Talking Property | Hybrid Working: Leadership Success & Occupancy Planning

Featuring Jessica Thomas, Kirstin Cooper & Chris Pinto
Thursday 29 July 2021

JT 
Hello and welcome to Talking Property with CBRE. A podcast in which our team of experts are clients and industry specialists share insights into the way we live, work and invest through the lens of commercial real estate. I'm Jessica Thomas, Associate Director for Workplace Strategy and Change Management here in the Pacific and I'm your host for today's episode.  

Organisations across the globe are asking themselves what impact will the pandemic have to the future of how we work? We've all had to reassess how we operate at the core while also rapidly adjusting to the continuously changing environment. The term hybrid working is now commonplace but what does it actually mean and how do we do it successfully?  

In today's podcast we’ll be talking about what makes or breaks hybrid working and the opportunities that it presents for businesses. I'm joined by Kirstin Cooper, Senior Workplace Consultant and Chris Pinto, Change Consultant. Thanks for joining me, Kirstin and Chris.  

KC 
Thanks Jess. 

CP 
Thanks Jess. 

JT 
So, let's dive straight in. Chris, based on the clients that you've been working with and the question that every CEO is asking at the moment, what is the right amount of remote working for my organisation?  

CP 
You're certainly right there Jess, a lot of CEOs and leadership teams are asking this question and I think with something like this it's really important to understand that one size doesn't fit all. There needs to be a real balance that can accommodate what employees want, what the organisation wants, but also the type of role of the individual. So, I think when making this decision, there are three really important factors that should be considered. The first factor is around role remote-ability and that really just looks at what percentage of the task or activities required in that role can be delivered effectively from anywhere versus the percentage that requires more of an in-personal or on-site delivery to execute. Some roles are limited to technology or tools that can only be accessible in the office. But even roles that can be performed remotely still might have some element of face-to-face exposure that's required, particularly those higher influence roles like senior leader roles.  

The second consideration that we’re starting to see is around employee appetites and capability, and it kind of looks at what employees now want. It's quite apparent that the landscape has changed quite a lot in the last 12 months in terms of what employees want from the flexibility point of view and it's obviously starting to become an increasingly more critical requirement for employees and therefore a more important requirement for employers to offer as well. So overall, that kind of just looks at how do employees want to work in the future and what sort of skills and tools do they have to enable that.  

The final consideration is around organisation, appetite and capability and so, this looks at what the desire of leaders is to have teams in the office versus remote. This might be driven by organisational expectations, for example, or perhaps even leader capability. We're starting to see that trust is becoming more and more important in this current climate and some research from CBRE’s COVID sentiment benchmark survey found that while 52% of employees believe they were more productive when working remotely, it was only about 39% of leaders that held their same view of their team. So quite an interesting gap there and while this might be a symptom of lack of trust, I think that result can also be linked to perhaps leaders feeling that they lack some skills or knowledge to be able to lead their teams effectively in hybrid working environments. So, to further add to this consideration, I think we should also be looking at what organisations have by way of workplace technology infrastructure and how this supports hybrid working. So, for example, does lack of virtual technology and meeting rooms, does it help or hinder employees being able to attend meetings or engage in meetings virtually when they are working remotely. 

JT 
Thanks, Chris. It's such an important concept and really interesting considerations as well. Kirstin, regarding leadership, what are some of the challenges that you're seeing organisations have in relation to leadership and hybrid working? 

KC 
Yeah, thanks Jess. I mean, you're absolutely spot on that this sudden shift to hybrid working that we've had has really created some big challenges for leaders. As you know, before I moved into workplace strategy. I actually worked in HR for many years and I've really never seen such a big shift in the way we work or the way teams are led, as we have in the last 12 months and I personally think it's really exciting and there are heaps of opportunities that have come out of that but it's also requiring our leaders to operate in a really different way.  

So obviously before COVID, leaders generally had a large amount of control over their teams. You know, where people worked when they worked, what task they were performing. You know, there was almost this line-of-sight type of approach to management where leaders could see their people and they had them around them and while a lot of organisations had some kind of flexible working policy or were supportive of remote working in some way, this really was the exception rather than the rule. So, it tended to be around personal circumstances, such as where people have carer responsibilities or maybe they had a really long commute to get to the office.  

Then obviously, COVID came along and we all suddenly had to go to remote working across the board while we were in lockdown periods in various locations and I think what surprised a lot of organisations is actually how productively people could work from home and also, when they weren't all in the same place. We were actually just talking to a client about this yesterday and he was saying how, you know, before COVID there were some roles where, if you had asked, could that role be performed from home, the answer would have been absolutely not. Whereas we were forced into this lockdown, forced into this remote working, and we really saw that actually, a large number of roles could be performed in a different way.  

So, since we've come out of the lockdown restrictions, it's really led to a much wider adoption and acceptance of flexible and remote working which is great, I think. But also, for leaders, that means they've had to relinquish a lot of the control that they previously had. So rather than the activities that they perform before COVID, they've got new responsibilities such as, you know, managing outcomes and building team culture when everybody isn't in the same place. Also fostering employee wellbeing is a really important part of leadership now because leaders can’t always see their people, so they have these extra responsibilities to make sure everybody's OK. You know and a lot of this has been a really big shift for leaders. 

JT 
So how do you think leaders should go about making this shift?  

CP 
Well, I think the first step is really for them to identify where they currently sit in terms of their hybrid leadership abilities and there's two important parts to this. The first part is around mindset. So, does that leader have an open or closed mindset around hybrid working? Do they see it as an opportunity, or do they see it as a risk? That's a really key part in terms of being an effective hybrid leader. The other key thing is skill set. Does that leader have the skill set required to effectively lead a hybrid working team. When I talk about that, I mean, do they have the ability to adapt and evolve their leadership skills to work in a hybrid working environment. So, say around an example being a team meeting previously at a team meeting, the leader would have had all the people sitting around them in the same room. What's happening now in a hybrid working environment is that they're going to have their team, some of them in the room and some of them on Zoom or Teams. So are they able to adapt their style and their approach to make that work? Gartner has actually come up with a really good framework around this and they've plotted leaders on a scale of mindset and skill set and they've come up with four types of hybrid leaders.  

So, they start with hybrid laggards. Who are those leaders who don't have the right mindset, or the right skill set to effectively lead a hybrid working team and that goes right through the hybrid champions who are those leaders who are really good at both of those things? In between that, we've got hybrid resistors. Who are those leaders who have the right skill set to lead a hybrid working team but not the right mindset and then we've got hybrid strivers. Who are those leaders that have a really open mindset to hybrid working, but just not quite the right skill set. I'd say generally from my experience and from what I'm hearing from clients, the majority of leaders probably fall into that hybrid striver group. So, they're really open to the idea of hybrid working. They can see the benefits of it, but they just don't feel they know how to manage that effectively at this point. 

CP 
Yeah, we are definitely seeing that with the clients that we're working with at the moment to but I am interested Kirstin to hear from you what you think some of the practical considerations for leaders should be once they've identified what their hybrid leadership type is? 

KC 
Yeah, that's right, Chris. I think it's important to note that identifying your hybrid leadership type is really just a starting point and it gives you a chance, I suppose, to see where the gap might sit between where you are now and what being a hybrid champion would look like. Because I think ultimately that's where we want all leaders to end up. We want them to have an open mind set to hybrid working, but also the right skill set to be able to do that. So, in terms of bridging that gap, I think there's a lot of things that leaders can do to improve their skill set or their effectiveness and I think another thing that's important to note is really none of the leadership skills that we're asking of leaders now are new we're just asking them to be adapted and modified to suit hybrid working environment.  

So, I guess an example of that would be a cool leadership skill would be developing and coaching staff. In the past, a leader would have done this by having the team around them. There would have been plenty of opportunities to sit together to work through task together, for employees to ask questions for people to over here are the conversations and sort of learn by observation essentially. So, what leaders will now need to do is think about how they could replicate that experience but, in an environment, where not everybody is in the same place, so it's going to mean being a little bit more deliberate and having a little bit more structure but thinking about ways that those sorts of learning opportunities could happen when someone isn't in the same place as their leader.  

So, using technology platforms like chat and frequent video calls making sure that perhaps the cadence of hybrid working or remote working within the team is correct so that there's always enough senior people working alongside junior people and there's a spread of expertise within the team and really just for managers to let the teams know when and how to access them and how the best way is to communicate. So, there's a lot of different ways managers can do this and leaders can do this. It requires a bit of thought and it requires a bit of structure but I really think you know that the outcomes will be well worth that effort.  

When I'm thinking about leadership and the important role that that plays another key part of hybrid working that was around the controls or conditions that organisations might be putting in place to manage hybrid working. Chris, I know you've been working on this with some clients recently, so can I just talk to us a little bit about that?  

CP 
Yes, certainly. So, can I just firstly say that in terms of controls for organisations, not having controls could completely derail a hybrid strategy but on the flip side of that, having too many controls could remove some of that really important flexibility that I mentioned earlier on that we're seeing more and more employees want. So, controls are important for any organisation and I think it really comes down to finding that balance when deciding what controls and to what level they're implemented.  

A lot of discussion that I'm saying at the moment from clients around controls look into a couple of things around what types of meetings are best told in person, should certain teams be in the office on the same days for in person meetings and collaboration, will there be any days when all employees can work from home, or is it the same day for everyone and also what systems can be implemented to by systems, I mean controls to flatten out those peak in office days. So once again, I think if you can find that sweet spot between understanding the role types that I mentioned earlier before understanding the organization's guidelines and policies and expectations, but also being able to cater for the individual needs of employees, then I think that truly sets your hybrid working framework up for success. But you know, it's not something that happens overnight. There is there is a bit of work that needs to go into it.  

KC 
Definitely, and are you seeing, do you think that organisations are applying the same controls across the whole organisation? Or are they tailoring that across departments and roles? What sorts of things are you seeing there?  

CP 
It's a bit of a challenging area because I think if you implement controls and apply them as a blanket to the organisation, so across everybody. You run the risk that any unique or specialist roles aren't catered for and on the other end of that, if you customise your controls too much, it might lead to teams asking why other teams are getting certain flexibility that they're not. So once again, it just comes down to balance, but also just really having a clear set of principles and principles that can be applied across the organisation, defining some key controls and expectations that can also go across the organisation and then probably the final piece is, teams really sitting down and having that sometimes hard but deep conversation around how they can operate within those guidelines and controls. 

JT 
Thanks for that. Chris there is some big things for organisations and for leaders to consider at the moment. Jess, as someone who has helped our clients make strategic decisions about their property portfolio. How do you think this shift to hybrid working fits into occupancy planning? 

JT 
Well, it's an interesting one because before COVID and hybrid working being able to anticipate and manage that occupancy in the workplace, it created a good opportunity for businesses who are considering their future office space requirements. But in a hybrid working model without any controls in place, what we typically see is that in most office-based environment, we have that peak on a Wednesday, everybody wants to come into the office on a Wednesday and then Monday and Friday such low occupancy nobody is coming in, everybody’s working from home. If we can work to flatten that occupancy curve and ultimately spread it out across the week, this is where we start to realise some significant opportunities for potential space savings in the office. So spreading that occupancy out across the week also helps to ensure this perception of fullness when employees do come in. So if you've got somebody coming in on a Monday or a Friday and there's barely anybody in the office, it doesn't make for that great, vibrant atmosphere that we really want to get when we do come into the office. So we've been working with many businesses throughout this time to work out what peak occupancy they should plan for, given their hybrid strategy and what makes sense for their business in terms of the type of controls they can put in place to manage that peak down whilst also ensuring the right level of flexibility for their employees. 

CP 
It's interesting you say that Jess, because I know I've been speaking quite a bit about flexibility, and you just raised it as well. What are you finding that businesses need to consider when they're planning for that desired level of flexibility within their hybrid working model?  

JT 
Well, many businesses are starting to work through their hybrid workforce strategies at the moment, with some already announcing their plans. There's a wide variety of avenues that businesses are going down. One professional services company has recently announced publicly that employees have full flexibility in determining when and where they work. They've even decided to ditch the 9 to 5. Some other businesses are going down the path of offering 2 to 3 days work from home, and some are even suggesting a couple of mandatory days in the office. This model seems to be pretty popular at the moment across the board. Then there are some businesses who are working on a fortnightly roster with 2 to 3 work from home days across the fortnight. But it is different for every business, and this is what everybody is trying to work through at the moment. What makes sense for us? But there is one thing that is really clear at this moment, and that's that there are not too many businesses at this time who are making full time return to the office mandatory. The instances where we have seen this, it's actually created a lot of lateral movement across the industry. It actually means that people have been choosing to leave and take up employment with a competitor that offers greater levels of flexibility. We've seen a very real example of this where there was one business who came out and said, “no, we're not going to be supporting remote working. We want everybody to come back, work in the office” while their competitor was actively promoting remote roles and their flexibility and a lot of employees from this initial business left and moved to the competitor. 

So, talent attraction and retention is really important consideration in your hybrid work for strategy so there are many factors to consider when planning what the right level of flexibility is to build into your workplace and they largely fall under the three key banners that Chris spoke to earlier. So, what is your organization's appetite and capability for remote working? What is your employees appetite and capability for remote working? And how remote-able are the roles in the organisation? And it's really finding that intersection of these three key factors where the answer lies for your business in relation to what is the right level of remote working to adopt. 

KC 
Great. Thanks for that, Jess and I think another thing we've been hearing a lot about lately is this whole. What is the future of the office? You know, how do we redefine the office? What role does it play in all of this? So, what are some of your views on that? 

JT 
Yeah, well, we are definitely seeing a redefinition of the role of the office in this hybrid world and its defining that purpose of your future workplace that's so important for messaging ‘the why’ of coming back to the office for your employees. So, when we're asking our people to come back to the office. We need to be able to say why, and it's also important to help guide your future workplace design and portfolio decisions.  

If we look at typical workplaces today, we often find that there is a much higher percentage of individual spaces for work. For example, workstations. So, eight desks to 10 people were seen as progressive prior to the pandemic. But today, the trends that we're really seeing is that there's a massive shift towards offices being a place that facilitates that connection and collaboration. While it's the focused work and scheduled virtual team meetings, that type of activities that can easily be done at home.  

There's also a strong trend towards workplace designs that provide the opportunities for teams to come together for high value, face to face activities. But of course, typically across a week we can't schedule are weak so that we've got all of our collaborative activities on one day and all of our focused activities on another. So, to this end, new workplaces today really need to be designed with a lot of thought put into how your people work today and how you want them to be working in the future. So, this may mean that in your future office you have a lot more 1 to 2 person jump rooms for virtual meetings. That's your typical kind of quiet rooms and focus rooms with AV. They are in such high demand today. Possibly it's great places for people to connect and socialise.  
So, ensuring that your future workplace has plenty of opportunities for those ad hoc discussions that need to take place and also those ad hoc discussions that take place at workstations is really important as well. That also still enables that learning through osmosis for junior team members and then also spaces for whole teams to come together and work from time to time. So there are so many interesting changes happening to workplace designs today as a result of the way that people are working now, it really is such an important time to be considering how we can take what we've learnt from the past 18 months to help us plan better for the future. Now, of course, when we overlay these work style trends with lower occupancy rates in the office, businesses are presented with the opportunity to implement more aggressive desk sharing ratio so that we can therefore implement more collaborative type spaces. 

KC 
And you mentioned Jess that pre-COVID a desk sharing ratio of eight desks to ten people was progressive. But what sort of ratios you're actually seeing now?  

JT 
Yeah, well, it's been really interesting because businesses are saying that people are really quite productive working from home. It doesn't make sense for their employees to come into an office that is then full of workstations that are potentially half empty because their people are working from home. So, we have recently seen a lot more businesses starting to adopt sharing ratios as much as six desks to ten people and one of our clients, even when as low as three desks to ten people. So while this desk sharing ratio can help you to attain lower office space requirements, many businesses are opting to actually utilise those space savings to insert this greater variety of collaborative work settings that support these high value face to face activities that we want to support and encourage in the office and also to put in a lot more spaces that support virtual connection and the ability to jump into a room and have that virtual conversation and of course, using these space savings to create great spaces that add to an enjoyable workplace experience for our people.  

CP 
It really seems that there's quite a few aspects that need to be considered when you really finding what the right hybrid model is for organisations and for teams. Especially when you consider all the controls and the options there, but also hearing what you've just said there just around future space planning. I think personally, I think we're quite lucky to be able to work in this space and have this exciting task with helping different organisations find the right approach that works for them. I know we've only just scratched the surface in what we've just spoken about then in terms of making hybrid work but I think unfortunately, that's all we've got time for today. 

JT 
Yeah, thanks, Chris and thank you, everybody for listening to Talking Property with CBRE.  

If you'd like to find out more about our workplace strategy and change management approaches, please get in contact with us on [email protected] and don't forget to listen to the wide range of conversations, presentations and panels across CBRE’s Future Cities 2021. If you like the show and want to check out more visit cbre.com.au/talking-property or subscribe through Spotify and Apple Podcasts.  

Until next time.