Hybrid Working: White Paper

A new white paper by WM People, sponsored by Roche and based on a roundtable discussion among employers, highlights some of the debates surrounding hybrid working, and some of the ways employers can move towards the more effective implementation of a hybrid working culture.

The roundtable took place in late May and involved employers from a wide range of sectors. Keynote speakers were Jane Sparrow from The Culture Builders and Andy Lake, editor of Flexibility.co.uk.

Sparrow said policy on its own is not enough to create more effective ways of working, yet culture is often ignored.  She said culture is based on what we believe as an organisation, for instance, how people behave in the organisation, how those beliefs and behaviours align with the organisation’s policies and a common understanding about flexible working.

Her organisation, The Culture Builders, has been focusing on wellbeing issues related to hybrid working. The aim is to get teams to own how they work on their wellbeing, which they see as the key to getting the most from hybrid working. It has developed a new app that helps to encourage collaboration around wellbeing, encouraging people to do things differently and measuring the impact on wellbeing.

Lake spoke of the difference between inflexible and flexible approaches to flexible working. He added that flexible working done well can be transformative, but often the transformative element is lost as employers fail to have a fully integrated vision of the future of working, which also embraces technological change.

Employer’s experiences

Roche kicked off the discussion among employers by talking about their own experience of rolling out their “How we roll” programme during the Covid lockdowns  – which focuses on ensuring greater consistency in flexible working practices across the organisation.

The discussion among employers embraced a range of issues from visibility for remote workers to questions about what the office is for. The challenges in different sectors as well as among different sections of the workforce, such as new starters, were debated and experiences of what works best shared. The white paper, which is free to download ends with some key takeaways from the discussion.

To receive your copy of the white paper, in PDF format, complete the form below.

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