Shift to hybrid work models has seen productivity-based KPIs replaced by broader performance matrix, says Australian academic
A vanguard of large employers has ruled the hybrid work regime is dead, among them retail giant Amazon, betting firm Tabcorp and the New South Wales public service.
The option to clock hours from home, a must-have for many during the pandemic, is still a favourite with 37% of Australian workers, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data from December 2023.
But organisations may be nearing a tipping point, and if more big employers change course, will the rest follow quickly?
Hybrid work and employer productivity
Herman Tse, an associate professor in the department of management at Monash Business School, has seen significant evidence that performance does not suffer if employees work from home.
That doesn’t mean it works for every company. Nike has reduced hybrid work because it found lower levels of collaboration lead to leaner creative output.
“For creative work, innovative work, they need people interacting with one another,” Tse said.
Stay-at-home work makes it almost impossible for skills to be honed via social learning, where workers learn by observing the successes or failures of their peers.
“[At the office], you can learn from your co-workers and from your boss easily by observation, but [at home] you can’t – you can only depend on your supervisor to give you direction,” he said.
Others may simply need structure and direction. For them, at least three to four days in the office is needed for instructions and direction from the boss to sink in.
Work from home different for extroverts, introverts
Hybrid practices that allow workmates to decide whether or not they want to mingle could lead to a future where introverts and extroverts part ways. Hybrid work might suit introverts, Tse said, if they can work independently without disruption.
“The flexibility will allow them to focus deeply in a quieter environment, and the same goes for autonomous workers who are self-motivated and very disciplined,” he said. “They can also enjoy the flexibility in how to structure their tasks according to their own preferences.”
Extroverts at home are more likely to feel as though they are walking in space, Tse said.
“They enjoy in-person interactions. If they miss out on the spontaneous, collaborative energy of the office, they may find that quite difficult.”
Employee engagement in a hybrid world
The shift to hybrid work models has seen productivity-based KPIs replaced by a broader performance matrix, Tse said.
Where a worker efficiency model mainly would focus on performance reviews, completion rates or deadlines, managers today are also watching employees’ use of collaboration and communication tools, absenteeism, turnover and customer feedback.
“Many companies have expanded the KPIs to include more dimensions. If employees don’t feel satisfied with their job, if they don’t feel motivated, that is a part of the [assessment] matrix,” he said.
“We can’t just focus on the performance. If the employees are not happy, if they don’t think the organisation is flexible in allowing work from home or hybrid practices, they may look for another company to work for. That’s why these indicators are important.”
For employers, the data can show where they can offer flexibility to achieve commercial targets, Tse said. “That has been a major change in expanding the performance indicators.”
Worker wellbeing at home and at work
An employee engagement indicator will also pick up when things are going wrong.
“Some employees may feel isolated — they can’t collaborate, they feel lonely — this is called workplace loneliness.”
Tse has noticed a trend for companies to expand employee surveys to ask about their feelings about working from home and how it affects engagement and job satisfaction.
“It’s like a diagnostic tool, so a company can decide whether it needs to do something more,” he said.
Flexible arrangements can also suit a worker who wants to knuckle down on a project at home for a couple of weeks and then return to the office for a collaborative stretch. For those whose work is a little more routine, Tse has noticed a trend for managers to keep tabs face-to-face another way.
“Some managers are doing more informal types of mentoring,” he said. “Instead of a one-on-one conversation in a meeting room in the office, maybe they can find a coffee shop convenient to both of them. It’s a bit more informal; it shows a human touch.”
Managing hybrid workers
Spare a thought for supervisors, who might have the hardest task of all managing people via Teams calls without real human interaction. They might need to be in the office every day, to match employees’ random schedules, or fly from café to café for coffee catch-ups.
Hybrid can work, so long as a company’s culture and structure can adapt. It takes clear communication, investment in IT systems and flexibility to allow supervisors to interact with employees outside work hours or outside the workplace if there is to be any hope of mentoring.
“Most employees continue to love a flexible arrangement,” Tse said. “As long as they are able to finish their work, and provide a high quality of work, they think they are entitled to enjoy that flexibility.”
Without a line of sight to workers, employers will find it very hard to know if they are working other part-time jobs. “It is really hard for a principal organisation to find out [if an employee is working elsewhere],” he said.
But if the employer comes down hard on moonlighting, it may make the situation worse, Tse said.
“The worker might just look for another company that will give them more flexibility to [work a second job], because they may need the extra income to support a family.”
