Building the right hybrid work rhythm for your organization

A hackathon exercise that engages your people, teams and leaders is key to building a successful hybrid workplace experience.

Years of transformation and the disruption brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic have set the stage for a future where work is hybrid and flexible. But as companies set out to design and communicate their hybrid working models, new questions and challenges arise. What new roles should teams, people and leaders assume in this new scenario? Despite the rising popularity of the term “hybrid”, how well do we all understand and embrace this concept?

After listening to the voices of our people and going through the latest research, we realized that we needed a workplace that focuses on trust in our people and respect for individual needs, preferences and life situations.

At EY, we went live with our Nordic Hybrid Model during the fall of 2021. We define the model as one that is based on freedom and flexibility. This means that our people can decide for themselves when and where to work. By offering the right technology and office spaces combined with transformative leadership skills, we built a flexible and inclusive workplace.

EY Teams support and guide our people to make smart decisions on work preferences not only based on their needs but also that of their teams, the organization and their clients.

Here’s how we did it.

The Work Reimagined hackathon

As we recognized that new challenges demand new ideas and approaches, we decided to gather passionate and curious people with diverse perspectives in a one-day design sprint – bringing into play Bricks, Bytes and Behaviors.

• Bricks: A network of spaces that supports all the different activities that employees perform during a workday.

• Bytes: User-centric digital workplace that enables knowledge sharing and collaboration regardless of time, place and setting.

• Behaviors: Purpose-driven culture that is built on trust and encourages collaboration, experimentation, transparency and self-leadership.

The Work Reimagined hackathon built upon a design thinking approach where EY people from across Service Lines and support functions together explored challenges related to hybrid working and developed solution prototypes for some of these challenges.

We looked at hybrid working through three lenses: The individual (me), the team (we) and the leader. What we discovered in the process was that the challenges experienced in these dimensions were closely interlinked.

1. For individuals, expectations around (hybrid) ways of working and team norms were the main challenge. We discovered that there is a need for more dialogue about individual preferences, needs and wants in order to clarify expectations and avoid uncertainty. There is a risk that flexibility comes with a (perceived) pressure to always be available in Teams or Outlook. Another struggle can be in finding the right balance between the efficiency of remote work and the energy of physical interaction.
2. For teams, the main challenge is in strengthening teaming and building a sense of belonging in a hybrid setting. It also becomes more important to ensure that team members have the same access to knowledge, networking and coaching opportunities no matter when and where they work.
   
3. For leaders, the biggest challenge lies in recognizing their role in a hybrid model and designing their workweeks to make room for active coaching, networking, socializing and teaming. Leadership in a hybrid working model needs to be much more deliberate and that doesn’t just happen without great effort.

In order to better guide our people, teams and leaders to find a great hybrid-working rhythm, we are now developing a number of guiding principles alongside tools, tips and tricks.