Ensuring that companies and organizations have a nuanced attitude to hybrid work is becoming more and more relevant. When corona ravaged at its worst, it was an absolute necessity for many (but not possible for everyone) – and at the back of the pandemic, the “phenomenon” of hybrid work is still on everyone’s lips: To what extent is it a good idea to have hybrid workplaces ? And how do we make it work?
This is something that Mark Mortensen, who is a professor at INSEAD in France and an expert in management, organizational behavior and team collaboration, has a lot of knowledge about. Through his extensive research, the INSEAD professor has helped virtual and distributed teams create the foundation for the best possible organizational collaboration. Research and work that has been going on for the past 20-25 years.
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Front and back of the medal
According to Mark Mortensen, there are a large number of both positive and negative consequences of hybrid work – for both the organization as a whole and for the individual employee.
– If we look at the positive consequences for the individual, the advantage is largely related to control and flexibility. If you feel that you are in control, you are able to achieve a better balance between job demands and consideration for family and free time. It undoubtedly gives greater satisfaction and greater joy, both at work and privately, he says and adds:
– On an organizational level, the overall positive effect is that you as a company become better at attracting and retaining talent. Firstly, it is about employees finding it attractive to work in the company because they gain control and flexibility – and this is of course something that contributes positively to the company’s recruitment. In addition, the flexibility contributes to the company being able to attract even more talent, because there is no requirement for physical presence. In other words, they get a larger geographical area to recruit from.
Unfortunately, the medal also has a flip side. Or rather: a series of back pages.
– The biggest cost on an individual level clearly relates to losing physical social contact with other people. If you have a challenge where you need help or support from colleagues, it is more difficult when the physical presence is absent. Less social contact also has a close connection with development and learning, so also on this parameter, you will experience challenges. And precisely this negative consequence of hybrid work is also a problem at an organizational level. Trust is also an element that is very important for both individuals and organizations, and when we spend less time together, it is harder to build and maintain trust. So great things happen when we meet at the coffee machine. We share information and we learn from each other, and it is therefore undoubtedly also the biggest “cost” for the company when physical contact is in short supply. We tend to underestimate the effect of how important the social networks and structures are, says the INSEAD professor.
Communication is the key word
Mark Mortensen points out that one of the main problems with hybrid work is that there is not “equality for all”. Not all job functions can actually function in a hybrid context.
– I believe that in the whole discussion about hybrid work, a particularly important element has been forgotten. Only about a third of all work can be done this way, and that’s not going to change in the future either. Take, for example, the nurse, the cleaning worker, the handyman, the driver or the sales assistant in a shop. A large part of the workforce cannot actually work hybridly at all. They must be physically present. And here comes another cost – for the individual and the organisation: it can be perceived as unfair for the employees who are not allowed to work hybrid, and it can feel unfair that others are allowed. Even if the employees rationally know that it is not possible to work hybrid, this does not change the feeling of injustice. It is therefore also a challenge that the management must deal with.
He also has a clear message regarding the types of companies for which hybrid work works “best” or “worst”.
– Basically, it is much less about the individual company or organisation, but to a much greater extent about the type of work, i.e. the task itself. Some tasks lend themselves to being carried out hybridly – for example posting attachments or writing an article. But if the task involves getting new ideas and thoughts, for example in relation to innovation work, then we know that this requires a much greater degree of physical social interaction with others. It is therefore much more about understanding which tasks are suitable to be carried out via hybrid work – and which are not.
What is the best advice that you as a manager can take with you in order to make hybrid work work as best as possible?
– Unfortunately, there is no “how-to-do-it-guide” that tells you in detail how to make it work as best as possible. From my perspective, it is largely about the fact that we need much more dialogue on the subject. Hybrid work is a trade-off with positive and negative consequences for both the individual and the organisation. The best thing management can do is sit down with its employees, put the cards on the table and discuss how they can find the best solutions together. Communication is the key word, concludes Mark Mortensen.
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Hybrid work in Inventura
A Norwegian company that scores highly on the “hybrid barometer” is Inventura – a competence house that is a leader in improving procurement-driven value chains. The consultancy provides strategic, operational and regulatory advice to customers in all industries in both the private and public sectors.
– In rough figures, I would say that somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of all employees work daily from somewhere other than from one of our three offices in Norway, says Trond Slethaug, CEO of Inventura.
The company has put “everything” in place for the hybrid work to function as smoothly as possible. This includes, among other things, that all information and all documents are cloud-based, and that you can therefore work on your tasks “where you want and when you want”.
– The very fundamental thing with us is that we have a trust-based management, and this implies that we give the individual employee a lot of freedom, but also a lot of responsibility. At the same time, we aim for each individual team to decide together whether to work digitally or physically together. For example, if you have innovation tasks that require you to physically sit together, then that is what you do.
– Hybrid work is about so much more than “where you work” and whether you work at home one day a month or two days each week. The term must be understood in an expanded and more holistic context. Hybrid working can, for example, mean that you work shift work, that you are a contract employee, that you are a consultant out with a customer, that you work at home versus in the office, that some meet early and others late, or that you work elsewhere in the world and thus in a different time zone than your colleagues. In other words, hybrid work is a spectrum with many dimensions. The essence of hybrid work is that it represents an environment where people work in different environments at different times and thus experience the work in different ways.
Trond Slethaug agrees with Mark Mortensen’s perspectives that the biggest challenge relates to the lack of daily social contact for those who work hybridly.
– To accommodate this, we firstly have several mentors and personnel managers who follow up each individual employee digitally to hear how things are going, and who also regularly call these to physical meetings. In addition, we have set up a “social committee” at each physical office, which is set up to cultivate the community. Several social happenings and gatherings are organized here outside working hours. It can be joint training, walks together or cultural experiences, says Trond Slethaug.
Trond Slethaug is convinced that the hybrid model fits well at Inventura – something that is also closely related to the fact that approximately 95 percent of the company’s employees are consultants.
– The hybrid model provides a flexibility that many of our employees demand with a view to a good balance between work and free time. And in relation to the tasks we have, this model is mainly positive for us. But it requires follow-up, so that employees are neither forgotten nor can hide. They must be involved and invited in. And then we have outsourced all the job functions, e.g. canteen and reception, which require physical presence, he says and concludes:
– Good psychological security is incredibly important. That you talk openly together and ensure good communication – and it goes both ways. When I talk to my employees about hybrid work, I usually show a slide with the number six – which if you turn it over, it shows the number nine. The moral is: Two people look at the same number, yet see two very different numbers. So we can’t just assume that we understand each other – we also have to talk about it and explain things to each other. So I completely agree with Mark Mortensen: Good communication is undoubtedly the key word in hybrid work.
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