John Rice
Sustainment Engineer| Lockheed Martin
Harmony, Fl, United States
Recently, I discussed with a senior manager who does not like telecommuting or even a hybrid work schedule. Pre-pandemic believed in going to the office, but during the pandemic, I learned I was more productive.
Grzegorczyk, Mariniello, Nurski, and Schraepen (2021) discovered that remote work is not new, although it was never performed on this scale before. According to Eurostat, in 2019, about 3 percent of the EU workforce usually worked from home, and 8 percent of workers sometimes worked from home. Still, almost nine out of ten employees never worked from home.
Hilberath and Woolsey (2020) state that COVID-19 has pushed organizations into an unprecedented and unplanned experiment in remote and hybrid work. Even when the experiment ends, following the mass deployment of a vaccine or treatment, the key findings of this experiment will endure. Grzegorczyk et al. (2021) point out that the pandemic has opened an opportunity for significant value creation. The forced lock-down experiment, which pushed masses of workers to work remotely simultaneously, has reduced information asymmetries between them and their employers. Bloom, Han, and Liang's (2022) research found that employees highly valued the hybrid on average, reducing attrition by 33% and improving job satisfaction.
Thus, forced lockdowns have shown that more coordination, improved working relationships, and efficiency gains are possible. Hybrid reduced working hours on home days and increased them on office days and weekends, altering the structure of the working week (Bloom et al., 2022). With the right conditions, matching increased supply and demand for flexible jobs can lead to a new economic equilibrium in which general welfare is higher (Grzegorczyk et al., 2021).
Grzegorczyk et al. (2021) argue that The Framework Agreement on Hybrid Work plays a crucial role. It should not dictate employers’ internal work organization or workers’ choice. Instead, it should facilitate the implementation of flexible working conditions, ensure minimum protection levels for on-site and hybrid workers alike, foster harmonization within the EU single market, and unlock workers’ geographical mobility. Hybrid increased messaging and video calls, even when all employees were in the office, reflecting a move towards more electronic communication (Bloom et al., 2022).
Organizations that create a level playing field for all workers, regardless of their location, empower frontline leaders and continue to make caring for employees their highest priority can holistically re-create their work model—not only structurally but also in terms of workspaces and culture—to win the future of work (Hilberath et al., 2020). Bloom et al. (2022) finalized two points: significant differences in hybrid valuations between managers and non-managers.
Non-managers were likelier to volunteer for the hybrid experiment, work from home on eligible days, predict positive productivity impacts, and reduce their attrition under the hybrid. In contrast, managers were less likely to volunteer, less likely to work from home on eligible days, predicted a negative average impact of hybrid on productivity, and saw increased attrition rates under hybrid (Bloom et al., 2022).
As Hilberath et al. (2020) concluded, hybrid work is here to stay. These new models have real challenges, but so are the opportunities to reduce real estate costs, supercharge productivity and engagement, and develop a new level of customer intimacy. Bloom et al. (2022) findings highlight how hybrid WFH is typically beneficial for both employees and firms but is usually underappreciated in advance, particularly by managers. This was a shared experience in the US and Europe during the pandemic when WFH went from being rare to mainstream and is now a permanent feature for most graduate employees.
What your thoughts?
References:
Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2022). How hybrid working from home works out (No. w30292). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Hilberath, C., Kilmann, J., Lovich, D., Tzanetti, T., Bailey, A., Beck, S., & Woolsey, K. (2020). Hybrid work is the new remote work. Melbourne: Boston Consulting Group.
Grzegorczyk, M., Mariniello, M., Nurski, L., & Schraepen, T. (2021). Blending the physical and virtual: a hybrid model for the future of work (No. 14/2021). Bruegel Policy Contribution.
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