Companies are starting to declare homeworking the “new norm”

The announcement from Mark Zuckerberg expecting around half of the Facebook workforce to work from home permanently has got me thinking … With Spotify, Twitter and others already promising similar arrangements, will this commitment to homeworking continue to gain traction beyond 2020 and become normal, rather than a perk or a stopgap measure in times of crisis?

Many companies are alluding to this as a possible long term solution and on face value it certainly makes sense.… it could help to kick start the economy, take away the concerns that many may have about safely returning to work, and there are obvious cost benefits for the organisations themselves. But is it the right thing to do? Does “normal” even exists anymore and, if not, how do we find an equilibrium without it having a detrimental impact on an organisation’s ability to function effectively

Journalist Rob Walker, in a recent article for Marker, wrote how organisations are “now confronting the highly complicated process of “reopening.” ….and it turns out that it’s even harder than the decision to retrench, retreat, and shut down. Shutting down was a painful decision, but it became an escapable one. Reopening is harder because the murky future that seized up the economy isn’t settling into some new vision of what’s next”

How can HR teams to move employees to permanent homeworking?

If organisations are considering refocusing their employee base to remote rather than office based arrangements, then creation of a parallel home office culture should be considered to make it sustainably effective. These immediate considerations will be key for HR and business leaders:

1. How do you ensure engagement ? As a home-based employee, I’m used to using a variety of technology and communication tools to stay engaged with my colleagues but I’ve been a home based office worker for over 10 years now, so am well versed in the extra efforts I need to be accountable for to make the arrangement successful. How are organisations going to maintain engagement with a workforce used to interacting with one another in a physical space and how do they do that quickly to avoid a significant dip in productivity and a feeling of “belonging”?

2. How do you maintain cultural values? In recent years, companies have focused more and more on their internal culture to build a reputation as an “employer of choice”, allowing them to attract, recruit and retain talent. How do you create and maintain a cultural identity when your workforce is not ‘engaging’ in a traditional sense anymore? How do you build, communicate and uphold a set of values, which are often so intrinsic to the success of a physical working community when they aren’t necessarily relevant to a group of people sat behind screens in their own homes?

3. What value does your employer brand have now? In our increasingly brand aware world, image can be everything and some organisations have leveraged heavily on their wild and wacky or downright fancy work environments as an attraction piece for existing and potential staff.  Without that physical and visual reminder of the employer brand, will these companies need reinvent themselves or find even more creative ways to maintain their identity? I am mindful that there are so many employees who just don’t want to work constantly from home, but if companies are insisting upon it, will this significantly reduce the quantity and quality of talent available to dedicated home working organisations?

4. Will informal opportunities for career advancement be affected? Building critical relationships with colleagues and senior leaders often plays a vital part in career development and advancement. If you’re no longer having those face to face meetings, no longer wangling an invite to ad hoc discussions and no longer experiencing those corridor or canteen or “water cooler” moments, how do you get yourself noticed? Employees are going to have to think cleverly to overcome these hurdles as delivering your work on time and to standard is not going to be enough to identify you as top talent or “one to watch”.

5. What about costs? Working from your kitchen or dining room table is OK for an occasional day or two but full time? For employees to be fully productive and healthy, they need the furniture, space, technology and communication channels that are at least the equivalent of what they were used to in an office environment. Many will expect employers to take on the burden of providing this, which will create additional challenges when workers just don’t have the space or internet connectivity and reliability. And what happens for workers who cannot carve out a secure and stable workspace, given their family situation or when they’re living with relative strangers in shared living environments? We’re already hearing discussions on the feasibility for companies contributing to the cost of building home offices on employees properties, and a landmark case in Switzerland recently might have employers around the world more broadly contributing to rent costs of home workers.

6. Will employee privacy be compromised? In the office setting, staff have considerable flexibility to share as little, or as much of their personal and home circumstances as they please. But to ensure health and safety of home workers, and to ensure home work environments are optimised for productivity and security, employers will likely need significantly more details from their staff on their personal circumstances and living arrangements. I can already think of many employees who would not be open to this level of sharing.

   
   

Ultimately moving towards a more home based working environment will require organisations to work creatively and thoughtfully to seamlessly transition this to a “new normal”. Engagement and culture, reward, and workforce optimisation all have a huge part to play in creating a home based office philosophy that stays true to the company’s ethos and doesn’t impact performance. It’s a huge challenge but its one that all organisations need to be thinking about it if they want to be prepared for a post Covid world, and the future of work.  I wonder if we’ll all look back a year from now and struggle to remember what the “old normal” even looked like?