Which hybrid work model is best? Think of organizational change.
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Adapting to the Digital Age
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, and social distancing policies put in place by governments, we are experiencing the most flexible work practices seen so far, especially in the case of Tech companies - that since the rise of network digital information and communication technologies (ICT) in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, started to implement complex information systems and virtualized organizational formations (e.g. internet platforms or company networks)- During the pandemic, Tech companies showed that their industry could embrace organizational change, they were able to keep running and in many cases thriving while having most employees working remote.
In the beginning, most employees struggled to adapt to the home space, its characteristics, and some of its constraints, such as having the family in the workplace. However, internal clocks and individual needs found an opportunity to shine, people could choose their work starting time and adapt the workplace at home to their specific preferences and needs. On top of that, commuting times were invested in independent work, and productivity increased. In this manner, most of us adapted and the home office concept turned many into its fans.
Significant data across surveys show that most people want hybrid work setups. Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index studied over 30,000 people in 31 countries and found that 73% of respondents want remote work arrangements. FlexJobs surveyed more than 2,100 people who worked remotely during the pandemic. They found that 58% of workers would leave their jobs if they weren’t able to continue working from home for at least some days, pretty conclusive information, if you ask me.
What most of us experienced during the pandemic, - in May 2021 around 50% of the Dutch workforce was working from home (Bloom & Keller, 2021) - and what many companies, in the tech industry mainly, continue to experience, is a 'hybrid format'- that refers to a mix of remote and in-person work-. In this remote time, most workers work some days from home and others at the office. This remote work has been named in academic literature as telework (Boell et al., 2016) and it illustrates a transition that academic debates refer to as New Ways of Working in the digital age (Aeroles et al., 2021). A moment of organizational change driven by external forces, such as the pandemic, the rise of ICT and the current economic system, that are pulling companies' adaptation to flexible spatiotemporal arrangements and practices of organizing at work.
Increasing employee fluctuation and reduced well-being
At the same time 'Employee fluctuation’, as it is called when employees voluntarily or involuntarily leave a company, popularly referred to as churn rate, increased. In 2022 Europe recorded the largest number of people that have left their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic - this was commonly called the great resignation-. As surveys and research on this topic show - I discuss some of these sources below - some of the causes for the rise of employee fluctuation are a combination of workers' job disengagement and dissatisfaction, and the mass grief experience during the pandemic that impacted industries in different ways, and that among other aspects guided many to rethink their priorities and change jobs.
‘Employee fluctuation’ has been found to affect team members and the company's performance (Group Wolf Consulting). Employee departure, for example, results in adding extra work to team members, and it negatively affects morale and increases stress (Gallup, 2022). When someone leaves, the dynamics of the team change, and when the employee is replaced, the team's adaptation process to the new member is slow and in some cases tense (2022). Employee fluctuation is also costly for the organization (Group Wolf Consulting). When an employee leaves, institutional knowledge leaves as well, and even when some companies have succession planning processes that enable a better knowledge transfer, it is very difficult to keep all the knowledge in-house. Group Wolf Consulting calculated indirect costs of employee fluctuation, they found that any time an employee in a mid-management position leaves it costs the company around €43,000 of which €6,000 are recruitment costs.
Studies also found that "American workers across the board saw heightened rates of burnout in 2021, and according to APA’s 2021 Work and Well-being Survey of 1,501 U.S. adult workers, 79% of employees had experienced work-related stress in the month before the survey. Nearly 3 in 5 employees reported negative impacts of work-related stress, including lack of interest, motivation, or energy (26%) and lack of effort at work (19%). Meanwhile, 36% reported cognitive weariness, 32% reported emotional exhaustion and 44% reported physical fatigue—a 38% increase since 2019."
About sick employees, referring to those workers on sick leave for mental illness or burnout and those regularly calling-in sick, it has been found that this negatively impacts the team as it also adds extra work and mines team morale (Booz & Company, 2011). Sick employees also have an annual cost, in the case of the German economy, to give an example, in 2011 Booz & Company found they amounted to €225 billion. The Booz & Company research (2011) showed that even if sick employees go to work but are unwell, they are less productive and make more mistakes, causing costs of around €2,394 per employee (This study also shows that only in absences these costs are €1,197 per employee a year). This may not look like much at first glance, but if you have 20 employees coming to work sick, your costs might add up to around €47,880 affecting the productivity and efficiency of the organization.
Existing literature on flexible work and telework had already stressed tensions and contradictions of this way of working (See: Baruch, 2000; Allen et al., 2003; Golden & Geisler, 2007; Tremblay & Thomsin, 2012; Campbell & McDonald, 2009; Pyöriä, 2011; Sarker et al., 2012; Boell et al., 2016; Ajzen & Taskin, 2021). This literature showed that the increase in employee autonomy and individual productivity (Baruch, 2000), and the reduction of organizational costs (Tremblay & Thomsin, 2012) - which are some of the advantages of telework- clash with disadvantages such as the lack of group cohesiveness (Pyöriä, 2011), low team trust, high employee feeling of isolation and a reduced organizational identification and commitment what often led to job disengagement and dissatisfaction (Tremblay, 2002; Gajendran and Harrison, 2007; Mann and Holdsworth, 2003; Pyöriä, 2011).
It is clear then that there are advantages and disadvantages to hybrid work, workers want the benefits that flexibility has given them. Companies want to keep high levels of productivity and healthy employees. So how do we find the right way to move forward? what is the right combination between remote work and time at the office? A middle point in which every organizational level feels satisfied?
Which hybrid work model is best for your business? Let's think about how to face organizational change
Alvesson & Sveningsson (2016) talk about organizational change, they problematize the tendency in organizations of representing workers as passive receivers of organizational change. They argue that change transpires from the work floor and is embedded in the daily sensemaking, narratives, and activities of the multiple actors that are part of the organization.
Van den Ende et al. (2021) show how organizational change is multilevel and multi-actor, they argue that top and middle managers together with the workforce produce changes in the micro level and that at the same time the micro level produces changes in the meso and macro level. Critical management literature (Thomas et al. 2011, Van den Ende et al., 2021) shows that multilevel actors in organizations are active agents of change and that resistance emerges in their interactions, turning resistance into an integral part of change. Literature from critical management studies (Thomas et al. 2011) points to the role of senior and mid-managers and their significant relevance in organizational change as they have the power of translation (Thomas et al. 2011). In that sense, their behavior can be generative, which can encourage the emergence of collaboration and facilitative power-resistance relations or degenerative, which can encourage polarization. Consequently, in change processes, it is key to consider the sense-making - which refers to the "mechanism by which [we] attribute meaning to, reflect on or attempt to understand [our] experiences of organizational change” (Van den Ende et al., 2021)- of diverse organizational members.
4 strategies to find the right combination of hybrid work for your team.
Organizational change is with no doubt a challenging context for sensemaking, as "ambiguity and complexity intensify and work demands change" (Lüscher and Lewis, 2008, p.222). Therefore, it seems that the only way to reduce levels of employee turnover while going through a period of change, as research in change management demonstrates, is by:
1. Recognizing workers' active role in the change process: How do they make sense of, respond to, appropriate, and shape change? make sure that they know the pros and cons of hybrid work, and open spaces for reflection where everyone participates and finds an opportunity to share their experiences.
2. Seeing the important role that senior and mid-managers play as translator agents of the organizational change processes is their involvement in the process is key. Start by asking what do they think about hybrid work? and think of what example do they give? How do they talk about it?
3. Ask yourself what is the role of your human resources (HR) dept. in the organizational change process of New Ways of Working. Are they talking about this topic with different levels of the organization? How are you and your HR dept. supporting your current employees' to go through the change process? How have your current hiring practices and open roles adapted to accommodate the talent required in this new digital age?
4. Enabling and organizing a bottom-up approach in which hybrid work is discussed and reflected upon by different actors and different regions. Regular sessions and follow-up are some of the secret ingredients to being able to organize change.
Include your employees and embrace resistance.
Organizations have the tendency of representing workers as passive receivers of organizational change. However, change transpires from the work floor, it is embedded in the daily sensemaking, narratives, and activities of the multiple actors that are part of your organization.
To conclude, change is happening, the digital age is a great example that illustrates change processes. Hybrid work is just another change process that we face and will continue to face as a consequence of the digital age we live in. A digital age that enables New Ways of Working by the separation of information processes from spatial designs (Kingma, 2019) and a work organization that is activity-based. Change happens because individuals are interacting with their thoughts, with others, and with their environment. Change is found in the routines, and in the micro-processes (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002), it is complex, multilayered, and evolving. Change cannot be controlled, and as it emerges from the work floor and flows through different actors' interactions, facilitating spaces for open dialogue and convergence is then crucial to find the right combination of hybrid work that works for your team. What brings us to the question of how to create spaces where open dialogue can really happen? but that's a topic for another blog post.
Thank you for reading this blog post!
Notes: some pieces of information in this article are text excerpts from 'Let's talk about change Employee sensemaking of engagement in the context of 'New Ways of Working' (NWW)", a master's thesis, a graduation requirement for the master of Management, Culture, and Organizations at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Suggested reads:
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture. Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.
Aroles, J., Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., Dale, K., Kingma, S. F., & Mitev, N. (2021). New ways of working (NWW): Workplace transformation in the digital age. Information and Organization, 31(4), 1-11. [100378]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100378
Lüscher, L. S., & Lewis, M. W. (2008). Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51(2), 221–240.
Kingma Sytze (2019) New ways of working (NWW): work space and cultural change in virtualizing organizations, Culture and Organization.
Thomas, R., Sargent, L. & Hardy C. (2011). Managing Organizational Change: Negotiating Meaning and Power-Resistance Relations. Organization Science, 22(1), 22-41
Tremblay, D.-G. (2002), ‘Balancing Work and Family with Telework? Organizational Issues and Challenges for Women and Managers’, Women in Management Review 17 , 157–170.
Tsoukas, H. & Chia R. (2002). On organizational becoming: rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567-82.
Van Marrewijk, A., and Van den Ende, L. (2018). Changing Academic Spaces: the Introduction of Open Offices in Universities. Journal of Organisational Change Management. 31(5), 1119-1137.
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