Having recently caught a nasty bout of Covid, I had cause (and time) to reflect on the pandemic and how things have panned out since mid-March 2020. Looking back on that period brings very mixed emotions and everyone's experiences vary so much – from raw tragedy and loss, to reassuring levels of community spirit and pulling together at a time of massive uncertainty and disruption.
One of the legacies of the pandemic is remote working, which in my view, accelerated use of technology and impacted organisational culture by years, perhaps decades. As a recruiter, what has since become known as hybrid working is probably one of the legacies of the pandemic that most commonly and increasingly comes up in conversation with client organisations – primarily in terms of the importance of visibility of senior leaders, as well as accessible and responsive support for employees and elected members.
This increased level of concern around the importance of visible leadership, social interaction and being available to key stakeholders leads me to believe that we may be rowing back on some of the advances we've made. Is that a good thing?
Clearly, hybrid working is still highly popular – employers and employees across sectors continue to work this way. However, my feeling is that the level of buy-in for hybrid working is perhaps swinging back slightly from what many of us assumed would be the ‘new normal'. While the benefits of working remotely have been proven, as time has passed, some of the limitations and constraints of this way of working have become clearer and more evident over time.
One of the main advantages is cost. Indeed, in many ways and for many organisations, hybrid working is assumed and baked into financial and resource management – particularly in terms of redefined need for (often less) accommodation, reduced utility costs and realisation of digital and technological adoption and efficiency.
Another benefit is environmental, where remote working can significantly reduce the amount of commuting and wider travel of a workforce, thereby contributing to organisational net zero ambitions.
There are also clear workforce strategy advantages inherent to hybrid models of working. Local government faces a significant workforce crisis at a time where resources are more limited than ever. Therefore councils need to be creative in terms of recruitment and retention strategies.
For many roles, although clearly not all, the flexibility that hybrid offers in terms of work-life balance and wider wellbeing considerations is an employee benefit that carries real currency in the marketplace. There are also economic advantages to remote working – particularly in terms of travel costs, which employees will inevitably welcome at a time when personal finances are under considerable strain.
From an employer's perspective, access to a much wider and more diverse talent pool has been one of the real ‘wins' from the increase in remote working. If a role can be delivered effectively from another part of the country (or even from a different country), then why not? At a time where we face significant skills shortages, the ability to look beyond a commutable distance for talent is a significant advantage – but again, not all local government roles can be delivered remotely.
There are also challenges and disadvantages that hybrid working has created over time. For example, staff development. From onboarding new employees through to providing opportunities to learn from colleagues, developing new skills as part of a team and understanding the organisational culture – these are all more challenging in a virtual environment.
Social interaction, communication and collaboration opportunities are also more of a challenge where remote working is involved, with the informal sharing of information much more difficult in a virtual space. There is also the risk of inequality between those who are on site and those who are working remotely – from exposure to opportunities and access to resources, through to those ‘in the know' and those who aren't. On top of that there are clear risks around staff welfare and social isolation in this area that require careful and thoughtful management.
From a place leadership perspective, another disadvantage of remote working can be economic – with a hybrid workforce, the viability of local businesses and the wider economic vibrancy of town centres is inevitably impacted at a time where local authorities are focused on achieving the exact opposite.
Cyber security has also rocketed up risk registers in recent years. Secure data management is a more complex challenge in a remote working environment, with staff working across various locations and contexts.
There are a clear range of well-rehearsed interventions and mitigations to some of the challenges outlined above. Organisations including the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Chartered Management Institute have issued valuable practical guidance on how to avoid some of the pitfalls of working in this way.
No solution is perfect, hybrid working in some form is here to stay – including in local government. An element of remote working is a sustainable (imperfect) solution for a modern, efficient and diverse workforce, but the emphasis has to be on ‘hybrid', which is defined as ‘a thing made by combining two different elements' – in this case, on-site and remote working.
Circumstances will vary from organisation to organisation, and possibly employee to employee), but while understandably so much stock has been placed in remote working in recent years, I suspect the pendulum is likely to gradually swing back toward a greater degree of on-site working as time goes on – perhaps dependent on the nature of a specific role, but particularly for senior leadership roles.
Steve Guest is director of executive recruitment and assessment at Solace in Business
