Adapting to Hybrid Working Practices
Adapting to Hybrid Working Practices
At the recent Owen James Meeting of Minds event for Wealth Management CEOs and CIOs I facilitated a session which explored ‘The organisational changes shaping modern workplaces’. It was a really interesting discussion hosted by Goldman Sachs, which confirmed that hybrid working is now the most common working practice but how this works in practice at local level is still evolving.
As we all know, the traditional working behaviours changed overnight in March 2020 with the pandemic, leading to a flood of revised working practices and policies as we re-emerged from lockdown. 2-3 years years down the line job candidates are considering both the role and the working environments between firms in a competitive market compounded by labour shortages and increased cost of living.
Typically at the high-level, hybrid working firms require people to be in the office 2-3 days per week, although in some instances peak attendance Tuesdays to Thursdays is putting a strain on downsized office space (Thursday is the new Friday in the City!). At local level however the picture is more complex as it’s acknowledged not all teams will work the same. For example, sales teams traditionally operate remotely, but an operational team within the same firm may need to be hybrid or even full time in the office to be fully productive. Managers of hybrid-working firms are increasingly focusing at how best to bring teams and people physically together on a regular basis to support both new starters and existing employees and our discussion at the Owen James event covered some great and innovative ideas.
Similarly, running Projects for hybrid firms has seen a change to Project Delivery methods. For example, over the past few months I’ve been implementing new technology including an integration build for an Adviser firm. Pre-pandemic User Acceptance Testing (UAT) would usually bring the Testers physically together (often within a ‘Model Office’ environment). In this hybrid working firm, the Testers were scattered across the country between the office and home and as usual, undertaking the testing on top of their day jobs, so the challenge was how to complete the UAT in an effective manner across the different working locations.
For the first phase, the testing was expected to be lightweight so users tested individually and reported back through meetings and emails. However working remotely and individually led to issue resolution and communication taking much longer than expected which started to impact the planned timelines.
Reflecting on Phase 1, the approach for Phase 2 was changed to group online testing, mimicking the physical office environment where everyone could test, discuss issues and provide possible solutions in real time. This approach worked really well as it encouraged collective discussion and support, saved endless emails and most importantly, reduced the final number of issues raised. It also focused the testers time to dedicated time slots so they could continue with their day jobs without interruption. The end result, a Project delivered to time with the issues resolved in a timely manner.
Ultimately, there’s no silver bullet to the hybrid solution and each firm needs to find the best working patterns and cultural solution for them. This needs to be reflected at the local level to support productivity and community across the different mediums. Adaption is ongoing for everyone, but whatever the problem and subsequent solution, communication, innovation and collaboration are the keys to success.
Helen runs operational and change management projects to support growing and / or changing businesses, tailored to requirements. For more information please contact [email protected].