CIOs Need to Embrace Radical Flexibility to Drive the Post-COVID-19
The post-COVID-19 work environment demands
radical flexibility in work policies, changing work patterns and how the office
supports different working requirements. CIOs can lead workers and support the
enterprise by implementing flexible work models that meet evolving employer and
employee needs.
Overview
- Leaders are accustomed
to the corporate office or facility as the primary or only work location,
and are unsure how to plan for different combinations of workplace options
or what patterns to expect.
- Legacy remote work
policies are designed to address working outside the office as a limited
exception, not as a normal option available on the scale anticipated for
the post-COVID-19 workplace.
- Offices and facilities
are traditionally designed for individuals to work in isolation or
sit in a conference room, with limited or minimal design or planning for
shared or collaborative work experiences that are a higher priority in a
flexible work environment.
To create a post-COVID-19 work environment that
supports radical flexibility for the evolving IT workforce, CIOs
should:
- Embrace flexible work
patterns by surveying managers and workers about workplace expectations,
preferences, requirements and limitations to determine work location
preferences and to anticipate the proportion of the workforce in each
pattern.
- Communicate new work
expectations by retiring any legacy remote work policy and replacing it
with a new flexible work policy designed around the expectation that
working from home or multiple locations is an accepted option.
- Determine the
functional purpose of space by working with IT managers, HR, finance
and facilities to replace space dedicated to workstations with
new collaboration, innovation and development areas that meet
team performance, reflection, refreshment, social and
interaction needs.
Introduction
The global
shift from working in an office to working at home shattered long-held beliefs
about the relationships between work environment, productivity and
responsibility. Leaders across industries and sectors recognized that
individual workers are responsible and productive independent of their work
location. In the 2020 Gartner ReimagineHR Client Survey, 90% of
HR leaders indicated that they now completely trust employees to work from
home, and 75% believe employees are as productive working from home as in the
office. For knowledge workers, in particular, the bond between work
performance and employer location has been broken and replaced with recognition
of personal trust and responsibility. Workers themselves have embraced this
change, with 80% of respondents to the 2020 Gartner ReimagineHR Employee
Survey expecting to continue to work away from the employer’s location as
needed.1 For most organizations, the expectation that work required
commuting into an office and sitting at a desk to use technologies to do your
job is no longer relevant or acceptable.
CIOs must
now consider and plan for the purpose and structure of the emerging work
environment for the IT organization and workforce. The shift away from the
office as the central work location has implications on workplace and workforce
planning. Organizations need to focus on developing new management and
leadership skills suited to supporting high-performing teams. HR must consider
the impact on workforce planning as a flexible work policy becomes a competitive
differentiator for talent acquisition. Workers have a wider selection of work
patterns available to them, which introduces more complex scheduling,
communication and workflow needs. Addressing these challenges begins with
CIOs and enterprise leaders developing policies to guide decision making in the
new environment and planning for a safe, sustainable and healthy workplace
design, focused on employee well-being, experience and collaboration.
Analysis
Embrace Flexible Work Patterns
Global
research data collected throughout 2020 from employees, employers and HR
leaders indicates firm expectations about the post-COVID-19 work experience
that do not include returning to the pre-COVID-19 work environment. Employee
surveys show a clear preference and expectation to have flexibility in
selecting their primary work location and in arranging their schedule. Employees feel strongly about having this flexibility, with half
the survey respondents indicating they would leave their current employer if
they are not offered a work-from-home option. Moving to a flexible work environment, however, introduces new
variations of work patterns that were not part of most workplaces in the
pre-COVID-19 experience. Understanding the emerging work patterns is essential for
workforce policy and space utilization planning.
Gartner
ReimagineHR Employee Survey results indicate that 80% of workers expect to
continue to work from home at least three days per week. Findings from Owl Labs and Global Workplace Analytics
surveys show similar responses. This significant
percentage highlights the reality of the post-COVID-19 work experience that
will be focused on a hybrid work arrangement between home and employer offices.
The majority of the workforce expect to work from a home office two or three
days per week, with the option to attend the employer office the other days.
Although this hybrid combination is emerging as the dominant pattern for the
majority of workers, it only accounts for 50% to 60% of the workforce.
In the 2020
Gartner Employee Engagement Survey, work location preferences are more clearly
visible. Only 13% of respondents indicate that they don’t want to work
remotely and prefer to return to the employer location. In comparison, 25% of
respondents indicate a preference to work from home every day. The majority of
responses, 51%, reflect the preference for options to work-from-home office and
employer office on a weekly schedule, with 11% wanting that same option monthly
or occasionally. As a result, data indicates that organizations should be
expecting between 10% and 15% of the workforce to choose the employer office as
their primary workplace. There will be another portion of the workforce,
between 25% and 30%, expecting to work from their home office as their primary
workplace, with the majority, between 50% and 60%, wanting options for work
location and schedule.
Taken
together, research data indicates that leaders should be anticipating at least
three distinct primary work patterns as part of the new flexible work model:
hybrid, employer office and home office. In discussion with enterprise
leaders, Gartner is seeing a fourth pattern — borderless — taking shape in some
organizations, with its own unique characteristics.
These work pattern percentages are
projected and estimated, based on combined global data across industries and
sectors. Each organization must assess the expectations of its workforce to
determine the unique allocation for each of these patterns, and plan workflows
and space utilization accordingly.
The
borderless pattern represents truly remote workers
(employees, freelancers, contractors or gig workers) who are not in
the same locality, region or perhaps country, and who work on a different
schedule and arrangement. Currently, these workers are captured in the hybrid
and home office data. Organizations moving into a flexible work
environment should expect this pattern to emerge and be relatively small at
first — perhaps less than 5% — with the potential to increase over time, as
organizations become more comfortable with the flexible work environment.
Leaders in every organization must take the
shifting expectations of the workforce into consideration in the planning for a
post-COVID-19 work experience. Few, if any, organizations will be exclusively
one of these patterns. Most organizations will have at least the first three,
with some already involved in the borderless pattern. Policy and planning
should anticipate that workers can move between these patterns as professional
responsibilities and personal circumstances change over time. The flexible work
policy and the corporate space utilization design must accommodate these
patterns and allow for variations and adjustments, based on employer and
employee needs.
CIO actions:
- Set a leadership
example for the IT organization and model good planning practices by
working with other senior leaders to understand workforce expectations and
attitudes.
- Collaborate with HR to
develop surveys and feedback opportunities to collect data from employees,
managers and executives to inform the flexible work strategy and planning.
- Use that information to
determine the proportion of the workforce falling into each of the four
patterns, so you can develop a set of flexible work policy guidelines and
design space that is functional and purposeful.
ommunicate New Workplace Expectations
Globally,
HR leaders report that remote work increased from 29% pre-COVID-19 to 76% by
April 2020. According to current survey responses, on average, clients expect
that 57% of their workforces could work entirely remotely, and 63% could work
remotely at least sometimes. Enterprise leaders must plan for the home
office to be the primary workspace for more than half of the workforce in the
post-COVID-19 work environment. This dramatic shift in work location means that
working from home can no longer be considered an exception to the normal
workplace. Working from home, either every day of the week or a few days per
week, will be considered normal in the post-COVID-19 flexible workplace.
Most
existing remote work policies were developed based on the premise that working
from home was an exception that required special criteria, justifications and
approvals. In most instances, the legacy policies were focused on only one
pattern: the full-time telework or remote worker. Legacy policies are not
effective for guiding decisions and conducting workforce planning where work
location and schedule flexibility are the norm. Retiring the legacy remote work
policy and replacing it with a new flexible work policy sends a clear signal
across the enterprise, to management and workers, that the work environment is
changing to accommodate new patterns and expectations.
For a flexible work
policy to be effective, leadership modeling is essential. Leaders embracing the
new work patterns for themselves is key to the policy leading to behavior and
culture change. If leaders and managers continue to work exclusively from the
employer office in a traditional way, direct reports and teams will not feel comfortable
or safe doing otherwise.This will undermine the value of flexible work to the
organization, and likely lead to disengagement, presenteeism and unwanted
turnover of critical technical talent.
The purpose of a flexible work policy goes
beyond simply sending a signal. Policies are needed to guide and direct
decisions and planning, and to ensure consistency across functional areas. This
is particularly important in organizations that have not put any type of
enterprise policy in place.
CIO actions:
- Discuss radical
flexibility with HR and enterprise leaders, and how to apply this approach
to benefit the workforce and to support management decisions.
- Work with HR and the IT
management team to distinguish this from any legacy practices and thinking
by defining new terminology and definitions for flexible work.
- Avoid surprises by
consulting with finance, HR, facilities and legal to identify any
regulatory or contract obligations that need to be considered before
planning and implementing a flexible work policy.
Determine Functional Purpose of Space
The
traditional enterprise office place was designed to function for a single,
dominant work pattern: employees commuting into the location, sitting at a
workstation, doing their assigned tasks within a set schedule and commuting
home. Everyone worked the same pattern, making the design of the office focused
on providing for a dedicated, assigned workspace. The addition of conference or
meeting rooms defined the two expectations of employees: sitting at a desk or
sitting in a meeting. Amenity places such as lunch rooms and other work and
social function areas, when available, were viewed as secondary spaces but not
necessities. In the post-COVID-19 workplace, the employer location requires a
significant redesign to accommodate new work patterns.
Adopting
radical flexibility acknowledges the changing expectations of the workforce
about the nature of work and the purpose of the employer’s location. The legacy
office was focused and designed primarily for two purposes: solo desk work or
group meetings. In a flexible workplace, both of these functions are
accommodated from a home office or through collaboration tools. To remain
relevant, the employer location must now focus on identifying and providing the
alternative, special-purpose employee experiences that cannot be addressed in a
home office or by virtual communication tools. These specialized spaces to
support engagement and performance will provide a competitive advantage for the
enterprise.
One of the
significant shifts in work experience expectations reflects functional change.
In the traditional office environment, a worker would typically request or
decide to work from home when they needed to escape office conversations,
distractions and interruptions, so they could do focused work. In a flexible
work model, the majority of the workforce is engaged in focused work in their
home office on a daily basis. Workers now look to the employer location to
provide opportunities for those unique collaboration, innovation or social
experiences that are not available in a home office arrangement.
The
post-COVID-19 office design should not be focused on replicating a workstation
environment of the past, but instead designed to deliver a range of alternative
work experiences. Some examples of creative use of space would be adding
the potential use of “green spaces” as a restorative antidote to the cabin
fever/social isolation of a home office. With business travel significantly
reduced or eliminated, workers report that they miss the reflection and thinking
time that travel provided. Consider creating retreat spaces similar to travel
lounges to recreate that environment and experience.
The work
patterns described earlier combined with surveys and consultation with the
workforce can help identify the new enterprise space functions. As a starting
point, most organizations will need to think about three distinct types of
functional space:
1.
Dedicated workspace and workstations — These will be
required for workers whose primary work location is in the employer office.
This will be a greatly reduced space requirement compared to the traditional
office layout.
2.
Assigned workspace and workstations — These will be
required for drop-in workers coming into the employer location occasionally.
This space would have limited capacity, to accommodate a smaller number of
workers on a rotation basis.
3.
Specific function space — Designed to address
specialized activity needs for individuals and teams, such as collaboration,
social interactions, training and development, innovation labs, client
showcase, marketing and sales, and others, these spaces will be used by
segments of the workforce at different times, no matter where the primary work
location.
CIO actions:
- Apply radical
flexibility to the design of the work environment to focus on the
reasons that employees will want to leave their home office to come into
the employer location.
- Work with IT managers
and teams to identify the types of interactions, meetings or experiences
that cannot be addressed virtually or within a home office.
- Consult
with facilities to configure a variety of special purpose areas
designed to deliver the employee experiences that will keep IT teams
engaged, productive and high performing.
