Leaders’ Lessons: what are you doing to ensure hybrid work is a success?

The post-pandemic workplace is going to be very different and managers and leaders in all organisations will have to navigate new and difficult situations.

In Leaders’ Lessons, a monthly FT series, top executives share insights from their experiences during the pandemic — and their plans for the great workplace reset to come.

For this fourth instalment, we asked: What are you doing to ensure hybrid work is a success?”

 

Angela Cretu is CEO of Avon International, the cosmetics company, and is based in London

Just three weeks before the pandemic hit, I became chief executive of Avon International. Previously I had been managing Avon central Europe, overseeing our operations in 19 countries.

For our millions of self-employed beauty entrepreneurs, whose businesses are based on relationship selling, and for our frontline and office-based associates, the implications of lockdowns and social distancing were profound. Although we’ve been embracing digitalisation for a long time, the changing environment and ways of working meant we had to dramatically accelerate our adoption of digital tools. 

Our business model is founded on creating opportunities for people to build their own businesses, with the support of Avon, on their own terms and around other commitments. With this in mind, we aim to provide flexible and agile ways of working for our employees, too. Relationships are at the heart of everything we do, and it’s key that people connect and collaborate every day. 

Navigating this last year has helped us think differently.

We’ve focused on staying connected with our employees, through regular communication and virtual webcasts, updating on business, celebrating success and creating forums for people to ask questions. We’ve also conducted employee opinion surveys and digital focus groups to understand how our people are feeling, what matters most to them and what support they may need. In addition, we’ve used collaboration platforms such as Fuse, to allow employees to stay connected, upload their own content and ask questions in real time, which has worked very well.

Our Avon team is diverse and dispersed. As we will never all be together in person, we value the virtual world we have created. So, as we come out of lockdowns, we will build on this, continuing to be flexible with a hybrid way of working. Our teams will be able to balance their time being remote with spending important time being together.

The pandemic has changed everything, and businesses need to think differently to give employees the flexibility they crave, providing the digital tools needed to work anywhere — whether it be in an office or at home.

Carrie Freeman is Co-CEO of SecondMuse, an impact and innovation company that helps strengthen economies by supporting entrepreneurs and their networks. She is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico

SecondMuse has always embraced elements of hybrid work. With colleagues dispersed around the world, we have a long history of gathering virtually and working across an array of schedules. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve remained focused on our goal of creating an environment where colleagues can thrive. To us, this comes down to three key elements: giving people permission to create flexible schedules, providing colleagues with wellness services, and creating policies and tools designed to help everyone find a balance in their lives and work.

More colleagues than ever are working non-traditional hours, so we have emphasised the importance of setting boundaries. I try to only send emails during traditional business hours and share personal appointments in my company calendar to lead by example.

By being transparent about my own human obligations, I aim to show colleagues that they too are encouraged and expected to take care of themselves and thrive. 

To that end, as the public health need for remote work and flexible schedules subsides, we will tailor our policies to the wants and needs of our employees on an office-by-office basis. We now know that we can successfully navigate remote work and virtual gatherings. We know that flexible schedules and virtual meetings are naturally more inclusive than in-person events. But we also know that our colleagues still crave in-person human connection. Our goal going forward will be to find the right mix of virtual and in-person programming to maximise inclusion and foster human connection — while respecting the fullness of our colleagues’ lives.

Sanuj Kohli is founder and CEO of LEME Group, a portfolio of companies including sustainable ventures, energy and digital media. He is based in Nairobi and Dubai

We had been dragging our feet on investing in a digital workspace system for some time, but we have offices across the world and the pandemic forced us to move as quickly as possible to minimise disruption. It was time for us to adapt to the golden era of hybrid working, while keeping our end goal in mind — productivity. In order to make the best of both worlds, we rolled out change via several steps.

First, we set up one-on-one meetings with our employees to better understand their needs. While some thrived with the flexibility of working remotely, others needed team interaction at the office. We made sure we communicated clearly. We shared our expectations, developed HR policies to clarify how and where our team members could work, and created flexible working hours, while making sure staff knew they were accountable at specified times. 

We also invested in the right technology to allow increased autonomy and to bridge the physical and digital world so our team members could work efficiently, regardless of where they are. 

Finally, we re-evaluated staff to make sure they were able to work within in a hybrid system. And new hires are diverse, talented employees from around the world who are happy with hybrid working.

We want a corporate culture that breeds flexibility and innovation across the organisation. And now, after a great deal of structuring, planning, and trial and error over the past year, we are one step closer with our redefined culture. We learnt to adapt to changing needs along the way — and that communicating with our employees is key to succeeding in these trying times. 

Next month’s question: How will you preserve productivity gains from the past year while making sure staff don’t burn out?