How to fix your hybrid work mess

Hello and welcome to Working It.

Last week I walked into a huge room full of people. . . and realized I didn’t know anyone. Absolute social anxiety 😰.

This was a drinks party for alumni of my university (St Catherine’s, Oxford), and although I met a few near-contemporaries, who were charming, I also got to talk to new people.

I waylaid a friendly-looking stranger, Alice Sheldon. And then got into a fascinating conversation, rather than a superficial networking conversation, about her innovative work. I will write more about it in a next newsletter. Sometimes the scary unknown can bring coincidental connections 🍀.

Read on for the latest news about the future of hybrid and flexible working from an expert in this field (not myself) and at Office Therapy I advise someone with a team member with low energy.

Flex your hybrid: what is the latest view on work?

Last week’s newsletter about the need for a “4+2+2” balance in our working days (four hours of focus time + two hours of collaboration time + two hours of rest and connection time) prompted me to delve deeper into how and where we work . In concrete terms: what is the state of play in the RTO/hybrid/WFH debate? What trends are looming? (And will these acronyms ever end? 🤷‍♀️)

I took some time out this week at the FT’s Women in Business Summit to ask one of our speakers about this. Brian Elliott, formerly of Slack and Google, is now a leadership consultant and co-author of the bestseller How the future works: Leading agile teams to do the best work of their lives. I asked him to describe the most common workplace problem he encounters with clients, and more generally in the American work environment (he lives in San Francisco).

“People are taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach,” he told me about where and when the staff works. By this, Brian is referring to the common practice of employers requiring staff to be in the office on certain days, usually Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 📆: a pattern that has come to define hybrid work. “This is causing a lot of resistance,” he continued. Instead, Brian asks leaders to look beyond their annoyance at the non-compliance of the people who stay away – and look deeper. “Let’s not focus on the possible solution, which is to get people back to the office more often. We’ve already seen that this causes people to react negatively to you. Instead, let’s look at the underlying business problem we’re trying to solve.”

So if your company is struggling with non-compliance around office attendance, one response might be to distract senior leaders from investigating the lack of occupied seats and the associated concerns that people are at home ‘four hours a day’. walking the dog’. 🐕” (a real concern).

Instead, you can suggest refining and defining clear output and performance-oriented objectives for everyone, at individual and team levels, as well as for the entire organization. “Trust is not a one-way street. It only works if you hold people accountable for performance and you need to know what your performance standards are. You all have to know what the top three priorities are as an organization.”

That doesn’t mean we don’t have to spend time with colleagues. Far from it. The next phase of hybrid is already happening: some companies are spending money internally on hiring corporate party planners (and this is my definition, not Brian’s) 🎊. He cites the example of the American online real estate agency Zillow, which has reduced the number of offices so that more people can work remotely on a larger scale. But it “now funds meetings for teams on a minimum quarterly basis. They have a central team that helps organize these things.”

In this scenario, Zillow will bring together different teams – for example the finance and human resources departments – and offer them a three-day agenda with a mix of individual and collaborative sessions. “It really creates a deeper sense of connection,” Brian said.

Have you cracked hybrid work? Email me: isabel.berwick@ft.com.

This week on the Working It podcast

If you’re overwhelmed by AI, we’ve got the answer: Working It has a miniseries exploring different aspects of generative AI at work, and how it’s likely to impact us. This week’s episode is the first of three on this topic, and we start by talking about something that’s already happening: digital assistants. Do you ever wish it was just the two of you doing your job?

Some people program themselves into digital twins that can answer emails, go to meetings, and remember all the data you’ll ever need. I talk to Iliana Oris Valiente, Accenture’s Managing Director for Canada, and her digital twin brother Laila. Then I speak to the FT’s AI editor, Madhumita Murgia, about some of the big questions and concerns.

Office therapy

The problem: What to do with a colleague who is competent, but has zero energy and doesn’t really communicate with each other? They have worked in the organization for years, and it has always been that way: we just went through a reorganization and they joined our team. While not miserable or pessimistic, they operate in a languid bubble. We end up finishing their sentences🥱. Their vision affects us all.

Isabel’s advice: This is such a nuanced issue because you’re saying their performance is fine, so you don’t have to address anything concrete. In your next conversation, mention that you noticed they’ve been quiet.

No one should be forced to give out personal information – and if this team member doesn’t want to, I’d chalk it up to “everyone has something going on” and make it clear that you’re always available for a chat, highlighting the resources available your employer offers for confidential support, etc.

Then focus on building morale. It’s summer: how about an event, such as a walking tour, open-air theater/performance or cooking class? Preferably something where the emphasis is clearly on the activity, rather than just socializing, which is what boisterous extroverts prefer. Organized fun can be difficult and alienating, but as long as you practice inclusivity – in the real sense of the word, i.e. inclusive everyone – then you have made a positive intervention.

Five top stories from the working world

1. Silent layoffs are rarely as quiet as bosses hope: PwC asked employees accepting a takeover to use approved language in emails announcing their departure – and it backfired. Andrew Hill explores better ways.

2. Meetings in the Metaverse: New Technology Draws Employees to Virtual Offices: The metaverse hype has fizzled, but as Hannah Murphy points out, there’s still a lot of virtual workplace activity going on. Don’t write it off.

3. If staff no longer want to work, leaders must take action: The staff is disappointed and disengaged. Stefan Stern outlines some ways business leaders and managers can get it right.

4. The fading appeal of foreign mail: Working abroad used to be a coveted adventure, but as Pilita Clark notes, the rise of both dual-career couples and the technology that makes it easy to work with global teams has reduced demand for these jobs.

5. Employers are trying to ease the pressure of fertility treatments on staff: It used to be very difficult to get time off for IVF and other fertility appointments – that is rapidly changing as employers start to introduce more flexibility and benefits, writes Emily Herbert.

One more thing

Have you seen the FT’s video series on democracy? The assignment was for 2024, this strange year in which almost half of the world goes to the polls. (France just joined us 🇫🇷.)

In the videos, four famous women – including Margaret Atwood, the novelist, and (my favorite) Aditi Mittal, an Indian comedian and actor – discuss the importance of democracy and the threats it faces. The project, created by the FT’s head of new formats, Juliet Riddell, has taken on a life of its own: it inspired a fantastic live event last week, part of the London International Festival of Theater (LIFT). And there is also a book: Eleven writers and leaders about democracy: What it is and why it matters.

And finally . . .

I met many readers at FT Live’s Women in Business Summit in London, where a lively panel on flexible work (and its potential downsides for women) included insights from Microsoft’s Colette Stallbaumer. Co-founder of the company’s WorkLab and Managing Director of Copilot, the AI ​​chatbot, she reminded us that generative AI will transform everything in knowledge work, flexible or otherwise. (I’ll take this opportunity to reiterate this useful study from Microsoft and LinkedIn, which outlines the current state of AI.)

It struck me that AI can also reshape the focus of every panel and keynote that takes place at workplace events like the FT Summit. Perhaps in the future we will have very different looking conferences. (Sorry, conference planners). However, I don’t think the bots will replace real panelists 🤖. Feel free to disagree: isabel.berwick@ft.com.