Hybrid Work Leadership Essentials for Success with Gary Cookson - OrgDev Episode 58

Hybrid work was supposed to be the future - but is it really here to stay? While many people thrive in flexible work arrangements, major companies like Amazon, Boots, and JP Morgan are reversing course and ordering their teams back to the office full-time. So, what’s next for hybrid working? 

In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we explore the biggest challenges organisations face in making hybrid work truly effective. How can we design workplaces, teams, and strategies that embrace flexibility? And what role do HR, OD professionals, and managers play in ensuring hybrid work actually works? Joining us is Gary Cookson, a leading expert in workplace performance, HR, and organisational development. With years of experience in helping businesses navigate the future of work, Gary shares insights on what it takes to make hybrid work sustainable, productive, and people-centered

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Transcript

Transcript:
(00:00) hi and welcome to the or Dev podcast so what are the biggest challenges organizations are facing in making hybrid working truly effective and how can we design our workplaces our teams and our strategies with hybrid in mind and what is the role of HR OD and manages to make it work now it was thought hybrid work and the benefits it brings to a huge percentage of the workforce was here to stay but the discussion about hybrid work isn't over yet there's a lot of media discussion around hybrid working Amazon boots and
(00:30) JP Morgan own major employees ordering their people back to the office full-time and some Business Leaders like the former boss of aser and Marks and Spencers are saying that working from home is creating a generation of people who are not doing proper work so today we're joined by the brilliant Gary cookson author of the recent releaseed making hybrid working work to tackle this critical area and help us understand the reality from the rhetoric Gary brings a refreshing evidence-based approach to hybrid working and Gary is
(00:57) the founder and director of Epic consultancy where he helps clients to improve workplace and performance he's got more than 20 years experience in both strategic and operational Char L&D and organization development roles in the public private and voluntary sector he's also a chartered fellow of the cipd and of the learning and performance Institute and a qualified coach as well and he was recently featured on HR Magazine's movers and shakers list as he said he's a published author with two
(01:22) books making hybrid working work which was released this month and also HR for hybrid working and he somehow finds time to write and consult even though though he's a father of four um and hopefully today he'll be sharing some of his secrets to how he does that as well so so welcome Garett it's great to have you on the or death [Music] podcast lovely to have you with us Gary so we've got lots of questions there's no shortage of questions and things to talk about so just to kick us off tell
(01:51) us just a bit about the book what what inspired you to write it and and what you hope and readers take away from it it was a long time CIT it was born from conversations I've had when my first book came out the first book was all about the employee life cycle and how if you're in charge of an HR function you have to change what you do when some of your employees work at home and and that was great but the conversations that I had following that were all about with senior leaders how do we make sure that
(02:16) the culture is right for hybrid working what are the leadership behaviors that need to be difference your hybrid working work what about changes to other parts of the organizational system and organization design and how do we make sure that it's right for our business as we sit within our industry and within our society as well so much higher level questions than how do you do recruitment virtually how do you do wellbe virtually so started then pulling together different bits of research and that eventually resulted in making hybrid
(02:47) work at work being the book that got published now and it's been a really interesting journey to get to this point lots of polarized opinions which I'm sure we're going to explore today around what remoted hybrid working is lots of evidence of organizations getting it right but plenty more evidence of organization getting it wrong as well this is helpful to me as a researchers as a writer because it helps me to solidify the advice I give to people but sad to see so many people got it wrong what surprised you most about the kind
(03:18) of research you did and what what surprised you when you were doing the research process I think it underline for me that there isn't a one siiz fit tall approach to hybrid work it so in in the for example there's 40 to 45 case studies of different organizations and their hybrid working approach and you'll struggle to find two that are identical really really struggle and sometimes it's a real problem for some organizations because they want to know what other people are doing what other organizations are doing so that they can
(03:48) copy and paste that into their own organization and that's that's okay but it won't necessarily work for a different context so different ways of doing it but also different ways of measuring it as well that was a surprise to me loads of organizations cry to measure the effectiveness of hybrid working but just as many don't bother they're okay with that and even those who do measure it there's a pleer of different metrics that bracket of the obvious ones like productivity and performance and profit and so on to
(04:21) things like that sustainability agenda and how far through that they are the their environmental footprint or turnover retention for staff or well-being stuff there's loads of measures and it's about what matters more to an organization underlying to again it could be a very very subjective individualistic approach that through strongly at the book cool and you mentioned the case studies there and there's loads of them in the book how did you choose who you were going to bring into the book who got who got in
(04:48) the book i' like to say there was a choice element to it but I I put lots of requests out for people who wanted to share their stories or their organizational stories and everybody who was responded features in book everybody so it wasn't a case of me editing it out and thinking oh that's not quite right cuz I recognized if somebody gets in touch with me it's a hand up and said I've got a story to share then I really ought to find a way of include me in the book so there wasn't a choice angle I
(05:15) was lucky that so many great stories came to me and you mentioned there that there's no one size fits all but other particular themes the organizations are getting it right and making hybrid work are there particular themes that you you picked up across the different case studies I think so yes I mean the one big theme is they're not leaving its chance they're not leaving the way the organization work to chance and that's very very right it's the way it should be and it's it's no different in remote
(05:40) and hybrid work than in person work either if you leave things a chance they deteriorate they go one way but if you actually make some effort if you think about the decisions you need to make and you plan them out and you consider the what if scenarios consequences of everything then it does tend to go quite well so hybrid working is something that planners will like if you're going to get it right you've got to do an awful lot of Forward Thinking and forward planning and that's the theme that emerges that there are loads of
(06:08) different ways to to do hybrid work it from very very flexible approaches to very structured approaches and both can work but you've got to think it through you may end up with a system where it will come on site number of days per week and the rest of the time they're somewhere else probably at home well that's your end point and the big theme of all the organizations that get it right is that is where they've ended up they've ended up with a model like that but the way they got there the journey
(06:38) is the interesting bit rather than the eventual destination and the the organizations that getting it wrong are making a statement to say we've got hybrid working our our people work next days at home X days in the office and that's where they've both started out finished and that's the problem yeah I think it's really important it's starting with the right question isn't it it's not the the question isn't what's the right ratio of days in the office and days at home the kind of what
(07:04) does our organization need to achieve what it needs to achieve I'm thinking hitchhikers gu to the Galaxy now and 42 being the answer to like Universe and everything and then of course the followup to that is what what was the question and I think that's where you going to with this so sort of a collective experience that many organizations had was being collectively catapulted into working remotely completely after the pandemic and a lot of organizations were kind of sort of making up as they went along and now
(07:30) with hybrid work in the CH to reinvent what influence has that had on on how organizations are sort of their starting point with hybrid work yeah quite a lot and there was a lot of organizations that maybe more through look than judgment got things right during the pandemic where we had for about working but there was majority didn't necessarily land on a bottle that was particularly helpful but let's be honest there were other things they have to think about at that point it wasn't high up on their agenda so we're not blaming
(07:59) any organization for what happened in the 18 months where we had enforced R working but from that point as soon as restrictions were lifted and and because they could then make Pointes about what they wanted to do the kind of employer they wanted to be the kind of employee experience who wanted to create from that point that was when it was really important to start thinking it through and most again didn't what happened in the pandemic with enforc remote working was not through remote working though loads of advantages to it you remember
(08:30) some of those from from firstand experience but loads of disadvantages WR with it at the same time because of the nature of it being enforced and mandated and nobody had much choice and it was all quite urgent at the time so loads of mistakes made and some organizations learned from those mistakes they emerged from the worst of the pandemic and started thinking through what they needed to craft afterwards they Leed from that Lots didn't and unfortunately some of the views you see about about working now and hybrid working now are
(09:02) pulled because of the experience that was had during the pandemic which wasn't in my view through remote working and I've been working something different again full-time remote working something that is not really very attractive to many people at all but the same could be said as full-time onsite working hybrid working is where the great unwashed in the middle want to be there so many variants in that how do he find the right one it's a real challenge for lots of organizations so it's a really high
(09:30) stakes decision isn't it for a business about when and you know where and how people are going to work so what's your advice to to organizations where do they start either if they're kind of thinking about this from a kind of a ground zero perspective or they've got a kind of hybrid model that's not really working where do they start where how do they move forward well a range of questions that could be posed to an organization that and perhaps the most obvious starting point is what kind of an
(09:51) organization do you want to be what do you want to think about you as an organization what do you want your reputation your brand to be now that's not just from an employee value proposition perspective but it's all about what your customers might think of you what your neighbors might think of you what the wider communities in which you serve and in which you're located might think of you those are really important questions for any organization to consider on an ongoing basis anyway when they're developing their strategy
(10:20) Brom strategy then will flow things like values and statements about the culture what it's like to be in that organization the way that information flows around when decisions are made the way the organization is structured and designed lots of things flow from that initial set of strategizing and the values should flow through them into the approach itself to what works and lots of organizations don't really sit that through they might have really nice words in the values about being transparent and being fible and people
(10:51) being empowered and you know the kinds of words that you've seen before but then if you say to people you got to work here on Monday there on Tuesday and between these hours you're not really living up to your values you've got to make sure there's alignment between the practices and the the initial questions about what kind of an organization do we want to be kind of an employer do we want to be how do we want our staff to feel on a Sunday evening the day before they have to come back to work on a
(11:20) Monday morning those types of questions are really important questions for organizations to consider and will help them to Think Through the way they want to beat their St like how they want their staff to operate in the the overall system they've got it's quite a rare thing isn't it because organizations often become what they become for whole variety of reasons and something that hybrid working to many sense should be like a functional argument is often an ideological battle or people's beliefs
(11:46) are ingrained in it like what is an honest day's work and where do you do it as well how do you do it what what approaches do you have for HR or OD if you are in an organization where maybe you just have sort of some ingrained beliefs particular scor your level where it is like if you if I can't see you you're not working some of that is generational I think I what can HR do and strangely enough I've been brows in on LinkedIn over the weekend and there's loads of stuff about a recent episode of
(12:12) panorama on there and I've contributed some discussions as well but there there's others where there's some really really strong opinions and beliefs about remote working hybrid working being but and what surprised me in in reading some of those posts is how many HR people has that view as well we tend to think of HR the agressive Forward Thinking all about flexibility and empowerment and actually that's not the case lots are some AR so it could well be but as an HR professional OD professional you have a
(12:44) certain belief that remote working is bad and you find yourself in an organization that agrees with you the one thing that HR can do is nothing nothing to do why Rock the apple cart why break it I fix it if a well the other thing you can do if you find this opposed to the organization is leave and work someware morality of values that's an option for anybody of course regardless of profession but in terms of what you do about the differences in beliefs I think it's easier to change that one conversation at time that's my
(13:13) view about how change happens oration at a time it's the same with changing cultures and changing beliefs and changing the nor in organization you rightly pointed out that some people's beliefs are based on their experiences where they were the former itive years of that career but we have to look back and think about what kind of world of work that was well I'm older the both of you I say but I can remember smoking at your desk in the workplace and having an a tray built into your desk and I can
(13:45) say that to my kids nowadays and they can't conceive of such a thing and they're entering a world of work is very different than the world of work that I entered and probably the one that you two entered as well that's the same in lots of things technology is one for example I remember emails first coming in organizations prior to that I remember writing internal memos in Rec church and sending them in the internal post just because that was the experience I had when I entered the workplace doesn't mean that that's the
(14:16) experience that other people have had since or the experience I need to thought upon other people that same true of remote working there was no remote working when I started working I'd been working four or 5 years before or anybody even thought about it so I got into a managerial position but ever being near about working about working came later just because that's the experience I doesn't mean that's the experience everybody had nor is it the experience I want to voice on other people against their will the world has
(14:50) moved on and in other ways the world and Society has moved on now the lots of families grew up and myself included grew up in a family where the man was the main earner and the woman if she worked at all had a part-time job focused on the child care and the school runs and lots of other things that's a very outdated model now so my dad was able to go on site working 5 days a week Monday to Friday night9 to 5 cuz he had the bom in the background and his own M by Nana to do lots of the old paid stuff that simply isn't right anymore in this
(15:26) kind of society and haven't spoken to my dad about his views on remote working and suspect he wouldn't really think it's working but he just try and voice his views and other people he doesn't try and build an organization where everybody has the same experience as him he is at least intelligent enough to realize that the world is different he may feel out of place in it but he didn't try to fight against it he didn't try to go back to how it was too many leaders in organizations that's the way
(15:54) they want to play things this is how I grew up this is how my early years in my career worked out therefore that's the only way it could ever work out for anybody else and I think holding the mirror up as an HR professional the people like that I'm pointing out some of the things that that I've just said and people listening and watching to this will have their own similar examples is a really good way to go now then the person who you're telling that to they may be so entrenched in their views they're not
(16:23) willing to listen to that well that's where they voted with your feat to was a a realist want what you for me the other thing is is how do organizations strike that right balance between business needs and employee preferences so I think sometimes that get the the waters there can be get quite muddy what advice have you got for for organizations trying to work walk that path I've had conversations on on this the last few days as well I've been looking at some HR professionals again on on LinkedIn
(16:50) commenting that business needs have to come first if the business wants people back in the office 5 days a week then so be it and and that's okay I think it's a it's a fine line really there's lots of available data more and more every week that points out that when you let people work more flexibly hybrid's an example of that but there are others but when you do that sometimes it doesn't have a positive effect but what it certainly doesn't have is a negative effect on anybody's productivity performance it
(17:21) does have a good impact on turnover and retention on absenteeism on well-being on lots of other employee m trick and I would use data like that show that we can balance these things it isn't one or the other employee or the organization getting their own way both can get their own way at the same time and hybrid gives us a way of looking at that in a way that previously we wouldn't have been able to so the conversations I'd be having as an HR professional is to say well it's not either or and how do we
(17:56) get business needs and employe needs in the same place the same time it's not one or the other I think that's something that HR sometimes gets wrong because it's so abundantly clear that things like hybrid work has such a positive impact on all the metrics and it opens up access to Talent pools that are going to help fuel growth in that as well but sometimes I think we forget to make the case that others don't get the people as much as HR do because HR lives and breathes it every day is that
(18:24) something that you experience yeah it is and again if you just look at the the balance of the contributions to posts in the last week or so on on link Panorama debate that most of the new VI working comments are coming from people who are in people fashion HR L and d o d most of the ones that are me against hybrid working are most of the operational staff or senior leaders or people in particular the roles where hybrid working not b as available to them it might have Worthen some other roles and might harbored some jealousy or
(19:03) resentment about that so yes there is there is an imbalance in that now it's easy to get across because one of the things that is a big enabler of most organizational success is great leadership and a great leader has to understand that people a great leader has to work with their people rather than tell their people what work they need to do but if we're doing any work with a group of leaders in organizations we can easily get across the pointment hybrid working and other Allied practices are great for staff therefore
(19:35) as a leader you are doing great things by enabling some of those things and again one conversation at a time you should be able to spread that virally through an organization just talking about the leaders and kind of manager aspect do you think managing a hybrid team requires different skills yeah oh very much so yeah very much so because when you are face to face as a manager it's a very sensory like experience you can see what your people are doing you can hear what they're doing you get too close to them you can smell them as well
(20:06) but lots of that is not there when you managing a hybrid team or not there all the time so I I liken it to sensory deprivation or sensory loss you know if if one of us lost our sight lost our hearing there'd be a period of adjustment quite serious just and we'd still quite a loss during that time until we learned other ways to see what's going on to hear what's going on don't use our eyes and our ears and that's what remote and hybrid working is it requires leaders on and stop only using their senses to
(20:42) make decisions and start using data evidence digital forms as communication and all the things like that that will help them to be a much more rounded leader there's other skills as well we use the word or phrase sof skills now I think that's quite a derisory term but something that is of critical importance to a leader but I think as a manager of a hybrid team your do skills become even more important than the worthless to Fai because of the need to combat isolation and loneliness and remote workers the
(21:20) need to enhance collaboration and communication between the team to make sure that recognition and feedback and prise is not sub to that's funneled through a leader but something that's spread across the team and managers who've been used to being the H around which onsite working revolve they're not the Hub anymore in remote and hybrid working they are part of a like a module a network of connected people and they'll be connected to lots of people and other people connected to others too and we
(21:53) have to make sure that people work well with people that requires a leader to know what that means and to be able to P that into people as well and again in a face to- face environment that might not have been quite so critical but certainly is face to face the other one would be hiden space decision making something that that talked about a lot and I'm sure you have as well to not just rely on what feel whatting to not just rely on one's own beliefs but to use waer to help you and a range of other evidence as well CU it's all out
(22:26) there for hybrid workers who generate way more data points than a face to-face worker as called there's so much you can see and find out about how the organization is working how the team is working how individuals are feeling and hybrid working giv you that gives you so much data but as a leader you've got to know firstly where to find it secondly what to do with it those kind of things you in the domain of like identity and how I bring value to the workplace is starting to shift isn't it these are
(22:55) huge things already I guess in many respects managers are off do quite overwhelmed already aren't they one of the things that organizations get wrong even with organization design is that they don't they're not clear with managers of what the expectations of them are now in this kind of hybrid way of working or with this new particular structure where does that responsibility sit for making hybrid work does it sit purely hr's door or does it sit much more than that no I think if we if we let it sit at hr's door then we're
(23:24) making a mistake really we're not engaging all the different stakeholders events this is some the top team have to take responsibility for the implementation of it may well sit with the HR team but the design of it needs to sit with the top team with the right input from HR and OD professionals it's a really important thing to get right because it affects so many parts of the organizational system it's too important to be n for HR professionals but I would make the same case of any other type professionals it's too important to
(23:53) leave to one team yeah so one of the other things I wanted to ask you about was around proximity bias that we you know we know comes into play how does that play out the kind of how do we ensure fairness and transparency when we've got kind of hybrid teams people in the office people not in the office people we see all the time people we don't what advice have you got for people around they sharing because people get lost don't they in the system they just their work doesn't get seen or noticed does it it's it's a real danger
(24:16) and and there was there was one word missing from your last statement by G you said people get lost the word I would add there is Can it can get a lot s to and that's about intentionality if you leave it to chat if you don't do anything about it man lost people won't lost it's the manager knows what to do and Designs the work of the team and Designs the inter relationship between the team in the right way so that that doesn't happen the point you make it for example is is a valid one because for example we're
(24:55) all collocated in the same office and I'm Your Man one of you does a great piece of work and see it hear it I can smile at you could nod and say something because the prompt for me to do that is very close to me in real close proximity to me but when you're remote how do I know that you've done a good piece of work how do I know that there's something worth noticing commenting on so go back to Danny's points about proximity bias that's where it can come into play because you rely as a manager
(25:32) sometimes on the visual cues the the audible cues as well to tell you when to do the things that as a manager you should do without anybody putting you to do praise people recognize people acknowledge people when they're remote there might need to be a bit more of an explicit B for that to happen and people might need to work out loud in ways that are not just verbal or digital as well that then showcases what they're do it day in day out so whoever needs to see that it's also unfair for them to be
(26:03) funneled through the manager they become a bottleneck that type of sport so manager got to work to develop that culture of reconition and appreciation Ross the team some of those things can happen without the manager necessarily A being involved or B possibly being aware of the proximity bias how can you measure it well one thing you can easily do is CB the interactions you have not tell you what the interactions are but who they are with and how many there are and the easiest way of doing that is to keep a a five bar gate or a tally chart
(26:37) and you've seen the things four vertical lines and and a diagonal line across them every time you speak to somebody put a mark against their name doesn't matter who it was doesn't matter what the interaction was but just note that over a day over a week really interesting pattern can emerge visually you can then see who is a manager or who is any individual really you you are communicated the most with and then you can start asking questions are the people are communicated with the most pated with me are they remote did it
(27:10) change B to where I was did it change based on where they were did it change based on what we would do it Ty which communication platform did I use or was it entirely verbal so every time you interact with a human being you mark it down a really interesting visual platform to play that then you can coach as an hro professional you can coach the leaders to make sense of that data and to do something about it so they can start implementing aous working techniques and they can start looking at fairness and Equity amongst the team and
(27:44) change the way the team works so that proximity biases less and less of an issue so but the starting point is to figure out is it an issue in the first place and that's where your data it extended the subject to fairness there so some organizations might have a blend of different roles where some naturally lend themselves to hybrid working and some just cannot be hybrid working you know they have to be on site to perform the role is it one in all in or can you have a blend and how do you create fairness if if you do because because to
(28:11) many extents you know the what comes with HBY working sometimes is quite a privilege as well yes and that word's been leveled at me today in a conversation that we are creating a two-tier Workforce potentially with some of the benefits of hybrid working available to some and not to others and I say that's rubbish I always say and this will be a controversial state statement that people watching this will have a view on there is no such thing as a job that can't be hybrid I will that for you what do yeah well but also
(28:38) fairness is something that I don't think we should worry ourselves too much about fairness is about meating everybody the same equally well you know and some jobs you're on your feet all day so does that mean we need to take chairs away from those that aren't on their feet just so that we can level the playing field for some jobs we pay actal minimum wage mean we have to pay everybody naal minimum wage just so we can level the playing field I could go on with those types of examples but there is no such things as
(29:06) a job that can't be hybrid and that's very very true what we've got though is a lot of TKS that want be hybrid tasks so where we have problem was that somebody all those tasks into one job that then means that that job can't be hybrid but that's a conscious job design sequen somebody made that job it might have been decades ago in before hybrid work it was even thought of but somebody wrote a job description with a dozen or more things on that have to be done on site and just when somebody wrote that
(29:43) somebody else can rewrite it so that it can be different and just because a job's always been done in one way do mean it has to be done that way now and just because that tax always been in that job doesn't mean that it it can't go in that job or that that task over there can't go in that job and the way I recommend that people view it is to start working out TS by TS whether it's thck or it terms both location and time and you can use a job description as your way of looking there's lots of
(30:17) other things you can use too but you build up a picture of right now in this job how much of what I do is fit in terms of time and location those things must things stand cannot be done in a hybrid way that doesn't mean with increased use of artificial intelligence or Outsourcing stuff or just stop it to do stuff that'll always be the case and then once you've got it for one job you can easily do that for the whole team once you see the whole team it's more a case of throwing everything up in the
(30:47) air and then much like the video game Tetris as the blocks are coming down and trying to fit them into the right bit that's what you're doing with the tasks to get them into the right jobs and go make the mistake that somebody 40 50 years did of putting all the tasks that can't be hybrid in one job well made that mistake why would you do that you open your to Lo yourself up to load of criticism so we can rebuild the jigsaw but we could build it in a different shape and make sure that there is some
(31:19) element of tasks that can be hybrid in everybody's job real good example of this my local GP surgery now I don't know whether this is the case on all GP surgeries I only go to the wallet but you cannot get a face to-face appointment my GP surgery you cannot what you do is you fill in a form on their website where you want some treatment and you put in all the details now previously would rung up that but you fill in an online form within half an hour somebody somewhere GP has pre-ged this and told you what needs to happen now that g g p
(31:59) is remote working all day not GP he or she all they'll do is prar these online forms they are not then involved in the followup the followup might be go to the pharmacy the followup might be H and have this done on sign it could be a f you could be a range of thing but that GP for one of the five days they were is doing ask and they're doing it for wherever they want could come on site they do choose to do it Ely for the other four days they're doing a traditional surgery where somebody else has done the remote stuff and then is
(32:35) referring them to come on site all of a sudden what you've got is a role that used to be 100% on site and there was no way around that to using a technology in a way that enables task to be shifted has to be unfrozen and this GP surgery though you know people like my dad ban that it's all done online but it worked really well from the gp's perspective they get 20% of their time from home so it can be done and I've got loads more examples at the book of jobs like pizza delivery of jobs like retail Fashion
(33:07) retail shops and of jobs like receptionists in in office blocks all being done remotely do I have the pizza one yeah you should have pizza one well this this is a a nearby pizza Chay wellknown Pizza Chay to be there aren't many so if you're thinking of a pizza chain it's one of two or three and you'd be right and in this got the branch of this welln pizza chain they've got five people they've the people who do the cooking and stuff but they got five people and one of these people is what
(33:38) you might call the logistics person they take the phone calls they make the orders from the online app and they tell the cooks what to cook and the delivery drivers where to go and the other four people they are the delivery drivers delivering pizza at the moment at least until drones take over is an onsite location it can only be done in person there is no argument about home then the logistics person Works entirely from home and what this pizza shop did with a bit of help from me would' say to them instead of being a team of four and
(34:13) a team of one you're now a team of five and you all work five days a week but instead of the logistic person doing Logistics five days and the four drivers be driving for five days we're going to mix up the tasks so that you all 20% of your time doing logistic and 80% of your time do the drive it so now what happens is when it's your day of the week to do the the logistic you can do that where you want there the space in the shop where they can do it they can do it remotely all done through a phone and
(34:47) they can choose where to do it and then the other four days five they work they're driving ites to that's flexibility bu require conscious effort somebody wrote a job description for pizza delivery people that said that's all you do somebody wrote a job for I don't you know what the job title is It's a logistician or whatever it might be who said these are all tasks you do remotely because somebody did that once we can do it again and say these tasks have be all thrown up in the air and put back in a
(35:21) different order that's what we're talking about to make hybrid work it work it eventually every job that's some really interesting examples Gary thank you telling makes you think doesn't it so one of the things that always comes up when we talk to organizations about hybrid is culture at some point you know company culture will come up in the discussion when we did the pre- discussion to this with you you you said something really that I wrote down hybrid reveals culture can you just say more about that about that kind
(35:48) culture piece around hybrid now the quote is is not M I've developed it but the quote aim from so I should give credit to Chris herd and it was I've paraphrased slightly because it it suits the analogy that I'm extending here but he said something about distributed work doesn't kill culture it reveals it so I talk about hybrid work and I I take a little bit further what I mean by that is that hybrid shows you where the problems are and you know there's a couple of analogies I can give you here
(36:18) I've recently discovered that I've got high blood pressure now I'm trying to work out why well the reason why I know I've got high blood pressure is we bought a blood prer Monitor and I started tting myself now that shows me the problem doesn't tell me why the problems there it doesn't tell me what I can do about it it shows me there is one and I got two choices about this situation that I'm in now I could either try and tackle the cause of my blood pressure or I could throw the blood
(36:51) pressure monitor away and say that it's because I tested myself that I now know about an issue well that's the same about hybrid and I think the example I gave you in the pre discussion we had if I remember rightly was about the garden that you might PL and I think if you look out of your of your window now garin's got his his curtains Clos so we can't see his now but if we did we'd see a garden as you looking us to have a a lawn with some grass and so on you look out now and you know it's winter now as
(37:23) we're recording so it's not necessarily uh growing fast but won't belong and it will and Gary could stay looking out of his window all week long looking at that graph and might not notice any changes now and again if he comes back every other day he'll see some changes cuz he's not there all the time see it and over time that Garden unless Garing goes out and does something is going to get overgrown going to deteriorate and that's the same with pocture now the vehicle the length through which gared
(37:58) see it his garden is his window that's hybrid work hybrid work is the Len through which you can see more clearly what's going on in different parts of your organization and you've got a couple of choices at that point you could get out there into the garden and start doing some weeding which is what I'd recommend or you could do what garin's done close the Cur so you can't see what going on here you can pretend that these problems don't take exist because you can't see them and if you are working entirely on
(38:33) site you will not see what going on other parts of the organization which you can only see what's within your eyeline you won't see the other bit hybrid working shows you more shows you more of what's going on it's not the PS the medic cultural deterioration but it enables you to see it more clearly and you can either get out there and sort your culture out or you can say everybody back to the office because I don't like what I see when you're talking like for example with the pizza thing like as human beings we love
(39:04) patterns even if not the right optimal patterns for us as well so you know there is something around the comfort of knowing that you're the logistics person and you're introducing things like challenging convention and Status Quo and people might attach status to things like being the logistics person that's the kind of thing we are starting to make difference there isn't it so sometimes that's the the more challenging elements where the case is is absolutely clear why it should change but yet we still struggle as individuals
(39:30) to change yeah we are and that's human nature there's another podcast in that about the way the way don't don't start me that Gary my wife would be very very angry but yes yeah I think so and human beings we don't like change but hybrid working is all about change it's change mostly for the better as well and it will create some resentment in some job roles where they think can't do this whether the other people doing it it will it will create some resentment from leaders who 30 40 years ago didn't us the ability or
(40:07) the privilege to be able to do that and they now resent other people well so I can understand why itates a res we can do something about that so you also work on top of being North you're you're a consultant you're out in the field you're you're leading on change and you've also LED it within organizations as well what challenges do you typically encounter when you're trying to support an organiz gation to do more of hybrid working probably the most obvious one is when organizations are adopting a should
(40:36) hybrid of tro like two days here three days there for everybody the challenge is making that work for everybody because no two job are the same and no two people doing the same job samee way and having it a structured six hybrid approach sounds great sounds really reable makes you sound like a really good employer committed to sex for working but actually there's more to it that's go a little bit on this podcast the big challenge is once you've made that decision as an organization how do you then support the managers and the teams
(41:13) to work that's where I often come in to do some of my work there left to their own devices they can often through priv error sometimes get to the right point but there in develops inconsistencies and there in develops little bits of cultural deterioration so there are challenges then to make sure there's a cohesive approach more that just two days say three days there you can't stop there but many organizations sadly SW be do so that's the big challenge I try to tackle and then are there any particular kind
(41:45) of Trends or topics that are kind of emerging in the field that are kind of really interesting you at the moment yes so we we're recorded at the end of January now and we're a week away from an episode of Panorama which highlighted a lot of friends around organizations mandated people to return to the office and you don't have to go far in the media to see more and more examples of that and it's in quite a sad State of Affairs I mean we may we may talk specifically about panorama but there's
(42:12) a trend that many organizations are abandoning hybrid working now my view on that is what said data and can they show it years time two years time that the decision to abandon hybrid working made a I suspect they're not interested in the data so they won't have any at all to do with opinions and so on and and that's the trend at the moment there is a trend of organizations going the other way and making it work as well but the ones that get the media coverage are the ones who say ready back to the office
(42:43) person that's swe that magic happens and it's hard sometimes to try to disprove some of that but it's also hard to prove that sit as well and sometimes whoever is saying such things they don't want to hear the opposite of view already decided they don't want to see the evidence that things are working but they're not interested in that they own the organization or they Ru the organization that's good enough for them so that's a big challenge a big Trend that I'm see in the moment is
(43:10) organizations realizing that hybrid work for them isn't working rather than trying to fix that or holding the hands up and say hey we didn't need to try they're just going back into the office and open for the events it's like not being able to swim and decided to go down to your local pool and then be surprised you drowned and that's the kind of analogy we've got with organizations who are saying this I've been working it's rubbish isn't it let's go back into the office it's not even
(43:41) try oh they won't see the consequences of that decision for a long time because there'll be a lag won't there in terms of whe the people's day interested measuring the consequences they're not interested in consequences yes you right there will be a lag you're quite right they're not even going to try and measure them so if you look back at your kind of work so far what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned that you think might be valuable for for our listeners to well H hybrid's easy
(44:02) because I I say the same things all the time to everybody no want size fit all don't leave it to chance things like that and so those are the big lessons on hybrid working in terms of my own career I think two lessons probably stand out for me one is a phrase that didn't understand until maybe the last 10 years or so that it's not what you know it's who you know and that's a phrase that you know somebody said to me 40 odd years ago that in life it's not what you know it's who you know and I didn't
(44:33) really understand it or or want to understand it in the last 10 years it's really been Hab home to me that yes it's great to have a stock of knowledge and a great lot of skills but relationships are where the difference is made building relationships for me consultant with my clients but also when I was in in house roles with fellow senior leaders and various stakeholders and working on the strength of the relation reltionship has been more beneficial to me than adding qualification after qualification after qualification and it
(45:04) took me too long I I need to to realize that the other bit of advice that's worked for me is living your life in the right sense of priority when it was introduced by you earlier on you said father a four corre when I introduced myself on a conference stage I say father of four husband of one and get a little bit of spare time and in that spare time well business and I try to live my life in those proportions as well so that gives an insight into what matters in my life I say things in that order and i' live my life in that order
(45:39) and it took me too long again to get to that point as well and realizing where my focus needed to be as a human being and made lots of mistakes along the way but nowly got more control over what I do when I'm happy with the blend that I've got now that's I don't necessarily want every to go out and have four kids and so on so that's not what I'm saying you have to do don't follow me down that route at least not unless you want to end up looking like me but it's about identifying what matters
(46:09) in life and that'll be different for other people and making sure that you put the right am it's that and what do you do to keep learning and evolving in your field obviously a book is a huge experience and you're having to go out and find your references find you theories and that as well but what particular practices or habits do you found especially useful for you well in in Years Gone by I would have talked to you about social media here I think and and in particular Twitter which was nearly departed and I lament it lost
(46:38) quite a lot but witer was was a God sent to me 10 12 years ago it was where I built My Personal Learning Network it was where I was exposed to some of the leading thinkers LED in HR but in life as well and was able to connect with and Converse with those people so social media for me was the main way which I was exposed to new ideas and and got the kernels of research and then started to expand to build a pot so that work really well for me I don't know I I don't know but obviously the book is a big way of doing it and I've just
(47:14) started writing a third book different topic but and that helps me because it send out requests for share stories for people to share their insights and experiences of people do and it's great for what I end publishing what I write about but it builds a relationship that person that I can then tap against them for other things and vice versa and learned through them and that's really helpful so let's repeat it a little bit of what I've learned from social media but it's through a different panel now and I'm
(47:46) also repeating some of the advice shared about life lessons it's not what you know who you know that's coming to the four now in my research that it is about learning through other people equal for me nowadays far less than through book videos and all more stuff I learn through talking well Gary I want to say a huge thank you it's been a really great interview it's been provocative it's been thought-provoking it's been practical and really important it's evidence-based as well which is what
(48:16) this subject desperately needs obviously along with everything we've discussed today there'll be a link to your new book and your first book in the show notes as well and thank you for those that are in audio to sh a picture of the book there but that's available on all the different normal platforms for books isn't it is that right it is yeah Amazon's probably the main one but the co page website would be another one and all needed doors as well Brant so so many takeaways Danny what are you taking
(48:39) away from today's conversation a lot of the things I think some of the things have stuck out for me the importance of intentional intentionality when you're kind of thinking about your hybrid model I liked what you said about the importance of working out loud I think that's a really important message for lead to take away and I love the idea of visualizing who we're interacting with and kind of keeping that that log of how many as we're talking interacting with different people CU that that data would
(49:00) be really powerful I think I think some of the organizations we're working with just that seeing that pattern in front of you we'll give you some really good insights yeah and reflect all those points and build on some as well so talking about is fairness possible for all employees and maybe sort of attacking that in a much more sophisticated way the idea that helping leaders understand that hybrid working is is a form of great leadership as by understanding what employees need as well I think that's a really important
(49:26) bit and also the importance of challenging convention around how we just sort of collect things into tasks then into jobs and it's the giving ourselves permission to challenge the status quo and to really change how we Hardware our organizations and that everything is on the table if we really want to make this work as well Gary it's been brilliant it's been really good we really strongly recommend your book it's a really great book it should be recommended reading for all HR people and managers thinking about attacking
(49:52) ways of working in a much more Progressive and sophisticated way so thank you so much Gary we really appr appreciate it oh thank you really enjoyed your thanks Carrie [Music]