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For lots of SME business owners, the new environment of hybrid working and having your employees in and out of the workplace is not always a positive consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
You miss the work community you’re proud of creating and you’d like it back.
But many employees have got used to hybrid working and it suits them personally and professionally. So how do you go about bringing workers into the office more without coming across like the big bullying boss who wants to take away their freedoms?
We spoke to employment and legal experts on the benefits of working remotely versus in the office, things employers should consider if they want team members back in the workplace more, and how some larger Kiwi organisations are handling hybrid work.
Legal considerations for employers
Employers can legally request employees return to the workplace, based on the location of work written in the employment agreement. Employees also have the right to request flexible working arrangements under the Employment Relations Act.
Employment lawyer Hamish Kynaston, partner at Buddle Findlay, says from a legal perspective, employers should consider the provisions in the Act.
“Even if there isn’t an ‘official’ flexible working arrangement in place or requested, it would be prudent for an employer who wishes to change or decline working from home arrangements, to align their reasons with the reasons for doing so, set out in the Act,” he says.
Employers can change the practice of flexible working but need to think about how to do that and ask if it is justifiable, says Hamish.
“An employer might say, for example, that a team atmosphere is important, they’re not able to manage or support employees adequately at home, to train them or ensure they’re productive,” he suggests.
An employer doesn’t have to prove their reasons for asking people to come in more “forensically”, but if they’re relying on a particular reason to bring staff in more, then it needs to be sound.
“The employer could say: ‘This practice of flexible working is causing issues from my perspective, so I would like people to come in a minimum of four days a week for these reasons. I’m happy to discuss this with employees individually and collectively and I’d like this change to be in place by a certain date.”
You need to allow a reasonable time frame because some people will have built their lives around the current flexible working arrangement.
And when going through the consultation, there needs to be genuine engagement with employees, explaining your reasons, hearing from employees and responding to their feedback, questions and concerns, the employment law expert says.
Is flexible working right for your business?
Rich Poole, from CO-PILOT Executive Coaching, works with a lot of small businesses and says the feeling is that business owners would prefer people back in the office all the time, for company culture and productivity reasons.
“At the end of the day, it ultimately comes down to profitability for the business owner, but also that element of community that you have when everyone is in,” he says.
Tim Malcolm, People and Capability Lead from HR consultancy Intepeople, says company boards are also starting to ask if having staff working flexibly is best for the business.
Flexible working suits well if a company has a policy in place, Tim says. Where it fails is when the business doesn’t understand how to work with employees and get the best out of them at work and home.
There are some downsides to hybrid working. Tim has seen younger employees falling behind because they don’t have the mentorship from senior staff, to be able to turn around and ask for help.
The mood about flexible working is changing, adds the HR expert. For organisations succeeding with flexible working, fine, but if it’s not working, they’re reviewing policy.
If you get pushback from employees on coming in more, you should switch the narrative, suggests Tim, and say something like: “We’re a team, it’s not about what one individual does, and we can achieve much more if we’re all here.”
Meanwhile, if you want to insist on people coming back in more, as an employer you have to decide what’s your really strong reason for being heavy-handed, Tim says. While you might be able to get away with a tough stance on bringing people back into the workplace more in the current job market, if you want to be the organisation of choice in the future, is this the right approach?
How are larger companies managing flexible working?
Large Kiwi businesses tend to have more roles where employees can work remotely, so they’re more inclined to support and sustain flexible working, says Tim Malcolm.
Connectivity company, One NZ (formerly Vodafone NZ), has 3000 employees and its Chief People Officer, Jodie King, says they’ve always had a hybrid way of working so working from home during COVID was pretty easy to adapt to.
The company has found that for most parts of the business, three days in the office is about right from a productivity and culture point of view. Team leaders decide with their staff the best anchor days in the office.
“I’ve never been a fan of 100% remote working because it doesn’t allow for collaboration, for building a culture, being coached, learning skills on the job, working with colleagues, having fun, and getting energy from the social interaction that happens at work,” says Jodie.
In January this year, some of the 115 One NZ contact centre employees, represented by Unite Union, protested the company asking employees to go from two days to three days in the office, by working from home for a number of days.
A One NZ spokesperson told MyHR the company started negotiations with the Unite Union in October last year for a new collective employment agreement. This involved good faith bargaining and a very fair and competitive salary offer, including health insurance for the employees and their immediate families.
“We’ve also worked closely with all employees around the change from two days to three days in the office and provided almost a year now of transition time. To put this action into context, during their last work from home strike we saw approximately 15 people observing the strike which is well under 1% of our workforce,” the spokesperson said.
Jodie stresses that at the end of the day, the work arrangement at One NZ has to work for their customers first.
“We’re very clear with people: if it can work for the customers, for One NZ, work for the team, and them individually, then that’s the magic. As a leader, it’s about how to help people be their best at work.”
With hybrid working, One NZ had found that the North Shore HQ on Fridays wasn’t very busy, so they’ve done things to stimulate people coming in, like offering free car parking on that day. They’ve also tried to curate workplace experiences, such as having teams get together on a Thursday evening at the office.
At the company’s recent first anniversary as One NZ, everyone came in and heard the CFO and CEO speak, and the buzz was palpable, says Jodie.
“We’ve spent time thinking about how to generate that buzz (again), making sure we’re really communicating with employees. And that leaders are visible as a way of encouraging people to come in,” she says.
A lot of leaders want to be visible but it doesn’t mean being in the office from 8 am to 6 pm. It might just be for five hours each day over five days and then working from home or with customers.”
Is flexible working a benefit your staff have to earn?
In the case of finance company UDC, it offers hybrid working of three days in and two days from home to its 280 full-time employees. But the message is clear that flexible working is a benefit that can be taken away.
“If anyone needs to improve their work, then they can’t work from home, it’s the first privilege they lose,” says Heather Elliott, GM of Human Resources. And when they start at the company they come in every day for the first three months.
If the company made it mandatory for people to be in the office four days a week, it would decrease its competitive advantage, she says.
UDC conducts “stay interviews,” (the opposite of exit interviews) with long-serving high performers and they have found their top talent would like the company less if the work arrangement changed to four days in the office.
Although if they felt the culture and engagement were diminishing and they weren’t as productive, they’d accept it, Heather says.
Watch out for your employer brand
Stamping your foot and insisting everyone comes back into the workplace full-time may hurt your employment brand.
Izzy Fenwick, founder of new jobs platform and employer marketplace, Futureful, queries what outcomes employers are expecting if they bring people in once more.
“If you want to increase collaboration and productivity, have people come in on certain days rather than take a blanket approach,” she says.
“Are people more productive in the office? I’m significantly more distracted when in the office. I’m able to build connections and have a laugh and morale is high, but am I doing as much work as if I were at home? No.”
If you do bring people back into the workplace and they change their lives around to manage this, then you have to offer something in return, she advises.
If the commute is a barrier, she knows of companies in Auckland who offer staff a shuttle bus into the office to save them navigating buses and parking in the city.
Or you might allow people to arrive later or leave earlier so they’re not spending time in peak hour traffic with families to get home to.
“It’s about telling employees you value them enough to think of solutions,” Izzy says.
She advocates a human-centred approach to this new world of work.
“If the rest of the world is adapting to a new way of working, and you want to go back to the old ways of working, you’re going to seem less modern and adaptable to a changing workforce. Is that what you want from your employer brand?”
Productivity impacts of returning to the office
Of course, productivity may go down if you bring all your people back into the workplace.
DivergenThinking registered psychologist, Anton Ashcroft helps organisations embrace a workforce with neurodiverse people and has a patient, “Mark” who finds his workplace over-stimulating, benefiting from time at home to recharge.
When COVID happened, and he was working from home, Mark was able to be more autonomous and plan his own time. The result was his productivity shot through the roof, says Anton.
He's now been told he must be back in the office four days a week and that isn’t good for his brain, says the psychologist.
“If employers are thinking about taking away work flexibility, they’re missing a trick. Certain brains work that much better when working in isolation,” says Anton.
“If an employer argues the productivity isn’t as good, when everyone’s not in the office, I don’t think it washes,” says the psychologist. “It’s more about power, control, and influence than output most of the time.”
The question shouldn’t be, do we allow flexible working, it’s what does each person need? How can we help them work to their best ability, says Anton.
“We’re at a stage where the rate of social change is higher than we’ve ever had in the existence of humankind. If you try to do what you’ve always done, you’ll probably get stuck.”
Businesses will need all the help their neurodiverse employees can offer, he argues.
