New data shows a shocking disconnect between employee expectations and business action plans
Hybrid or flexible work in a post-pandemic world has become one of the most, if not the most, called-for benefit from employees. Flexible work is widely viewed as a way to achieve a healthy relationship between work and personal life, and employers who offer flexible working are attracting far more job candidates than those who aren’t. In this experimental phase of hybrid work, as companies design and develop new ways of working, cracks are beginning to appear between what employees and employers expect.
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In 2023, the majority of companies will require employees to return to the office for at least part of the week, according to a report from Resume Builder. A fifth of those organisations say they may fire workers who do not comply. For companies currently functioning under a hybrid work policy, 77% said that policy will change in the next year. Forty per cent said they will require workers to come in four days a week. So, what does this mean for Australian businesses in 2023?
Jon Williams, previous people and organisation partner at PwC, points to the trend in office occupancy rates as a future indicator of employer action.
“The data says that average office occupancy rates are now close to or over 60% in all capital city CBDs with the exception of Melbourne,” Williams says. “Traffic would seem to back this up. These numbers stalled a bit during the Omicron wave but have generally been trending upwards and are likely to continue to do so for a while yet.”
At the same time, employers are experiencing chronic staffing shortages in many jobs and industries. Leaders have been mostly happy to accept the gradual rise in attendance and overlook those who are resistant to coming back – at risk of triggering turnover, says Williams.
“Typically, organisations are requiring people to be in either 50:50 or three days out of five … but obviously some people come in more than that minimum due to personal choice or the nature of their role. The upshot is that for many organisations and jobs, we are likely to get to a three to four days in the week average. But as the job market eases, those who have been opting out are likely to face more pressure to return to the office, to be consistent with their colleagues,” Williams says.
In Microsoft’s Annual Work Trends Index, one worrying piece of data resonates. More than half of managers (54%) feel leadership at their company is out of touch with employee expectations. Jane Mackarell, modern work and surface business group lead at Microsoft, says employees are rejecting a return to the “hustle culture” that has caused them so much mental anxiety in the past. Workers have embraced flexible working and are making it work for them. Managers, however, still crave the familiarity of the traditional office where brainstorming happened in person and hallway conversations led to unexpected ideas and collaboration.
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“Leaders and managers used to rely on the visibility of the office to get a sense of organisational productivity. It was certainly a shift that we were thrown into [by the pandemic] where leaders needed to get a measure on productivity in a different way, so it’s not really a surprise that there is now this disconnect,” Mackarell says.
If senior management can’t work out a new way for getting a sense of productivity and embracing hybrid work, the unpredictable economic climate and incredibly tight talent pool will mean that disconnect is only going to grow wider, she warns.
It would be a mistake to think of hybrid work as simply replicating the “old way of work” in digital form, Mackarell says.
“It is about redesigning and redefining productivity and how leaders view productivity.
We aren’t going back to the same office culture we had in 2019 – if organisations try to force it, they will lose out in the fight to keep and attract good talent. It should be around providing clarity on what work is most important and listening to what employees need to make the biggest impact,” she says.
Caren Schadel, chief people officer at Ramsay Health, says that for many industries working remotely has been normal for decades. While research consistently identifies the desire for flexibility at work, other factors combine for employee satisfaction and wellbeing.
“The importance of aligning personal values and purpose with the purpose of the organisations we work for is significant. When organisations take this approach for their people and the work they do, decisions around hybrid, remote, in the office or in the ward become secondary,” Schadel says.
Williams believes that we are still in the middle of a great big experiment when it comes to flexible work.
“I think we are unlikely to go all the way back to where we were before, but we are likely to be back in the office more than we are currently,” he says. ”Where we land exactly will depend at the macro level as much on economics and the labour market as on COVID, and at the company level on the capability of leaders to manage ambiguity and the extent to which organisations adhere to their values and build trust with their people.”
