r10 hosted a well-received webinar on “How organisations are using an Agile Mindset to stay ahead in the changing world of work”.
The attendees submitted questions during the webinar around cultural changes, remote working challenges and lessons learnt. In a series of blogs, we are sharing the answers by r10’s People Advisory experts and presenters, Beth Cooper and Jo Flint. You can watch the webinar here.
Webinar Question #7: How can I best address challenges returning to work with half a team wanting to return and the other half not wanting to?
Jo Flint said, “It depends on the appetite of your organisation, what you can accommodate and what you can’t. I think it’s about showing flexibility, not one size fits all because everybody has differing needs. If your organisation has the appetite and you can accommodate requests then you should. It’s really important to remember what this experience has shown us and we shouldn’t forget it.
Work is what we do, not where we do it.
We’ve all successfully operated remotely but some people do want to go back into the office, I think where we can accommodate we should. I think trying and seeing is something I would recommend as well, does it work? does letting some of your people come back and some not work? It can be a daunting journey but we shouldn’t be scared, we don’t need to get things perfect first time round. As long as we are learning from what we’re hearing and being adaptable and flexible and as accommodating as we possibly can be as an organisation, that’s all we can do.”
Beth Cooper added, “If you’ve got people that want to come back to the office first, that’s also the opportunity to see what the experience is like for them. This is why flexibility is so important, as it’s recognising that some of these decisions may be beyond your control, if the government decide on a local lockdown again, which is very realistic as we head into winter, the decision of that office being closed may be taken from us. It’s important to begin moving away from one size fits all and making a distinction between people working flexibly, and flexible working requests and making decisions as a team about how this can work most effectively.”
Do you have a question? Get in touch!