Many companies, when the work has allowed, have embraced hybrid working. For some corporates, however, hybrid is evolving.  

In the transition from crisis to post-lockdown, the debate this past few months has centred on little else. The office and/or home has been the million dollar question. 

However, this solution just isn’t cutting it for some companies, and findings from a new survey of HR leaders, published in the report Poly-working: the evolution of hybrid working, paints a compelling picture of a more sophisticated approach.

We found businesses such as Pfizer have already moved beyond hybrid working as we know it to focus more keenly on what works for the individual employee in the wider sense. For these companies, the pandemic, as devastating as it was, accelerated a move to or consolidated a management style underpinned by trust, flexibility and autonomy.

As one senior executive at Pfizer told us, “We have a culture that puts colleague health and wellness first. We work extremely hard, but we’re empowered and trusted to get our work done in a time and way that suits us personally. My manager focuses on the outcome – not the hours I work! And of course, the reality is that when you empower and trust people, they give you more.

“Equally, it is our responsibility as a colleague to build that trust and not take advantage of the situation. At Pfizer we are highly energized by our purpose – delivering breakthroughs that change patients’ lives, and if you have a strong sense of purpose, this drives personal accountability.”

A new set of metrics, skills and attitudes are required, that brings to life such organisational pillars as purpose, leadership, performance, wellbeing and engagement. These are all components of what we describe as the ‘poly-working’ world.

Yes, this is a new name but then new terminology is required to understand what’s happening. Hybrid working is a two-dimensional phrase; you are in the office sometimes, and at home others. 

We are moving to a working landscape that’s so much more complex. It’s not about blending the two locations, it’s about creating approaches that enable individuals to construct a professional life that’s wrapped around them. We call it ‘poly’ because, quite simply, there will be many, many variations of a working pattern. 

The trick for organisations isn’t to manage these, it’s to focus on helping people own the impact of their approach – creating stronger levels of alignment, trust and autonomy to ‘do the right thing’ for the organisation and its customers, whilst also working in a way that’s right for the individual.

From July to September, The Culture Builders surveyed 150 leaders in human resources and personnel development about the impact of the pandemic on their organisations and how it influenced their plans for the future. The findings are analysed in Poly-working: the evolution of hybrid working.

We found greater autonomy and support was being implemented over more stringent controls and surveillance technology as a means for managing people and performance. Some 50.3% said they would give their employees greater autonomy and support.

We asked our HR leads for the most important qualities their leaders would require to manage the path to an effective transition to the ‘next phase of work’ for their company. In order, these qualities were trustworthy (58.9%), empathetic and supportive (57.6%) and resilient (52.3%). 

And only 15.9% would consider surveillance technology, such as mouse monitoring software, to help manage the performance of a remote workforce. If you buy surveillance technology for your workforce, the cost will be the trust of your employee base. And once that’s spent, good luck getting it back.

On the challenge of managing a dispersed workforce, more than one company has admitted to us that they’re in gridlock with this. The lockdown and resultant home working was far less complex than they are currently facing. One leader told us that they are ‘throwing out the rule book’ on remote working, as it was being re-written daily. Instead, they’ve simply said to their people ‘do what’s right for you, the team and the customer’.

Hybrid working for companies like Pfizer has evolved. For them, it’s about striking that winning balance between what’s right for the individual employee, for the team and for the customer. We believe they are leading the way to a poly-working world.