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The journey to hybrid working

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Dr. Amanda Jones explores pandemic impacts on London work dynamics, forecasting future trends.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 4, 2024

Generating Workspace

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This video video discusses the evolution and impact of hybrid working—where employees split their time between working from home and the office—particularly in the context of changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. It notes that while hybrid working is not a new concept, there has been a significant increase in its adoption since the pandemic, reshaping workplace dynamics and employee expectations.

Key points include:

1. **Increased Adoption**: The pandemic forced many employees to work from home, leading to a lasting increase in hybrid working models as organizations adjusted.

2. **Employer Perspectives**: Employers have generally shown a positive outlook on hybrid working, recognizing potential cost savings and benefits for both organizations and employees. However, there is less clarity on the justifications for implementing this model.

3. **Diverse Experiences**: Different employee groups have experienced hybrid work differently, with some benefiting greatly (e.g., marginalized groups) while others, particularly those who thrived in traditional office settings, found the transition challenging.

4. **Shifts in Expectations**: There has been a notable change in how younger workers view remote work, with many appreciating the flexibility it offers, contrary to the belief that it may hinder their career advancement.

5. **Communication and Policy Development**: Effective communication is crucial to align perceptions about the necessity and benefits of in-office work. Organizations face the challenge of formulating policies to satisfy both employee needs and organizational objectives.

6. **Future of Work**: There is uncertainty about how hybrid work will shape future workplace environments and the physical office settings, including how companies will utilize office space going forward.

7. **Importance of Flexibility**: Employers need to remain adaptable and willing to explore unique arrangements that suit various roles and individual employee needs.

The overall conclusion is that hybrid working is likely to persist, necessitating ongoing adaptation and dialogue between employers and employees to navigate the complexities it introduces into work culture.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Hybrid working is something that has been around

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for a while, although we've seen a

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big increase in it recently.

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But what we really mean when we're talking about hybrid

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working is a person

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or an employee in particular that spends part

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of their week working from an organization's office

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and part of their week working elsewhere.

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So normally we'd be talking about working from home,

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can be elsewhere, but, the kind

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of trend towards hybrid working has certainly meant

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that people have been working more from, from their,

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domestic environment.

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Uh, so what we know about hybrid working is that, as I said,

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it's not new, but it certainly has increased a lot since the

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COVID-19 pandemic, which saw lots of people having

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to initially work in their homes kind of in a,

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in a forced way in order for organizations

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to continue in that environment.

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And then since the lockdown measures have been released

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or have been removed, we've seen people coming back into the

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office, but not full time.

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We've seen them certainly taking up more of this kind

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of hybrid model of working.

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Um, so in terms of what we know about hybrid working,

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not only has it increased in general, which we know it has,

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and we've done some surveys on this, we've also seen

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that it's increased for particular types of people.

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So before the pandemic, for example, we used

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to see very few people in managerial

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and especially senior management positions

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and younger people in particular, kind of the, the 16

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to 24 age group.

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They really weren't,

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working from other locations very often.

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They probably weren't permitted to

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especially younger workers.

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And so, very interestingly, that section of the workforce

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has, there's been a big change there in

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how people have been working, from home.

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And we know a lot about this in terms of how people feel.

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We've asked them, especially our research particularly was

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interested in, employees in London.

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Um, but we do know that this is something

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that's gone on globally.

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There's lots of people now working from home

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or working partly from home in a hybrid way

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and working partly from the office.

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Um, and this is something that our,

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our initial data shows was set to continue,

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but what we don't know very much about is kind of

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how employers feel about that.

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So that was really part of why we started

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to look at this particular question.

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What is the employer perspective on, on remote working

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and particularly hybrid working?

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So what we did originally, so this not the paper

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that I'm talking about now, but what we did originally

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to set this up was that we did quite a large two wave study

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of London employees.

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Um, and we, we surveyed 2000 London workers

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and asked them various things about their working practices

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and how they felt about that.

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And then what we wanted to do was kind of triangulate

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or make sense of some of this data,

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and get a multi-perspective on this.

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So we decided the best thing to do would be to talk to

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employers as well, that were representative of lots

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of the industries in London.

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Um, but what we did know from previous research,

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especially since the pandemic, is

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that there hasn't really been a lot of attention

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to the employer's perspective.

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Um, what we do know is that they have felt,

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from the research that does exist,

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they have felt broadly positive.

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So they've been keen on things like cost

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savings, for example.

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And they've noted that there can be benefits both

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to employers and also to organizations.

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So we do know that they are quite,

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or what it seems to be is that they're quite inclined

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to continue with this kind of working model,

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but what we dunno so much about is why that is

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so the justifications for this

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and how they intend to do that.

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So we were interested to know, well,

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what did they really learn during the pandemic

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that has caused them to have their,

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intentions going forward regarding this type of working.

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So that's kinda what we were aiming

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for, with this study.

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So what we did was we sampled, a number

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of senior managers, and we are very lucky.

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We managed to access some quite diverse,

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types of senior managers.

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And we managed to get senior managers from the public sector

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and from the private sector.

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Um, and we looked at different industries.

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So we, we sampled purposefully from, telecommunications,

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media, legal banking, lots of other ones.

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I won't list them all, but, a good kind

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of selection of senior managers.

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And then what we did was we gave them a qualitative

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interview, a semi-structured interview,

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where we asked them lots of questions that were informed

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by our surveys to get their perspective.

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'cause we were really looking also for, you know,

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perception gaps between their employees and the employers.

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Um, and then I, I employed a, a kind

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of grounded theory method to that so that we were able

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to not only look at, the different perspectives

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and the different kind of way that, these people ex

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understood remote working from different perspectives,

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but also the process by which they'd come

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to make their conclusions about this type of working,

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which grounded theory is quite good for.

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We wanted to know what they're

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doing, at the current time.

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So we asked 'em about this and we found that there is a lot

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of availability of hybrid working.

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So at the moment,

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or certainly when we did the study, which isn't,

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isn't too long ago, employers seem

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to be providing this to employees.

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It's something that's continued after the pandemic and

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after the lockdowns have been lifted.

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Um, so the availability is wide, that's what we do know,

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but there are variations in certain aspects.

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So the extent of remote working is quite varied.

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There's been lots of experimentation.

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Um, so I think what we did find was that across the board

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with seeing that employers are comfortable

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with hybrid working, but normally they want it

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to be about two or three days

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of the week, of the working week.

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So that's a kind of normal, response from employers.

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But what we've also seen is that there's quite a lot

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of variation within that.

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So for example, some employers might dictate the days

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that people should come into the office.

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Some employers are, much more open to being flexible.

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They consider these days should be floating

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and employees can decide

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and they give 'em a bit more autonomy

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and flexibility over that kind of working.

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Um, and then within that as well.

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So we've got this kind of lots of availability, lots

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of variation in how that availability looks,

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but then you can add to that the formalization

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of these kind of agreements.

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And what we have seen, instead of companies really taking

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a formal stance on this, creating a a generic policy,

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we're seeing them, kind of delegate these decisions

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to senior managers.

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So there's a lot, that's how they kind

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of capture the flexibility

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of the working arrangement by delegating it.

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But also that explains a lot of the variance in

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how we're seeing people performing this kind of work.

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So what's interesting when we consider a steady state,

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a steady state is definitely what employers seem

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to be indicating thereafter.

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And I think that's quite normal for organizations to want

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to know, well, what's the right thing to do here?

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Unfortunately, the answer isn't that simple.

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So what we've seen is

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that actually a steady state really relates to this idea

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that within an organization you'll be able

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to find an optimum kind of two-way flexibility between

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what your employees need to be doing, for themselves

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and what they need to be doing for the organization.

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So unfortunately, it's very hard to prescribe that.

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You need to kind of understand the contextual factors,

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the job factors, the personality factors

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of the people involved,

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and how those interact with each other.

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But that will hopefully come around from a kind

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of almost processual learning, throughout organizations.

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They have to experiment, they have to get to the point

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where there's this kind of mutually agreed understanding

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and that mutually un agreed understanding is really what

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probably will create the steady state during the pandemic.

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Senior managers learned an awful lot about lots of things,

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including themselves,

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not just about the employees that work for them.

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I think probably the most interesting,

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and optimistic thing that we learned is

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that senior managers in general, regardless of their sector

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or industry, seem to agree

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that hybrid working was better than expected.

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They probably were a bit reticent about it,

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which would explain why actually remote working wasn't very

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popular before the forced kind of lockdown situation.

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Um, and so, you know, lots

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of people were clearly reticent about

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using this method of working.

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Suddenly when all of the, restrictions are removed,

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it's no longer the manager's fault.

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If they have to allow people to work from home,

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it becomes something that they're kind of forced to do.

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Uh, and the risk is almost removed from it being their fault

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that they're letting people work from home.

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They realized that operations continued

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and not only was productivity maintained in many cases,

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the organization remained a going concern.

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Also, the people quite liked it in the end.

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Um, so you had this situation

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where it could actually have mutual benefits

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for the employees and the employers,

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but that was very much predicated on making sure the

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environment was suitable.

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So it did require certain things, it required lots

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of investment, it required open-mindedness,

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communication, all of that kind of thing.

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But in general, if we got those factors right,

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or if they felt they'd done a good job of trying

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to get those right, they had a kind

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of generally more optimistic view of how this kind of,

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working method was being experienced, not just by employees,

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but by the organization as well.

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But within that, we did certainly see

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that certain groups were probably,

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or had a better experience than other groups.

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Now, what's interesting about that is that, so for example,

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at the beginning of the pandemic, we would see that people

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who are maybe in more senior positions,

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who have bigger houses, who have lots

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of resources now they found working from home probably a

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much more, pleasurable experience than somebody who's

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stuck at home with small children

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that they can't put into nursery

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or they're stuck at home, you know, with lots

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of distractions and people around them also, people

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who are living alone, people

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who living alone could get very isolated from

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this kind of situation.

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But what the, what's also interesting is the process.

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You know, I said earlier we were interested in the process.

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And what was interesting was

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that this didn't necessarily remain static.

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So what we saw were experiences changing

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and perceptions changing with changing norms

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and also with changing conditions.

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So as, the pandemic continued, we saw

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that childcare was available again, we saw

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that people were able to go

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and meet with others and that kind of thing.

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And so what we ended up finding was that, you know, people

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who may have been very disadvantaged at the beginning became

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more advantaged as we went along and vice versa.

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So we found that people with children, for example,

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once they didn't have the stress

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of having those children in their environment

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and they could then have childcare,

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they actually appreciated the opportunity to spend more time

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with those children in a hybrid setting.

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Uh, and we found that, you know,

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once people had had adjusted

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and managed their environment, it became easier.

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On the flip side, we found that people

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who traditionally had enjoyed the office environment

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or maybe who had thrived in the office environment

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traditionally,

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probably found it slightly more challenging.

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So they were not getting the kind of in,

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interaction that they'd been used to.

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Maybe they were the ones who benefited a lot from FaceTime.

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They were good at interaction,

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they were good at impression management

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that didn't necessarily lend itself.

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This kind of new hybrid working didn't lend

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itself to that so well.

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So it kind of flipped on its head really who were,

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winners and losers as time went on and norms changed.

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But what we also know about it is

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that it helps certain groups of people,

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maybe more marginalized groups overall.

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So potentially disabled employees, people

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who are neurodivergent, maybe they really,

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appreciated kind of the calm environment, the lack

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of commuting and that kind of thing.

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And also, people who, who have having trouble with the,

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at the moment we know we have a cost of living crisis.

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It was, it's expensive to commute,

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especially into cities like London.

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So they really, appreciated this too.

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People who wanted to move out

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of the city, all of that kind of stuff.

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So we certainly saw a variety of winners and losers.

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And I think what we can take away from that is

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that it wasn't necessarily the people

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who traditionally benefit from the workplace that seem

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to benefit from this arrangement and vice versa.

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But what we did learn as well,

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what employers certainly learned was that while you want

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to look at the individual and how remote working can benefit

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or disadvantage them, you also need to consider

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the workforce as a whole.

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So while it might be good for certain people

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to work a alone at home on certain tasks,

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there is a benefit from a certain level

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of interaction in the workplace.

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And we know that from previous research, we know

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that there is a situation

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where people will become more satisfied working from home,

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but that that has a limit.

12:34.305 --> 12:35.485
It has kind of an upper limit

12:35.485 --> 12:37.165
where actually then it starts to reduce.

12:37.745 --> 12:40.125
So it's very, it's a difficult balance that they've learned

12:40.125 --> 12:42.205
that they have to find that

12:42.225 --> 12:43.805
or they have to, to investigate that.

12:44.195 --> 12:46.365
Another thing, I think the final thing I probably mentioned

12:46.365 --> 12:48.805
that they learned is that while all, all

12:48.885 --> 12:50.765
of this is going on, there's been some kind

12:50.765 --> 12:53.525
of subtle normative shifts as well, which have meant

12:53.525 --> 12:57.245
that now rather than employees having to kind

12:57.245 --> 12:59.485
of justify why they want these flexible working

12:59.485 --> 13:03.165
arrangements, it seems more that organizations now have

13:03.165 --> 13:05.405
to justify why they can't have

13:05.405 --> 13:06.445
them, if they would like them.

13:06.445 --> 13:08.725
So there's a kind of subtle power shift there as well.

13:08.915 --> 13:10.445
Some of these things, these conditions

13:10.445 --> 13:12.045
that I've discussed come along

13:12.045 --> 13:14.645
with some inevitable challenges, which, you know,

13:14.645 --> 13:16.525
managers are very used to having challenges.

13:16.945 --> 13:19.405
Uh, one of the things that we found in particular

13:19.945 --> 13:21.805
is a difference in some of these perceptions.

13:21.805 --> 13:23.525
So I've talked about who the winners and losers are,

13:23.525 --> 13:25.005
and I've talked about the power shift.

13:25.465 --> 13:27.365
And in particular I've talked about how, you know,

13:27.365 --> 13:29.325
there need now needs to be justifications

13:29.385 --> 13:30.885
for why people need to come into the office.

13:31.385 --> 13:34.365
Now, when that becomes a real issue is when there is a

13:34.365 --> 13:37.965
disparity between what somebody thinks is good

13:38.305 --> 13:41.405
and what somebody else doesn't think is good, especially if

13:41.915 --> 13:45.125
disparity is between the employee, the employees,

13:45.125 --> 13:47.005
and the managers, or particular employee groups.

13:47.625 --> 13:49.405
So one example of this is younger workers.

13:49.985 --> 13:52.765
So across the board we had perceptions,

13:53.105 --> 13:54.565
not just in the surveys that we did.

13:54.715 --> 13:56.645
Also in this study, and you see this in lots

13:56.645 --> 13:59.365
of other studies, remote working is bad for young people.

13:59.365 --> 14:01.965
That's what seems to be, you know, the, the understanding

14:02.075 --> 14:03.205
that it's not good

14:03.205 --> 14:05.645
because they can't network, they don't get the learning,

14:05.645 --> 14:07.125
they don't get the informal learning.

14:07.745 --> 14:09.725
Um, but it's funny

14:09.745 --> 14:11.685
how everybody is very worried about young

14:11.685 --> 14:13.285
people except young people.

14:13.545 --> 14:15.005
If you ask young people whether

14:15.005 --> 14:16.365
they're worried, they're not worried at all.

14:16.505 --> 14:18.845
In fact, some of them think that this has improved their

14:19.485 --> 14:21.845
prospects, it's improved their life and their wellbeing,

14:21.985 --> 14:24.085
and they're actually not very interested in coming back

14:24.465 --> 14:25.845
to a normal situation

14:25.945 --> 14:28.525
or, you know, the normal five days a week from the office.

14:29.265 --> 14:31.085
And part of that probably is due

14:31.085 --> 14:33.245
to things like changing career expectations,

14:33.865 --> 14:35.205
changing priorities.

14:36.145 --> 14:38.565
It, the, the career that they're anticipating is not gonna

14:38.565 --> 14:40.365
be the same as the career that maybe you

14:40.365 --> 14:41.845
and I anticipated in the past

14:41.945 --> 14:43.805
or, you know, our parents or that kind of thing.

14:43.805 --> 14:45.925
It's, it's changed a lot. So that's difficult

14:45.925 --> 14:49.165
because if, if employers are telling employees it's a good

14:49.165 --> 14:51.805
justification for them to come in to improve their,

14:52.015 --> 14:54.245
their prospects and young people don't agree with that,

14:54.245 --> 14:56.445
they're gonna have an issue on, on, you know, whether

14:56.445 --> 14:57.765
that justification is valid.

14:58.185 --> 15:00.845
The same applies to females particularly lots

15:00.845 --> 15:03.805
of our data shows that it's, they think it's better

15:03.825 --> 15:05.285
for females to come into the office

15:05.345 --> 15:07.685
and, you know, stop the, potential

15:07.685 --> 15:10.925
for having those pervasive social norms,

15:10.925 --> 15:11.925
announced on them at home.

15:12.455 --> 15:13.885
Women don't tend to agree with

15:13.885 --> 15:15.205
that according to our findings.

15:15.205 --> 15:17.285
Women tend to feel that it improves their life.

15:17.705 --> 15:19.245
So I think overall, one of the issues

15:19.315 --> 15:21.765
with these differing perceptions is that it,

15:21.945 --> 15:24.005
it doesn't help with the dialogue.

15:24.185 --> 15:26.125
So there's one of the challenges is making sure

15:26.125 --> 15:31.045
that people are aligned in how they consider, this

15:31.065 --> 15:33.125
to be communicated

15:33.265 --> 15:34.885
and what the right kind of things are to do.

15:35.105 --> 15:37.725
Now another challenge is also if you think we've gone

15:37.725 --> 15:41.445
through the pandemic and lots of changes have happened

15:42.145 --> 15:44.245
and now we have to decide if we're going back to the office,

15:44.615 --> 15:48.405
which ones do we keep and which ones do we get rid of?

15:48.505 --> 15:51.605
So how do we as a, an employer decide how to go forward?

15:52.065 --> 15:55.285
Now, part of this, is quite simple, okay,

15:55.285 --> 15:56.845
maybe we ask people to come back to the office

15:56.905 --> 15:58.645
and to lots of people, that seems very simple.

15:59.545 --> 16:01.365
It becomes a lot more difficult when you think about

16:01.365 --> 16:03.765
how certain practices have become embedded.

16:04.465 --> 16:07.725
So it might be that during the pandemic we decided

16:07.725 --> 16:08.965
to recruit some more staff.

16:09.345 --> 16:11.245
We were having trouble recruiting some more staff

16:11.245 --> 16:14.125
because of the, the volatility in the, in the labor market.

16:14.505 --> 16:17.205
So we thought, you know, what we'll do is we can, now

16:17.205 --> 16:18.365
that we're all remote working,

16:18.425 --> 16:21.485
we can get someone from this country or that place

16:21.625 --> 16:24.005
or some remote location and it works.

16:24.345 --> 16:26.925
And it was done as a kind of temporary measure to make sure

16:26.995 --> 16:29.045
that staff, you know, that the,

16:29.105 --> 16:30.685
the labor force was sufficient.

16:31.305 --> 16:32.845
Now that we've gone back to a situation

16:32.845 --> 16:35.805
where now senior managers are contemplating whether the,

16:35.805 --> 16:37.845
whether the remote working is the right thing to do,

16:37.985 --> 16:39.805
and they might wanna bring people back to create the,

16:39.905 --> 16:41.845
the same culture they used to have.

16:42.235 --> 16:43.965
Obviously these employees are gonna say, well,

16:43.965 --> 16:45.605
you recruited me knowing full well

16:45.715 --> 16:47.645
that I lived at a distance

16:47.645 --> 16:48.685
and they're not gonna wanna do that.

16:49.305 --> 16:52.445
Um, and that's one thing you, you would expect organizations

16:52.445 --> 16:53.925
to honor those kind of agreements.

16:54.065 --> 16:55.285
But then you get a situation

16:55.285 --> 16:57.685
where the original employees look at that situation, say,

16:57.685 --> 16:59.525
well, why should, why should I have to come in

17:00.105 --> 17:02.845
if you've recruited people that don't have to come in?

17:02.985 --> 17:05.365
So you end up with this situation

17:05.365 --> 17:08.565
that potentially creates conflict and it creates silos

17:08.625 --> 17:10.165
and different sections of the workforce.

17:10.265 --> 17:12.325
So that's a challenge for,

17:12.445 --> 17:14.005
managers as well to have to deal with.

17:14.385 --> 17:16.645
And this also kind of relates to the role of managers.

17:16.825 --> 17:18.605
So as I said earlier,

17:19.115 --> 17:23.045
sometimes these decisions are delegated to middle management

17:23.545 --> 17:25.325
and that can put middle management in a,

17:25.325 --> 17:26.485
in quite a difficult position

17:26.795 --> 17:29.165
because first of all, they want to be able

17:29.165 --> 17:30.525
to create the flexibility.

17:31.225 --> 17:32.805
So if you don't wanna have a blanket policy,

17:32.865 --> 17:34.805
it takes away their autonomy to manage their staff.

17:35.225 --> 17:38.165
But the same time, what that almost does in a more cynical

17:38.165 --> 17:40.485
way is to push down those kind of difficult

17:40.485 --> 17:43.525
and messy conversations onto middle managers.

17:43.525 --> 17:45.325
And some of those, you know, might be quite difficult

17:45.325 --> 17:47.485
to have if they're about, employees

17:47.485 --> 17:48.845
and needs of a personal nature.

17:49.065 --> 17:51.565
If they relate to things like a protected characteristic,

17:51.655 --> 17:53.725
which is why they don't feel like they can come into the

17:53.725 --> 17:55.685
office, maybe it's not appropriate

17:55.785 --> 17:57.285
for sometimes middle managers to have

17:57.285 --> 17:58.645
to be dealing with that situation.

17:59.195 --> 18:02.205
Another issue for senior managers, a lot of them

18:03.495 --> 18:06.525
don't necessarily realize that if you want employees

18:06.525 --> 18:08.885
to behave in a certain way, you have

18:08.885 --> 18:09.925
to role model that behavior.

18:10.585 --> 18:13.565
So many senior managers either have become very keen on

18:13.565 --> 18:15.685
remote working 'cause they've realized it's quite suitable

18:15.865 --> 18:18.765
for, either confidential tasks or,

18:19.065 --> 18:21.965
or highly focused tasks or those kind of things, meetings.

18:22.145 --> 18:25.285
So they wanna work maybe from home a bit more than they used

18:25.285 --> 18:28.085
to before, but they don't see why their younger employees

18:28.225 --> 18:29.645
should not be coming into the office.

18:29.785 --> 18:33.325
And that doesn't bode well for that justification about,

18:33.325 --> 18:34.805
you know, people should be here if you're

18:34.805 --> 18:35.885
not role modeling the right behavior.

18:36.065 --> 18:38.805
And then on the flip side, if they want more people,

18:38.985 --> 18:41.085
to work from home, but they're coming into the office every

18:41.145 --> 18:43.405
day, that also sends the wrong side.

18:43.425 --> 18:45.565
So it is just kind of making sure they're getting their

18:45.805 --> 18:47.645
behavior aligned is, is another challenge,

18:47.825 --> 18:49.005
for senior managers.

18:49.505 --> 18:51.445
And then when it comes to management, HR

18:51.505 --> 18:54.205
as well have a particular challenge in that they have,

18:54.205 --> 18:55.445
they're responsible for looking

18:55.445 --> 18:59.045
after both the employees well, wellbeing and interests

18:59.045 --> 19:00.605
and also the organizations.

19:01.065 --> 19:03.085
So they need to be in a situation

19:03.085 --> 19:05.325
where they can create policies

19:05.325 --> 19:07.605
that both make the employer attractive

19:07.825 --> 19:08.925
and an employer of choice,

19:09.505 --> 19:12.245
but also help to establish the kind of consistency

19:12.425 --> 19:14.765
and equity, and reliability

19:14.785 --> 19:16.525
and steady state that employers want.

19:16.525 --> 19:19.085
So they've got some kind of dual challenges as well.

19:19.265 --> 19:22.085
Um, finally two very short challenges.

19:22.085 --> 19:23.365
We've got what we're seeing,

19:23.365 --> 19:25.045
and this is in some more research

19:25.045 --> 19:27.685
that we're doing at the moment, we're seeing this still,

19:27.685 --> 19:29.165
there's a reluctance to return.

19:29.825 --> 19:31.765
So sometimes organizations are saying,

19:31.765 --> 19:32.925
right, you need to come back to the office.

19:33.145 --> 19:34.885
And employees are simply saying, no,

19:34.985 --> 19:36.165
we, we don't feel like doing that.

19:36.385 --> 19:38.725
Or we'd actually rather leave than do that.

19:39.065 --> 19:40.845
And some, some,

19:41.275 --> 19:43.005
occupations in particular have quite a lot

19:43.005 --> 19:45.405
of power now anyway, because they're in short supply.

19:45.405 --> 19:46.525
We've got lots of skill gaps.

19:46.945 --> 19:48.485
So that's a challenge for management.

19:48.545 --> 19:51.445
How do we make sure we, we can attract the right staff when

19:51.445 --> 19:52.565
we're telling them we want to come in

19:52.685 --> 19:54.965
'cause we want the right culture, and they're flatly saying

19:55.025 --> 19:57.525
no, and we don't have that justification under our belt

19:57.525 --> 20:00.005
to explain to them why they should be coming in.

20:00.005 --> 20:01.005
So that's another issue.

20:01.385 --> 20:03.525
And then finally, what do they do with space?

20:04.065 --> 20:05.925
So we know that lots of,

20:06.115 --> 20:08.045
organizations are using remote working

20:08.145 --> 20:09.445
or more hybrid working.

20:10.235 --> 20:11.245
What do they do with the offices?

20:11.355 --> 20:13.085
Some of these offices, especially in Central London,

20:13.155 --> 20:15.005
this is prime real estate, these are very,

20:15.005 --> 20:16.045
very expensive offices

20:16.505 --> 20:19.005
and they dunno what to do with them in terms of,

20:19.005 --> 20:20.085
you know, utilizing them.

20:20.335 --> 20:21.805
We've had some interesting strategies.

20:21.805 --> 20:25.525
Some people have kind of either gifted them to, to startups

20:25.525 --> 20:27.485
that they think are gonna be good stakeholders

20:27.485 --> 20:28.885
to their own business later on.

20:29.435 --> 20:31.565
Some people have, reduced their offices.

20:31.645 --> 20:34.045
I think we saw this with some of the banks, the HSBC,

20:34.045 --> 20:35.165
they reduced their offices

20:35.665 --> 20:37.645
and put them in a more prime location still.

20:37.665 --> 20:39.085
So they took them out of the Docklands

20:39.085 --> 20:40.525
and put them into near St.

20:40.525 --> 20:42.965
Paul's where tradi traditionally the banking industry was.

20:43.145 --> 20:45.045
So you're seeing lots of different strategies with this,

20:45.345 --> 20:47.445
but it's certainly an issue, like what does space look like?

20:47.555 --> 20:50.845
What is the value of having a central city location now?

20:51.225 --> 20:53.325
Uh, and that's another thing that they need to think about.

20:53.465 --> 20:55.525
So I think probably in a nutshell, those are some

20:55.525 --> 20:56.845
of the main challenges that of course,

20:56.945 --> 20:58.005
of course there are more than that.

20:58.305 --> 20:59.365
We have quite a few of these.

20:59.435 --> 21:01.325
I'll just kind of highlight some of the main ones.

21:01.585 --> 21:04.845
And I think firstly, what you can't really deny is

21:04.845 --> 21:06.885
that this practice seems to be here to stay.

21:07.065 --> 21:10.285
We can't predict the future, but what we can pre predict

21:10.305 --> 21:13.925
or what we can, what we, what we can demonstrate is

21:13.925 --> 21:16.525
that there's certainly been some changes in the way

21:16.525 --> 21:18.725
that people think and feel about this type of work.

21:19.305 --> 21:21.845
Uh, so we would argue that there probably has been some kind

21:21.845 --> 21:22.925
of tipping point here.

21:23.705 --> 21:26.285
And so we don't know necessarily what

21:26.285 --> 21:27.485
that tipping point's gonna look like,

21:27.585 --> 21:31.045
but we do know that from both the demand

21:31.145 --> 21:32.685
and supply side,

21:32.685 --> 21:35.285
hybrid working is probably set here to stay.

21:36.185 --> 21:37.725
We also need to be careful in

21:37.745 --> 21:41.165
how we consider people view success in this.

21:41.345 --> 21:43.605
So we've noticed that people have different experiences

21:44.545 --> 21:47.605
and often people tend to project their ideas

21:47.625 --> 21:48.965
of success onto other people.

21:49.065 --> 21:52.005
So for example, the, the, young people I would,

21:52.085 --> 21:54.885
I was talking about earlier, it might not be that they want

21:54.885 --> 21:56.645
to rise to all the levels of an organization

21:56.665 --> 21:57.925
and achieve this amount of salary.

21:57.945 --> 21:59.005
We have to consider, well

21:59.005 --> 22:02.005
what does success actually mean for these people?

22:02.005 --> 22:04.405
What are they looking for in the workplace?

22:04.465 --> 22:05.845
And that's something that maybe we need

22:05.845 --> 22:08.005
to spend more time thinking about.

22:08.785 --> 22:10.485
We also need to leverage some of the lessons

22:11.115 --> 22:13.325
that we've learned when we look at skill gaps.

22:13.345 --> 22:14.685
So one of the concerns was,

22:14.685 --> 22:15.885
you know, we've got some skill gaps.

22:15.885 --> 22:18.205
That's probably why we've been giving people these different

22:18.205 --> 22:20.845
types of contracts that maybe now are hard

22:20.845 --> 22:21.925
to, to come back on.

22:22.465 --> 22:25.965
Um, but then on the plus side, we've realized that this kind

22:25.965 --> 22:27.645
of working can really support some

22:27.645 --> 22:30.085
of the more marginalized members of society.

22:30.505 --> 22:33.205
So there's loads of untapped potential in certain un

22:33.205 --> 22:35.965
underemployed groups such as the disabled workforce, such

22:35.965 --> 22:38.365
as know, you know, women

22:38.545 --> 22:40.445
or people from different ethnic backgrounds.

22:40.895 --> 22:43.405
Maybe this is one way

22:43.545 --> 22:45.165
of making the workforce more inclusive.

22:45.745 --> 22:48.685
So, and using those skills to, to make, you know,

22:49.165 --> 22:50.405
contributions to the economy in general.

22:50.425 --> 22:52.245
So that's something that we need to consider as well.

22:54.045 --> 22:56.125
Focusing on more communication is important

22:56.265 --> 22:58.965
to make sure we are trying to align those perceptions of,

22:58.965 --> 23:00.925
you know, what is a reasonable justification

23:01.065 --> 23:02.125
for coming into the office.

23:02.825 --> 23:07.245
Um, if you don't do that, you can end up in a situation

23:07.245 --> 23:08.765
where your employees end up annoyed.

23:08.905 --> 23:11.165
So for example, just as a, just by means of illustrating

23:11.165 --> 23:14.485
that one of the justifications that organizations seem

23:14.485 --> 23:17.165
to want to give employees is that you should come back in

23:17.165 --> 23:18.285
because it's better for you.

23:18.465 --> 23:20.325
We found out that actually it's gonna be better for you.

23:20.825 --> 23:23.965
Now given that after the pandemic, lots of people,

23:24.315 --> 23:27.765
reflected a lot on what they wanted out of work.

23:27.865 --> 23:29.685
We had this idea of the great resignation.

23:29.685 --> 23:30.845
Lots of people left their jobs

23:31.665 --> 23:35.045
and certainly organizations haven't really been restricting

23:35.065 --> 23:37.885
org employees coming into the office, they've only been,

23:38.065 --> 23:39.485
restricting them or they're trying

23:39.485 --> 23:40.845
to restrict them not coming in enough.

23:41.225 --> 23:42.885
So if you say to people, we, you, you know,

23:42.885 --> 23:44.685
you should come in and it's for your own wellbeing,

23:44.685 --> 23:45.740
That almost implies

23:45.740 --> 23:47.805
that their employees don't know what's good for them.

23:47.805 --> 23:48.805
They already have a choice

23:49.305 --> 23:50.885
and they've decided what's good for them.

23:51.185 --> 23:53.845
And so that could rub people up the wrong way if you start

23:53.845 --> 23:54.885
telling 'em that's why it is,

23:55.315 --> 23:57.805
it's probably a lot more beneficial to explain

23:58.065 --> 24:00.885
to the employee, you know, in a, in a more mature way,

24:00.995 --> 24:02.765
this is what the organization needs.

24:03.225 --> 24:06.365
We know that you can maintain your productivity,

24:06.555 --> 24:07.645
from a remote location,

24:07.665 --> 24:09.245
but actually as an organization we,

24:09.265 --> 24:11.005
we like collective productivity as well.

24:11.345 --> 24:13.005
And maybe kind of explaining that

24:13.005 --> 24:14.925
that's why you want people to come in.

24:15.305 --> 24:18.045
And I think finally what we need to consider is

24:18.045 --> 24:19.405
what are the effects that this kind

24:19.405 --> 24:21.685
of work could have on the wider society?

24:21.825 --> 24:25.005
How is that gonna change things like the makeup of cities?

24:25.545 --> 24:27.765
How is it gonna change how people interact

24:27.765 --> 24:30.125
with their local communities if they're spending more time,

24:30.505 --> 24:33.005
not commuting and spending time kind of at home?

24:33.145 --> 24:35.845
So that's just a variety of implications that this,

24:35.845 --> 24:36.965
some of this research might have.

24:36.965 --> 24:39.565
And obviously there's a long way to go in trying

24:39.565 --> 24:41.885
to fi figure out what the world is gonna look like,

24:42.025 --> 24:43.845
but I think probably it's a reasonable start

24:43.865 --> 24:45.205
for understanding some of these issues.

00:00 - Hybrid working is something that has been around for a while, although we've seen a big increase in it recently. But what we really mean when we're talking about hybrid working is a person or an employee in particular that spends part

00:11 - of their week working from an organization's office and part of their week working elsewhere. So normally we'd be talking about working from home, can be elsewhere, but, the kind of trend towards hybrid working has certainly meant that people have been working more from, from their, domestic environment. so what we know about hybrid working is that, as I said, it's not new, but it certainly has increased a lot since the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw lots of people having

00:40 - to initially work in their homes kind of in a, in a forced way in order for organizations to continue in that environment. And then since the lockdown measures have been released or have been removed, we've seen people coming back into the office, but not full time. We've seen them certainly taking up more of this kind of hybrid model of working. so in terms of what we know about hybrid working, not only has it increased in general, which we know it has,

01:06 - and we've done some surveys on this, we've also seen that it's increased for particular types of people. So before the pandemic, for example, we used to see very few people in managerial and especially senior management positions and younger people in particular, kind of the, the 16 to 24 age group. They really weren't, working from other locations very often. They probably weren't permitted to

01:29 - especially younger workers. And so, very interestingly, that section of the workforce has, there's been a big change there in how people have been working, from home. And we know a lot about this in terms of how people feel. We've asked them, especially our research particularly was interested in, employees in London. but we do know that this is something that's gone on globally. There's lots of people now working from home

01:54 - or working partly from home in a hybrid way and working partly from the office. and this is something that our, our initial data shows was set to continue, but what we don't know very much about is kind of how employers feel about that. So that was really part of why we started to look at this particular question. What is the employer perspective on, on remote working and particularly hybrid working?

02:16 - So what we did originally, so this not the paper that I'm talking about now, but what we did originally to set this up was that we did quite a large two wave study of London employees. and we, we surveyed 2000 London workers and asked them various things about their working practices and how they felt about that. And then what we wanted to do was kind of triangulate or make sense of some of this data, and get a multi-perspective on this.

02:40 - So we decided the best thing to do would be to talk to employers as well, that were representative of lots of the industries in London. but what we did know from previous research, especially since the pandemic, is that there hasn't really been a lot of attention to the employer's perspective. what we do know is that they have felt, from the research that does exist, they have felt broadly positive.

03:04 - So they've been keen on things like cost savings, for example. And they've noted that there can be benefits both to employers and also to organizations. So we do know that they are quite, or what it seems to be is that they're quite inclined to continue with this kind of working model, but what we dunno so much about is why that is so the justifications for this and how they intend to do that.

03:26 - So we were interested to know, well, what did they really learn during the pandemic that has caused them to have their, intentions going forward regarding this type of working. So that's kinda what we were aiming for, with this study. So what we did was we sampled, a number of senior managers, and we are very lucky. We managed to access some quite diverse, types of senior managers.

03:49 - And we managed to get senior managers from the public sector and from the private sector. and we looked at different industries. So we, we sampled purposefully from, telecommunications, media, legal banking, lots of other ones. I won't list them all, but, a good kind of selection of senior managers. And then what we did was we gave them a qualitative interview, a semi-structured interview, where we asked them lots of questions that were informed

04:14 - by our surveys to get their perspective. 'cause we were really looking also for, you know, perception gaps between their employees and the employers. and then I, I employed a, a kind of grounded theory method to that so that we were able to not only look at, the different perspectives and the different kind of way that, these people ex understood remote working from different perspectives, but also the process by which they'd come to make their conclusions about this type of working,

04:43 - which grounded theory is quite good for. We wanted to know what they're doing, at the current time. So we asked 'em about this and we found that there is a lot of availability of hybrid working. So at the moment, or certainly when we did the study, which isn't, isn't too long ago, employers seem to be providing this to employees. It's something that's continued after the pandemic and

05:06 - after the lockdowns have been lifted. so the availability is wide, that's what we do know, but there are variations in certain aspects. So the extent of remote working is quite varied. There's been lots of experimentation. so I think what we did find was that across the board with seeing that employers are comfortable with hybrid working, but normally they want it to be about two or three days of the week, of the working week.

05:33 - So that's a kind of normal, response from employers. But what we've also seen is that there's quite a lot of variation within that. So for example, some employers might dictate the days that people should come into the office. Some employers are, much more open to being flexible. They consider these days should be floating and employees can decide and they give 'em a bit more autonomy and flexibility over that kind of working.

06:00 - and then within that as well. So we've got this kind of lots of availability, lots of variation in how that availability looks, but then you can add to that the formalization of these kind of agreements. And what we have seen, instead of companies really taking a formal stance on this, creating a a generic policy, we're seeing them, kind of delegate these decisions to senior managers. So there's a lot, that's how they kind

06:26 - of capture the flexibility of the working arrangement by delegating it. But also that explains a lot of the variance in how we're seeing people performing this kind of work. So what's interesting when we consider a steady state, a steady state is definitely what employers seem to be indicating thereafter. And I think that's quite normal for organizations to want to know, well, what's the right thing to do here? Unfortunately, the answer isn't that simple.

06:49 - So what we've seen is that actually a steady state really relates to this idea that within an organization you'll be able to find an optimum kind of two-way flexibility between what your employees need to be doing, for themselves and what they need to be doing for the organization. So unfortunately, it's very hard to prescribe that. You need to kind of understand the contextual factors, the job factors, the personality factors of the people involved,

07:16 - and how those interact with each other. But that will hopefully come around from a kind of almost processual learning, throughout organizations. They have to experiment, they have to get to the point where there's this kind of mutually agreed understanding and that mutually un agreed understanding is really what probably will create the steady state during the pandemic. Senior managers learned an awful lot about lots of things, including themselves, not just about the employees that work for them.

07:43 - I think probably the most interesting, and optimistic thing that we learned is that senior managers in general, regardless of their sector or industry, seem to agree that hybrid working was better than expected. They probably were a bit reticent about it, which would explain why actually remote working wasn't very popular before the forced kind of lockdown situation. and so, you know, lots of people were clearly reticent about

08:09 - using this method of working. Suddenly when all of the, restrictions are removed, it's no longer the manager's fault. If they have to allow people to work from home, it becomes something that they're kind of forced to do. and the risk is almost removed from it being their fault that they're letting people work from home. They realized that operations continued and not only was productivity maintained in many cases, the organization remained a going concern.

08:34 - Also, the people quite liked it in the end. so you had this situation where it could actually have mutual benefits for the employees and the employers, but that was very much predicated on making sure the environment was suitable. So it did require certain things, it required lots of investment, it required open-mindedness, communication, all of that kind of thing. But in general, if we got those factors right,

09:00 - or if they felt they'd done a good job of trying to get those right, they had a kind of generally more optimistic view of how this kind of, working method was being experienced, not just by employees, but by the organization as well. But within that, we did certainly see that certain groups were probably, or had a better experience than other groups. Now, what's interesting about that is that, so for example, at the beginning of the pandemic, we would see that people

09:27 - who are maybe in more senior positions, who have bigger houses, who have lots of resources now they found working from home probably a much more, pleasurable experience than somebody who's stuck at home with small children that they can't put into nursery or they're stuck at home, you know, with lots of distractions and people around them also, people who are living alone, people who living alone could get very isolated from

09:49 - this kind of situation. But what the, what's also interesting is the process. You know, I said earlier we were interested in the process. And what was interesting was that this didn't necessarily remain static. So what we saw were experiences changing and perceptions changing with changing norms and also with changing conditions. So as, the pandemic continued, we saw that childcare was available again, we saw

10:14 - that people were able to go and meet with others and that kind of thing. And so what we ended up finding was that, you know, people who may have been very disadvantaged at the beginning became more advantaged as we went along and vice versa. So we found that people with children, for example, once they didn't have the stress of having those children in their environment and they could then have childcare, they actually appreciated the opportunity to spend more time

10:37 - with those children in a hybrid setting. and we found that, you know, once people had had adjusted and managed their environment, it became easier. On the flip side, we found that people who traditionally had enjoyed the office environment or maybe who had thrived in the office environment traditionally, probably found it slightly more challenging. So they were not getting the kind of in,

11:00 - interaction that they'd been used to. Maybe they were the ones who benefited a lot from FaceTime. They were good at interaction, they were good at impression management that didn't necessarily lend itself. This kind of new hybrid working didn't lend itself to that so well. So it kind of flipped on its head really who were, winners and losers as time went on and norms changed. But what we also know about it is

11:22 - that it helps certain groups of people, maybe more marginalized groups overall. So potentially disabled employees, people who are neurodivergent, maybe they really, appreciated kind of the calm environment, the lack of commuting and that kind of thing. And also, people who, who have having trouble with the, at the moment we know we have a cost of living crisis. It was, it's expensive to commute, especially into cities like London.

11:46 - So they really, appreciated this too. People who wanted to move out of the city, all of that kind of stuff. So we certainly saw a variety of winners and losers. And I think what we can take away from that is that it wasn't necessarily the people who traditionally benefit from the workplace that seem to benefit from this arrangement and vice versa. But what we did learn as well, what employers certainly learned was that while you want

12:08 - to look at the individual and how remote working can benefit or disadvantage them, you also need to consider the workforce as a whole. So while it might be good for certain people to work a alone at home on certain tasks, there is a benefit from a certain level of interaction in the workplace. And we know that from previous research, we know that there is a situation where people will become more satisfied working from home,

12:32 - but that that has a limit. It has kind of an upper limit where actually then it starts to reduce. So it's very, it's a difficult balance that they've learned that they have to find that or they have to, to investigate that. Another thing, I think the final thing I probably mentioned that they learned is that while all, all of this is going on, there's been some kind of subtle normative shifts as well, which have meant

12:53 - that now rather than employees having to kind of justify why they want these flexible working arrangements, it seems more that organizations now have to justify why they can't have them, if they would like them. So there's a kind of subtle power shift there as well. Some of these things, these conditions that I've discussed come along with some inevitable challenges, which, you know, managers are very used to having challenges.

13:16 - one of the things that we found in particular is a difference in some of these perceptions. So I've talked about who the winners and losers are, and I've talked about the power shift. And in particular I've talked about how, you know, there need now needs to be justifications for why people need to come into the office. Now, when that becomes a real issue is when there is a disparity between what somebody thinks is good and what somebody else doesn't think is good, especially if

13:41 - disparity is between the employee, the employees, and the managers, or particular employee groups. So one example of this is younger workers. So across the board we had perceptions, not just in the surveys that we did. Also in this study, and you see this in lots of other studies, remote working is bad for young people. That's what seems to be, you know, the, the understanding that it's not good because they can't network, they don't get the learning,

14:05 - they don't get the informal learning. but it's funny how everybody is very worried about young people except young people. If you ask young people whether they're worried, they're not worried at all. In fact, some of them think that this has improved their prospects, it's improved their life and their wellbeing, and they're actually not very interested in coming back to a normal situation

14:25 - or, you know, the normal five days a week from the office. And part of that probably is due to things like changing career expectations, changing priorities. It, the, the career that they're anticipating is not gonna be the same as the career that maybe you and I anticipated in the past or, you know, our parents or that kind of thing. It's, it's changed a lot. So that's difficult because if, if employers are telling employees it's a good

14:49 - justification for them to come in to improve their, their prospects and young people don't agree with that, they're gonna have an issue on, on, you know, whether that justification is valid. The same applies to females particularly lots of our data shows that it's, they think it's better for females to come into the office and, you know, stop the, potential for having those pervasive social norms, announced on them at home.

15:12 - Women don't tend to agree with that according to our findings. Women tend to feel that it improves their life. So I think overall, one of the issues with these differing perceptions is that it, it doesn't help with the dialogue. So there's one of the challenges is making sure that people are aligned in how they consider, this to be communicated and what the right kind of things are to do.

15:35 - Now another challenge is also if you think we've gone through the pandemic and lots of changes have happened and now we have to decide if we're going back to the office, which ones do we keep and which ones do we get rid of? So how do we as a, an employer decide how to go forward? Now, part of this, is quite simple, okay, maybe we ask people to come back to the office and to lots of people, that seems very simple. It becomes a lot more difficult when you think about how certain practices have become embedded.

16:04 - So it might be that during the pandemic we decided to recruit some more staff. We were having trouble recruiting some more staff because of the, the volatility in the, in the labor market. So we thought, you know, what we'll do is we can, now that we're all remote working, we can get someone from this country or that place or some remote location and it works. And it was done as a kind of temporary measure to make sure that staff, you know, that the,

16:29 - the labor force was sufficient. Now that we've gone back to a situation where now senior managers are contemplating whether the, whether the remote working is the right thing to do, and they might wanna bring people back to create the, the same culture they used to have. Obviously these employees are gonna say, well, you recruited me knowing full well that I lived at a distance and they're not gonna wanna do that.

16:49 - and that's one thing you, you would expect organizations to honor those kind of agreements. But then you get a situation where the original employees look at that situation, say, well, why should, why should I have to come in if you've recruited people that don't have to come in? So you end up with this situation that potentially creates conflict and it creates silos and different sections of the workforce. So that's a challenge for,

17:12 - managers as well to have to deal with. And this also kind of relates to the role of managers. So as I said earlier, sometimes these decisions are delegated to middle management and that can put middle management in a, in quite a difficult position because first of all, they want to be able to create the flexibility. So if you don't wanna have a blanket policy, it takes away their autonomy to manage their staff.

17:35 - But the same time, what that almost does in a more cynical way is to push down those kind of difficult and messy conversations onto middle managers. And some of those, you know, might be quite difficult to have if they're about, employees and needs of a personal nature. If they relate to things like a protected characteristic, which is why they don't feel like they can come into the office, maybe it's not appropriate for sometimes middle managers to have

17:57 - to be dealing with that situation. Another issue for senior managers, a lot of them don't necessarily realize that if you want employees to behave in a certain way, you have to role model that behavior. So many senior managers either have become very keen on remote working 'cause they've realized it's quite suitable for, either confidential tasks or, or highly focused tasks or those kind of things, meetings. So they wanna work maybe from home a bit more than they used

18:25 - to before, but they don't see why their younger employees should not be coming into the office. And that doesn't bode well for that justification about, you know, people should be here if you're not role modeling the right behavior. And then on the flip side, if they want more people, to work from home, but they're coming into the office every day, that also sends the wrong side. So it is just kind of making sure they're getting their behavior aligned is, is another challenge,

18:47 - for senior managers. And then when it comes to management, HR as well have a particular challenge in that they have, they're responsible for looking after both the employees well, wellbeing and interests and also the organizations. So they need to be in a situation where they can create policies that both make the employer attractive and an employer of choice,

19:09 - but also help to establish the kind of consistency and equity, and reliability and steady state that employers want. So they've got some kind of dual challenges as well. finally two very short challenges. We've got what we're seeing, and this is in some more research that we're doing at the moment, we're seeing this still, there's a reluctance to return. So sometimes organizations are saying,

19:31 - right, you need to come back to the office. And employees are simply saying, no, we, we don't feel like doing that. Or we'd actually rather leave than do that. And some, some, occupations in particular have quite a lot of power now anyway, because they're in short supply. We've got lots of skill gaps. So that's a challenge for management. How do we make sure we, we can attract the right staff when

19:51 - we're telling them we want to come in 'cause we want the right culture, and they're flatly saying no, and we don't have that justification under our belt to explain to them why they should be coming in. So that's another issue. And then finally, what do they do with space? So we know that lots of, organizations are using remote working or more hybrid working. What do they do with the offices?

20:11 - Some of these offices, especially in Central London, this is prime real estate, these are very, very expensive offices and they dunno what to do with them in terms of, you know, utilizing them. We've had some interesting strategies. Some people have kind of either gifted them to, to startups that they think are gonna be good stakeholders to their own business later on. Some people have, reduced their offices.

20:31 - I think we saw this with some of the banks, the HSBC, they reduced their offices and put them in a more prime location still. So they took them out of the Docklands and put them into near St. Paul's where tradi traditionally the banking industry was. So you're seeing lots of different strategies with this, but it's certainly an issue, like what does space look like? What is the value of having a central city location now? and that's another thing that they need to think about.

20:53 - So I think probably in a nutshell, those are some of the main challenges that of course, of course there are more than that. We have quite a few of these. I'll just kind of highlight some of the main ones. And I think firstly, what you can't really deny is that this practice seems to be here to stay. We can't predict the future, but what we can pre predict or what we can, what we, what we can demonstrate is that there's certainly been some changes in the way

21:16 - that people think and feel about this type of work. so we would argue that there probably has been some kind of tipping point here. And so we don't know necessarily what that tipping point's gonna look like, but we do know that from both the demand and supply side, hybrid working is probably set here to stay. We also need to be careful in how we consider people view success in this.

21:41 - So we've noticed that people have different experiences and often people tend to project their ideas of success onto other people. So for example, the, the, young people I would, I was talking about earlier, it might not be that they want to rise to all the levels of an organization and achieve this amount of salary. We have to consider, well what does success actually mean for these people? What are they looking for in the workplace?

22:04 - And that's something that maybe we need to spend more time thinking about. We also need to leverage some of the lessons that we've learned when we look at skill gaps. So one of the concerns was, you know, we've got some skill gaps. That's probably why we've been giving people these different types of contracts that maybe now are hard to, to come back on. but then on the plus side, we've realized that this kind

22:25 - of working can really support some of the more marginalized members of society. So there's loads of untapped potential in certain un underemployed groups such as the disabled workforce, such as know, you know, women or people from different ethnic backgrounds. Maybe this is one way of making the workforce more inclusive. So, and using those skills to, to make, you know, contributions to the economy in general.

22:50 - So that's something that we need to consider as well. Focusing on more communication is important to make sure we are trying to align those perceptions of, you know, what is a reasonable justification for coming into the office. if you don't do that, you can end up in a situation where your employees end up annoyed. So for example, just as a, just by means of illustrating that one of the justifications that organizations seem to want to give employees is that you should come back in

23:17 - because it's better for you. We found out that actually it's gonna be better for you. Now given that after the pandemic, lots of people, reflected a lot on what they wanted out of work. We had this idea of the great resignation. Lots of people left their jobs and certainly organizations haven't really been restricting org employees coming into the office, they've only been, restricting them or they're trying to restrict them not coming in enough.

23:41 - So if you say to people, we, you, you know, you should come in and it's for your own wellbeing, That almost implies that their employees don't know what's good for them. They already have a choice and they've decided what's good for them. And so that could rub people up the wrong way if you start telling 'em that's why it is, it's probably a lot more beneficial to explain to the employee, you know, in a, in a more mature way,

24:00 - this is what the organization needs. We know that you can maintain your productivity, from a remote location, but actually as an organization we, we like collective productivity as well. And maybe kind of explaining that that's why you want people to come in. And I think finally what we need to consider is what are the effects that this kind of work could have on the wider society?

24:21 - How is that gonna change things like the makeup of cities? How is it gonna change how people interact with their local communities if they're spending more time, not commuting and spending time kind of at home? So that's just a variety of implications that this, some of this research might have. And obviously there's a long way to go in trying to fi figure out what the world is gonna look like, but I think probably it's a reasonable start for understanding some of these issues.

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