Why five beliefs about the future of work are flawed

Everyone’s talking about hybrid working—but what is it? The answer will be different for every organization, and requires looking beyond floorplans and digital tools, says a new report by professional services firm Accenture.

Designing the future work experience means being open-minded and experimenting with what the right version of hybrid looks like. Businesses that get it right will likely attract and retain the best talent in a competitive landscape.

When it comes to the future work experience, there’s a lot of buzz in the business world about "hybrid" and "flexibility", but what would the reality look like, and is it really the right answer for every organization?

Employees are not the same people as they were in 2020, and neither are the organizations that employ them. This means that companies may need to forge a new relationship with their employees, and make no mistake: right now, organizations are embroiled in a war for talent, so it’s never been more important to offer the best employee experience.

Five beliefs and why they’re flawed

01 Belief: Employees want "hybrid"

Reality: Employees want the freedom to choose

Everyone is talking about hybrid models as the future of work, and Accenture research finds that 83% of employees would like to work in some sort of hybrid way of working.1 But what are they really asking for?

A quick online search will unveil academic analyses of how people define “hybrid working”, and it’s generally a formula that combines remote working with office working and a third space. An Accenture Research survey with 9,326 global workers found that when employees ask for “hybrid” they are really asking for three key things.

02 Belief: Employees want to work at home

Reality: Employees should be asked what they want regularly

To get the future of work right, many organizations are asking employees how they want to work. At Accenture, we're doing the same, and our results show that what employees think they want (e.g., "to work from home”) and where they feel they work best (e.g., "I work best when I can bounce ideas off other people face to face"), don't always match up.

Of the workers who said they wanted to work remotely for half (or more) of their time, 55% reported in the same survey that they would be most productive onsite.

A potential explanation for this inconsistency is that their knee-jerk response is to keep tight hold of the setup that has enabled them to do online yoga at lunchtime or spend quality time with their children after school, but they haven’t necessarily played out how to balance what they want and how they work best. It’s easy to answer each question in isolation, but the combined answers are difficult to reconcile. In short, how do they work out when they’re getting on a train and when they’re staying home?

03 Belief: Pandemic work challenges will pass

Reality: Employers and employees will need to unlearn bad habits

Some pandemic-driven changes were beneficial, and we won't want to lose them, like replacing a stressful commute with more sleep or a local walk, or being home for children’s bedtimes. But some bad habits have formed, and it’ll take time and conscious effort to reverse them.

First, the way we work has become unsustainable: scheduling back-to-back meetings without a bathroom break for five hours has become normal, even though we all know it’s not healthy. Among many challenges the pandemic wrought on employees was an increased risk of redundancy at the hands of employers who reluctantly had to make big changes to ensure survival. This prompted employees to make a desperate bid to be constantly “on”, and to be seen to deliver maximum value, which is infinitely harder to do remotely than from the office — and certainly not workable long-term.

04 Belief: Success means maximum productivity

Reality: Maximum productivity comes at a cost

Workers are more productive than ever, but they also seem to be more burnt out. According to an Indeed survey, over half (52%) of respondents are experiencing burnout in 2021 — up from the 43% who said the same in Indeed’s pre-Covid-19 survey.

Maximum productivity may not be sustainable. This means that, to retain employees, businesses should shift their focus away from increasing productivity and decreasing office space. Employees are people, not resources, and businesses rely on these people being able to work.

05 Belief: Location is the most important factor

Reality: The most important thing to figure out is how we enable smart work anywhere

The literature on hybrid working is dominated by calls to action to update floor plans, invest in remote working tools and update employee contracts to flexible working. These are not wrong, but the full extent of the reality is more complex, so we need to think more deeply:

Space: space is a combination of elements like format, ergonomics, furniture, lighting, acoustics and branding – to name a few – that need to be applied across offices, the home and third spaces, such as co-working sites.

Digital: technology infrastructure and remote working tools are key, but if you don’t invest in support and training it doesn’t matter how snazzy they are – employees won’t be able to use them.

Culture: the personality of your organization needs to be felt across every touch point. This means creating rituals, support programs and incentives that build a sense of belonging wherever your workers are.

Operations: these are the policies, standards and processes that enable you to diffuse culture and positive experiences consistently across digital and physical spaces.

And finally, responsibility: inclusion, diversity, sustainability, wellbeing. In a brave new world where organizations are expected to take a stance on right and wrong, these are the ethical fibers that should run through the heart of your future work experience.