The “Return to work” narrative- what have we been doing the last year?!

Organizations have little alternative but to leverage digital technologies while their offices, shops, and other places of work, are left vacant during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this has provided a lifeline for many, a new narrative of “returning to work” is painting a distorted view of the digital transformation opportunity.

“Return to work” or return to the physical office?
As the last twelve months have shown, many organizations were caught off guard and did not have appropriate business continuity plans in place during the COVID-19 crisis. Indeed, Omdia’s global Future of Work research (July 2020), found that only 17% of organizations were fully prepared for the transition to remote working as part of their business continuity plans. Furthermore, only 15% of businesses expect the ratio between remote working and office-based working to go back to how it was before the pandemic.

Despite a lack of planning, organizations have managed to survive (and in some cases thrive) during the global pandemic, with many employees either maintaining or improving their productivity levels despite the disruption. While the introduction of effective vaccines provides much-needed optimism, some vendors are creating a distorted narrative around the “return to work” when indeed, a more accurate description would be the imminent return to the physical workplace (for some). It feels like this “return to work” statement has not been thought through.

Once it’s possible to reopen office facilities, managers will face the costly challenge of keeping employees safe through new office protocols for deep cleaning, reduced occupancy, and changes to the physical workplace. Working remotely is now habitual for many employees, and organizations should expect, and indeed, plan for the workforce to be reluctant in returning to the “old normal”. For many, a hybrid model is being explored, where individuals spend a couple of days a week in an office and the remainder remotely.

The hybrid workforce
A failure to understand an employee’s workstyle, given that new habits will have formed over this period, could be a costly mistake; indeed, COVID-19 has fundamentally normalized remote work. Two out of three businesses are planning to support increased levels of remote working in a post-pandemic world. Besides commercial real-estate cost savings, adopting a hybrid workforce model allows organizations to recruit from a wider talent pool; collaborate more effectively with temporary staff, partners, and suppliers; and offers choice as to where, how, and when employees work.

When transitioning to a hybrid workforce, organizations need to consider how groups of employees communicate, collaborate, and get work done (“workstyles”). At least 4 distinct groups of workstyles have emerged during COVID-19:

1. office workers- those employees with a designated physical workplace provided by their organization.
2. home workers- staff that physically work (and have spaces dedicated to working) from their places of residence.
3. frontline workers- around 2.7B employees in industries such as retail, hospitality, healthcare, production, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture manage workers that are typically the first point of contact between an organization and the outside world.
4. hybrid workers- an employee than combines elements of office and home working.

It is important to note that during the current COVID-19 pandemic, many personnel have been forced to work remotely. This is vastly different from being forced to “work from home”. Having to share a home with the rest of the family, while trying to home school, compete for access to the internet, and find a quiet area of the home to work from does not compare to having a dedicated area with the right tools (desk, external monitors, mouse, keyboard, webcam, high quality headset etc.) to be productive and effective!

Each has unique characteristics including where, how, and with whom they work; the devices and tools they need to be productive; and how this can be managed in a secure and compliant way. Businesses will also need to consider how HR policies, employee contracts, workflow processes, and organizational culture, may need to change to accommodate this new model.

The wholesale return to the office or moving to an entirely remote workforce is not a binary choice, and organizations should plan for hybrid working that effectively supports an employee’s workstyle. COVID-19 has accelerated the need for digital transformation and smart, long-term investments need to be made in not only technology but also the employee experience.