or falls with managers who champion it consistently. As soon as one is strict about it and another is not, it quickly feels unfair.

In many organisations these models run side by side, without anyone ever having chosen that. On paper there is freedom, but team A has fixed days all the same. There are guidelines, but some managers simply manage by attendance. For employees it is then completely unclear what is actually expected. And it is exactly that sense of arbitrariness that does more harm than any model.

Whichever model you choose, it only works if the agreements are concrete enough for people to explain them in the corridor.

So no twenty-page policy document. A few ground rules that everyone understands and can explain are enough.

The best agreements fail if people do not accept them. It helps when managers set the right example themselves and when there is room to talk about it. Better to start with a clear framework that you adjust along the way than to wait until everything has been perfectly thought out. It will never be perfect anyway.

Here is a simple test. Ask three colleagues what the agreements on hybrid working are. Do you get the same answer three times?

Hybrid working is a means, not an end. So agree in advance how you will know it is working.

Those signals determine your next step.

In the next article I look at translating this into daily practice. How do you make sure teams keep meeting each other, without it depending on chance?

Wendel, AppjePlekje