The media is full of articles related to remote working and thoughts on the future of UK working practices. From Goldman Sachs headlines of all employees to return to the office and the head of Morgan Stanley, James Gorman commenting "If you can go into a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office.", what does all of this mean for the rest of us?
Contrast these views with news of Nationwide announcing staff can work from anywhere and it’s no surprise many UK businesses are not sure which way to go. Many CEO’s like Sundar Pichai of Google and alphabet are looking to implement a hybrid approach.
So, there are a few options being considered by many now:
- Go back to pre-pandemic business as usual
- Fully embrace remote working
- Choose hybrid working
There are lots of articles debating the advantage and disadvantages of each of these options, such as this Guardian article.
- Going back to the office
Nothing beats face to face collaboration and contact with your colleagues, not forgetting the boost needed to the micro economies surrounding many of our businesses. The gyms, the shops, the sandwich delivery vans, all need your business.
The cons for many, are the daily commute and what now seems very strange of sitting in an office and emailing a colleague, that’s sat just across the desk bank from you.
- Fully embrace remote working
Financially, deciding to work entirely remotely may bring benefits for the employer and employee. Office building costs could reduce and for the employee the commuting costs for many would be a welcome reduction in expenditure.
Something to consider here though is that for this to be successful, its our working practices that might need to change. The Guardian have written an article considering this and its food for thought. Most of our daily routines are based around working from one location.
- Choose hybrid working
For many the thought of Hybrid working enables the employee to have the best of both worlds. The flexibility that comes with remote working and the in person social interaction that comes with working in an office. For the employer, if hybrid working is new, there maybe challenges. Trusting staff, onboarding new starters, collaboration, staff wellbeing and engagement are just a few.
The British Chamber of Commerce reference staggering differences in approaches between B2C and B2B organisations, with 80% of B2B offering remote working, compared to 54% of B2C.
The big question is how is this different to working practices pre-pandemic? Is pe-pandemic business as usual really 100% of your office staff in the office? Here at Sorce, many of our clients have seen a gradual transition to hybrid working, long before Covid 19 took hold, and we are very much the same.
For many of us, as employees we have found a better work life balance but crave some time in the office to see colleagues, take a break from the freezing video calls and sometimes you can’t beat face to face collaboration. We are all different though and what has worked well for some, has not worked.
Whatever you are considering for your business, rest assured you are not alone. There is some comfort in know there is no one right way and in fact it can be a gradual transition to whatever works best for your business and your employees.
In my opinion, the pandemic has not revolutionised the way we work but has sped up the rate of change. The digital workplace started to be talked about back in 2009, it was slow to get going but technology and software increased the speed of this, as did the ever-growing use of social media in our daily lives.
The staple through all of this though has been the company intranet. Here at Sorce, we have seen intranets evolve, become more social, more visual, more dimensional to reflect the changing way, we are all connecting with each other.
Today, your intranet has an even more challenging role. It needs to help connect and bring your teams together, let them engage with each other and be social, at the same time it needs to integrate with your everyday business systems, it needs to help your employees get to the office when they need to, so new tools such as desk booking solutions are growing in popularity.
Above all, your intranet needs to be the lifeline of your business. Its content needs to be engaging, fresh and relevant. It needs to address the elephant in the room, the concerns everyone has and celebrate the wins more than you would have done if you were in the office.
I hope this has given you some food for thought, and if nothing else reassured you that you are not alone. Everyone is in this together, there is no right way but your intranet is there to support your business and your employees.
If you’d like to chat more about intranets and how we could help you, get in touch and we will be more than happy to help.
Useful links:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56510574
https://blog.google/inside-google/life-at-google/hybrid-approach-work/
