The Workplace of now - embracing a hybrid workplace.

Erik Niewiarowski

From HRgrapevine.com, it’s the HR Grapevine podcast. Hello there everyone, Eric Niewiarowski, host of the pod thank you so much for joining me this week. And today's episode is the fifth instalment of our special Workplace of Now series presented along with our partners at Zellis.

 

And in case you missed it, Zellis are the UK and Ireland's leading provider of payroll and HR solutions. They have over 50 years of heritage and industry experience and have been ahead of the curve throughout. So, in this edition of the Workplace of Now, I am going to try and get an answer to the question, are we failing a younger generation of workers? And to help me answer that quandary, I'm thrilled to be joined once again by Jacqui Summons. Now, Jacqui was in the first episode of Workplace of Now, and she is the Chief People Officer at EMIS Health, and a non-executive director at Zellis. Jacqui has decades of HR experience, and really is a thought leader on all things HR. So, Jacqui is going to help me unpack this concept of how we're treating our younger generation of workers. Does hybrid working favour established employees over the newer ones? And with all the new skills and demands on workers, how are businesses investing in meeting the demands and needs of the future? And we're also going to get into the topic of progression in a hybrid work world. If we are working in home, or just part-time at home and part-time in the office, are our employees at risk of stagnation? So as always, it was a very insightful conversation with Jacqui, and I hope you enjoy it.

 

Jacqui, great to have you back on the Workplace of Now podcast excited to talk to you today about the younger generation of workers. But before we get into that, can you just remind the audience and for those who haven't heard us before, a little bit more about you and some of your background?

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, absolutely great to join you as well, Eric today. So, I am the HR director for EMIS, which is a healthcare software business, primarily in the UK. And I also am a non-exec director for Zellis HR systems and payroll. So, I combine those two roles as best I can.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

Great. So today on the Workplace of Now, I want to get into the younger generation of workers. Obviously, every demographic age group has been impacted by the pandemic in in some way, right. But I'm wondering if the younger generation has maybe suffered the most or been impacted the most, because when you think of a younger generation, you think of Gen Z, you think of sometimes entry-level work fresh out of uni. So, not only has the university experience been impacted, for a lot of these people entering the job market has been totally not what they had envisioned or imagined when they were in uni. Right? You think I'm going to go to uni for however long, get my degree and I'm going to just pop right into an office, but we don't work in the office anymore. So, I guess my first question was that, with this shift to hybrid working that we're all doing now, most of us are doing, does the hybrid working model favour established employees over newer ones?

 

Jacqui Summons

Eric, I think it 100% does. And I was really excited to talk about this topic, actually. Because although I absolutely can't be described as a younger worker myself, I have two children who are literally coming out of university now sort of heading into the world of work. So, it's a subject that we talk about quite a lot, also, you know, get quite a lot of information from people at work about how they feel. And it's the group that that sort of worries me the most. And that's partly because I look back to the point at which I first started my career and I kind of reflect on how was it that I learned the things that I learned. And, you know, predominantly, I wasn't learning the really key information in training courses. They were really incredibly helpful. I started working back in the 80s for a big organisation that was incredibly good at training employees. But actually the things that I really learned effectively were sitting alongside people hearing conversations and having conversations myself. Having good mentors around me that would just take the few minutes to sort of tell me what it was that they were involved in that day, getting me involved in a way that I think is so difficult to break into when you're sitting remotely from that office environment, it's, it's so much more difficult to kind of get that interaction, right. So, I really worry about this group. And, you know, I don't think we're alone in this as we get towards the end of this summer and approach next winter, I think we're really starting to think, Okay, do we draw a line? And do we say that going forward, we are going to operate slightly differently? Like a lot of organisations we went what we consider to be a hybrid route. And I think what we've discovered is that people are defining that so differently from one group to another, from one function to another, that there's sort of a difficulty coming from that inconsistency. And if you're coming into that environment as a graduate, or if you're coming in as a school leaver, or if you're coming in there just for the first time as an experienced hire, and these are people that you're starting to work with for the first time, I think it's really difficult for people in that situation to navigate through that and how do I you know, how do I fit in? What should I do? So yeah, it's, it's really topical, I think it's, it's going to exercise the brains of people like me for all of the next year or so until it settles a little bit. So yeah, really difficult. Yeah.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

That's great context, and a really great way to kick off the conversation, I guess I'm wondering, I'd like to kind of ask you about like maybe like a sort of split brain approach that you're experiencing right now, not only as an HR leader, but also as a parent of children that are about to leave uni and head into the workforce? I guess, what is your advice that you're giving to your kids as they start their journey into proper working life? And is it any different than your advice that you're giving to your HR teams to impart on onboarding these new hires at your day job?

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting when you think about, and I guess, you know, talking about my kids in particular, who are, who have literally been at university all the way through the pandemic. So the one that's graduating this year, pretty much all of her time was interrupted by it. And my son is at the end of first year, I think that's really interesting, because I think that particular generation who over the last three years have been through uni or done exams or done schoolwork, from a distance. I'm wondering now whether actually, they would want to work in an office environment, because they actually realise, more perhaps than people that have been working for a few years, they realise how easy that became, after a while, to interact from a distance to sit in your room and to be able to, to learn and work with other people. So I mean, I'm there, we're just an example of two I can't use them as an example for [all] but then neither of them have any interest in going into an office, which is interesting. And I wonder whether they would have done a few years ago, if that had been what they had, you know, experienced more in terms of a university. But for the workforce, we're trying to get our managers to think very clearly about how they want to set up their working environment so they include everybody. And that is the difficulty. So, it's trying to, and you know, predominantly, a lot of our managers are older, and a lot more managers probably do like working from home themselves. So, we're trying to get them to walk in the shoes of people that are just starting out in that career and really think what do I need to do to make sure that these people feel included as well? We certainly lost a few people through the sort of early part of the pandemic, because they didn't meet people. So, we had people giving that that as feedback, you know, I came into the company, didn't really meet my team, and it just didn't really work for me. And now I'm moving on. Or recently, I think the people that are feeling like that are making more effort themselves to close that loop. So, if they don't feel they're getting that interaction, there's a little bit more evidence that people are saying themselves, I'm going to go into the office, and I'm going to contact those people and say, can we have a meeting? You know, or could we just meet in a coffee shop somewhere just so that we can have an interaction that's not over Zoom or Teams. So I think there's an effort going on from individuals to do that. But again, that's more difficult if you're earlier in your career to take that initiative yourself. That becomes more difficult as well I think. So yeah. It's difficult. Yeah.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

It’s definitely a confidence thing, right? Like when you were talking about how you entered the workforce, and I'm so glad you mentioned it, because I'd like to mention it too like, yes, I went to what we call a college in the States, right, I went to college, a couple of them. Got a couple of degrees, went into the workforce. And I learned pretty quickly on the job training really wasn't so much a complement to the things I learned in college, but almost like a relearning of everything. And I only had gotten that training because I was physically in the room with other people. But it's an interesting point that you make, how some entering the workforce are just not interested in it like a physical office. Also, I'd have to mention that I got my job here at HR Grapevine during lockdown one. So, it was almost a year, it was over a year of employment before I ever met any of my colleagues, my line managers, the CEO, met anyone in person. And that was was daunting at first. But I think luckily, I had the benefit of coming in as an experienced hire, an experienced employee where I felt confident to say like, can we like have a coffee on Zoom or on Teams just so we can get to know each other a little bit? But that just comes right? I know, it's cliche, but it's age: with age comes experience,

 

Jacqui Summons

Right? It does, it does, it comes experience and that confidence to sort of make that first move. And so again, it brings you back to being more worried about younger employees, because you're sort of thinking are they some of them undoubtedly would have that confidence, some of them wouldn't. And it's, I guess, it's trying certainly for my own team trying as a manager to, to think about ways in which people will really feel comfortable coming together, when we've just started in our team having one day a month, which we pretty much all try all thirty-odd all try to come to an office on that day. So at least you kind of put that in your diary. And you know that if you have missed people for the last couple of weeks, by coincidence, haven't really caught up with many people, you kind of know, that's the opportunity. If you go and work in the office, you're likely to see most of your colleagues that day. But that doesn't really help the contact with other functions that really helps our team. And it's when you come to try to expand that across the workforce that you know, I would say to people at the moment, collaboration doesn't happen by accident, unfortunately. So, we might set up the collaboration hubs, might have lots of discussions about how we want people to be face to face. But it won't just happen unless you try to engineer it in some ways. So if you're a function, I mean, the HR function for me works really closely with finance and back at the end of last year, and you know, shame on me that we haven't done it again, we kind of brought them together deliberately, we had a meeting that would have. We really did go out of our way to try and bring those people together because they wouldn't ordinarily have spoken to each other. So, I guess, you know, we're thinking about a lot of the negative side of this a bit. And the thing that I think you kind of you forget very quickly is that there were lots of downsides to being in an office as well. So, for younger people coming into that environment for the first time, it can be a distracting environment. It can be that you end up interacting with the people that you actually don't need to work with. But they happen to work close to you in the office, you have great relationships with people that you perhaps don't need to work so close to. So, I think the ability to really sort of get your head down and to get on with things is clearly there when you're away from the office as well. You can work on stuff in a different way you can think about stuff in a different way. Yeah, I don't think we shouldn't [see] that sort of there is a positive side to this. And the sort of fact you're not sitting on a train or in a car commuting for long periods of time not interacting with anybody. There is that side. So I think it's a balance really between the two. Yeah.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

A real delicate balance, and it shouldn't have to fall on HR to manage that balance. But yet it does. So, moving on then with sort of like we were just talking about these new skills and the demands on these newer employees. How are businesses investing in meeting the demands of the future?

 

Jacqui Summons

Well, I would say that again, it's early days to see whether that's really working in the way that it should. I, you know, again, this is a sort of personal experience. We did take an opportunity during the sort of pandemic years to sort of think about learning in a slightly different way. So, we actually did invest in more online learning more opportunities for people knowing that that was where they were going to mainly be the consuming this, we actually did sort of go that route. And that certainly has paid dividends. And actually, people are now, in the early stages, people often will say, Well, you invest very much in that online support. But actually, I want to have sort of face to face, though. And that's sort of gone away a little thing, and people are starting to realise that this is really working very well, I can dip in and dip out of this as and when I need to, for my job. So I think that's working well. But I think it's like anything, it's just gonna take us quite a long time, I think as businesses to get to the point that we need to, we are, you know, we can, we can say that we're struggling with this and sort of beat ourselves up. But we are still relatively soon out of this period. And I would have thought, really, to be honest to the next two or three years, this will shake out quite a lot. And it will become a new way of working that we're more familiar with and comfortable with. But it's not something which is going to happen overnight. And businesses are struggling as well, you know, as a lot of people are struggling. Businesses are struggling. People are struggling as well, from an investment point of view. So, I don't think it's a great time around for a lot of individuals either.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

Right. So along with that, do we have that time? Do we have the affordability of time, right, you kind of had mentioned there two to three years to kind of see how it works. But there's still this Great Resignation, right, that that we write about a lot. That's certainly happening, there's still more job vacancies than there are job applicants right now, within the UK. Do we have that sort of affordability to say, well, we need to wait it out? Or do businesses leaders – and again, I don't want to put the entire weight of the onto the HR shoulders – but do business leaders have that time, that luxury time? Because what's going to happen? I mean, I'm just thinking about like we went from office working, everything was great. And then about a week later, we all went home. Right? And so that, like we didn't have years to do that. We had days.

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, that's a really good point, Erik. And I think that we did make that move incredibly quickly. And for most organisations, I think they astounded themselves at about how quickly they adjusted to it. But I think one of the things to think about is this adjustment is really different. Actually, this is, in many ways, way more difficult, because each business is trying to establish the way that it wants to work going forward. And the way that it wants to work with other businesses as well. And for each individual employee that's kind of looking at where do they want to work coming in, you know, coming in fresh, they will also experience really different environments. And so that's the question that everybody asks now that comes through an interview process. How do you work? And when you say to them, well, we work in a hybrid fashion. Please explain what you mean by that. Right, another follow up. Because I really want to understand how many days will I be in the office? You know, what, what would it really look like? How will I interact with people, people are much wanting to be much clearer about it. And I think you're right, I don't think we do have the luxury of time. But on the other hand, I sort of feel fundamentally people take a while to settle into new working patterns. Yeah, there are definitely some businesses that have gone out very clearly and stated, you know, I want everyone back in the office with you. There's, you know, as you probably know, there are certain CEOs that have been really clear, I'm not going this route, you're going to come back in this office, it's going to be full. We know in India, we've got a group in India that work and we know there's going to be a real government push to get people back into cities and to get people back into offices in the cities, because they're really worried about the infrastructure and the impact that it's going to have on that. So there's going to be a lot of dynamics in there trying to decide what are we going to do going forward? So yeah, I, I suppose my comment about the time that it takes is I always feel that these things do take quite a while when there are people involved to sort of settle, but there will almost certainly be some businesses that really set out their stall quite early and perhaps gain an advantage over that as well. Because if they get it right, they then become known as an organisation that people really want to join because they're working it really effectively. They get an advantage over those that are struggling. So, there's definitely an imperative there I think for us to crack on with them.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

So speaking of this concept of time, I want to talk a little bit now about career progression amongst this hybrid model and I loved how you mentioned there what does hybrid mean because it's not a one-size-fits-all. Every organisation has a different approach to hybrid, it could be three days in two days in flexible working, you throw that in like what does all of this mean? Right? So along with that, though, progression in this hybrid working model. How does one progress at their job when they're working hybrid? And are workers at risk of stagnation? I just kind of want to set the tone here for you with that. I was able to progress rather rapidly here at this job, I think it's because I had why I think it's because I'm pretty good at what I do. But also, it's just sort of that confidence that I've had built up that this isn't my first job. But if you, you know, no one wants to be an entry-level employee, be it at a bank or insurance firm, or social media marketing executive, no one wants to be entry-level forever. And before the idea of you know, sort of climbing that ladder, if you will, it's like you're, you're in their office opens at nine, you're there at eight, right? You have to be seen to climb the ladder. Well, what how do you climb the ladder? If this is how we're seeing over screens?

 

Jacqui Summons

It's such a good point, Eric. And I remember early promotions in my career, one in particular stands, stands out where it came really to be perfectly honest, by a chance meeting with a more senior member of staff in the lobby of a hotel at that meeting, at that meeting, we'd all gotten to chatting, there was not much going on for that person that night. And so we ended up having dinner and about a year later, I was contacted by him because he was looking to reorganise. And he remembered the conversation and said, you know, I know it's relatively early, but I'm thinking that maybe you'd be right for that job. Now, it's so difficult to imagine how that could possibly have happened if we weren't meeting face to face, and we weren't having those interactions, because it's such a chance meeting. So, knowing that that was the way in which, you know, my career developed, I do worry about that. But I on the flip side, I also worry about that being the method by which people develop their careers as well, because I think it doesn't really feel a sort of fair, equitable way to consider people for promotion. And it's, you know, it can often in the past, it would often be that about the person that was in the office really early or happen to bump into the CEO down the corridor, probably deliberately, and had the confidence to have that conversation. Is that necessarily the person that's going to be – I don't want to denigrate your promotion – that's like, I'm not saying that. But is that really the fair way to assess what you've got in your organisation and who should be suitable for promotion? So, it kind of worries me that that's how we've always been. And yet I know that's how we have always been. And there's a little bit of hope, I suppose that I have that if you're now looking to your entry level group, and trying to really manage those careers effectively, and really give them equal opportunities, you probably can do that more effectively in this environment than you could before where there was this sort of hidden favouritism, almost that could go on. So, I kind of feel positive about it. But it also means that you have to be you have to be far more mechanistic, I think in the approach and have to really think about, you know, what opportunities you're going to give people? How are you going to make sure everyone understands what's available in the organisation what new roles come up? You can't leave that to chance. Because you can have somebody, you know, very quietly working away in the background, [not in] the office a lot, but doing an absolutely first-class job. How do you get to really realise who those people are, unless you're quite mechanistic, in your approach to career development? And so I think it might change that quite a lot going forward.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

That’s a great point you made about the sort of like this old-school, rubbing elbows with the boss. I mean, I had past roles. I've certainly seen the CEO from a large broadcasting company walking across the street, and I said, Well, I'm gonna walk that way. And just say hi, real quick. And also, I should also note that there's no way I'm coming in early, right, I'm not that kind of guy. So I'd like to think I progressed because of my work not because I was in early or certainly wanting to cosy up to any leadership here or anywhere. But I guess then what I'm wondering then. So again, let's talk about the flip side again. It's so easy when you're in this hybrid way just to kind of not let me coast a little bit, right, sit back, enjoy it. Here's your time. So how can HR teams stay ahead of stagnation for their hybrid workers? And I guess this this could mean for a younger generation of workers but I think it's an ageless issue, right.

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, I mean, I think it's our role to help them to facilitate from HR. But we absolutely can't take that responsibility throughout the organisation. But one of the things that, you know, we've certainly pushed very hard, since we've been working in this environment is the absolute criticality of you talking as a manager to people in your team regularly. So, you might have got away in the perhaps in the office in the past with cancelling one-to-one meetings, not giving time, this is just, it's no longer possible to do that. Because if you don't have that regular point of interaction with people that work with you and your team, I think you're just in so much danger of them slipping kind of slightly into the shadows without you realising it. Yeah, you have to work really hard. You know, you have to I find even with, I have five direct reports, but a bigger sort of team all together. And I have to really think sometimes, you know, halfway through the week, hmm, have I actually had proper interaction with that person this week, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure I haven't, I'm not sure if they're okay, and it's been a while. So then, you know, quick, quick Teams message, we got sort of 15-20 minutes in the day, and then just tried to catch up. But I think you have to work much, much harder at having you having that visibility. And also, you know, knowing that they have the opportunity to talk to you. I mean, I've even done some things when it's been really busy. I've occasionally done a video of just, you know, this is what's happened this week, this is what I've done in HR, I just put that out to the HR team, because at least is better than them not seeing you at all. And I tried to make it a little bit jokey and a little bit fun and talk about things at home as well as work. And we've done that a couple of times just to keep that degree of interaction between people. And I encourage others. So, we have the HR team have a weekly meeting. And I really do on that meeting, say to people, we're not going to have a massive agenda, because actually is bringing you're going to bring your lunch and you're going to sort of chat and we're just going to sometimes ask how are you and people are going to do that kind of talk. So you can do those things remotely. But I think now we've got the opportunity you have to supplement them with physically being together as much as you possibly can. Because to me, there's still no, there's no other really good way of working other than actually sitting in a room with somebody and actually talking to them. I still think that's very powerful.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

I totally agree. I'd like to end the chat here with just a little bit of lightheartedness. A little bit of brevity. I want to ask you, do you miss the office?

 

Jacqui Summons

Well, it's a really difficult question for me, because I've worked for the last five years for an organisation that is about four hours’ drive from where I live. Yeah, I think I'm really biased, because I'm gonna say no, I don't miss the office. And I certainly don't miss the four-hour drive. I do miss Leeds as a place which is, [people who] know me well, will say that they're amazed that I've said that because five years ago, I didn't know the place at all, but I love it. So, I do miss that. And I do miss that interaction that we had casually day to day when I was there. But I personally don't miss working in an office, but I am at the other end of my career. And I think if you ask younger people, they possibly would give you a very different notes.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

 

You want to know mine?

 

Jacqui Summons

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

 

I'm right in the middle. I don't miss it at all. What I miss is one of those things. It's just like that Joni Mitchell line: you don't know what you got till it's gone. Where I so I like you my I'm a what is it? Glasgow to London is an eight-hour drive or like a the 55-minute flight. So I go in. We have quarterly meetups, but I do travel to London a lot to film. So, we do meet up in the office. And we have a couple of people in the content team that are real young. I'm more on sort of the older side of that. And I remember a couple of them. I think the last quarterly meet up like the old team, the whole staff was in there working. And I was going I can't get anything done. This is too distracting. I can hear that person breathing. I can hear that person chewing here. I'm here I'm in my little cocoon of safety. I tell you what I miss Jacqui is drinks after work with your pals. Right, like it's that sort of camaraderie that I do miss that when I am there. I do make the most of it with my team. And we are able to socialise in a very intense way but in a very fun intense way, like the best sort of intensity possible. So interesting tonight, we you know, we started off talking about the younger generation, but it really seems like if we pay attention as HR teams to that younger generation, there'll be a knock-on effect to everyone else in the workforce.

 

Jacqui Summons

Absolutely. And just trying to remember there's lots of positives, I think in that as well because, you know, the old way wasn't necessarily always the best way that's for sure.

 

Erik Niewiarowski

Well Jacqui Summons, once again thank you for joining us on the Workplace of Now.

 

Jacqui Summons

It's been a pleasure as always, Erik, thank you

 

Erik Niewiarowski

Once again, I just like to thank Jacqui Summons for helping me break apart what it's like to be a younger person entering the world of work for the first time. A lot of key takeaways, lot of insights that Jacqui shared. I came away with a lot more knowledge than I had going into it. And I hope you did too.

 

Hopefully, you can take some of her insights and apply them when it comes to your younger generation of employees, how to keep them engaged, how to keep them moving up the career ladder, and, most importantly, how to keep them from looking for a new job. Once again, big thanks to Jacqui. Big thanks to our partners at Zellis. Thanks to all of you for listening. And we will be dropping our final instalment of the Workplace of Now very soon, so keep an ear open for that. Until then. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Jennifer Jackson

Hello and welcome to People Management Insight podcast. This is the final part in a six-part series on wellbeing in the workplace of now, in association with Zellis, the award-winning payroll and HR solutions provider. Today we're going to be discussing how to manage employee wellbeing in the hybrid workplace. I'm Jennifer Jackson, Contributing Editor at People Management Insight. And I've got two expert speakers alongside me today to discuss the shift we've seen in recent years to a greater understanding of the importance of mental wellbeing and the responsibility that we have as employers to support our people. We're here to offer their guidance on these issues. First, I have Arti Kashyap-Aynsley, who is the Global Head of Wellbeing and Inclusion at Ocado. And Jacqui Summons, who is the CPO of EMIS Health and non-executive director at Zellis. Thank you very much for joining us today. Firstly, Arti, we've seen this real shift to hybrid working patterns, I'll be learning quite quickly that employers need to put the right processes and support in place to ensure that people can thrive from both a professional and wellbeing perspective in this new environment. Do you think?

 

 

Hi, yeah, I think so for sure. I mean, the reality is, is that COVID, which seems like it was aeons ago, for some, but for some, it's still very real, made a shift into this direction really quickly, right? Like we had to go from not having a capability to work remotely, to suddenly having to be fully remote in many workforces? I mean, it's different, because if I look at a kados, employee base, for example, there's a subset of us that never switched to that, because they were always, you know, on on the frontline, so to speak. But I think as a result of that, as we've started to come out of, you know, what the environment looked like a couple years ago, there is a real need to have this hybrid world, because we've now proven that remote working is possible and people can be successful. I think there's a balance of people that prefer the hybrid version, there's, you know, there's some that are on both sides of the coin, where they just want to be fully back in the office or fully remote, but that hybrid capability is something that organisations definitely need to support one in terms of having the right policies and practices in place. And then being able to support that is a secondary piece around, am I How am I enabling that to work for my actual teams? Do they have the right technology? Am I thinking about what my teams actually need to thrive in that environment, you know, like on their office days versus non office days versus day to day and how they're being supported for their day to day tasks and such? So there's definitely this wider reason to have to consider all these pieces.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Sure. Thank you so much, Arti. Again, Jacqui, thank you for joining us. Is there anything that you might want to add on how organisations can help support employee wellbeing in a hybrid workplace?

 

 

Yeah, and I guess I'm gonna speak very much from my own experience working with with Amos. And I guess the starting point would be to say that we're still trying to work this out. So even though we've been working in a hybrid way for for quite a while, I think, you know, even today, a conversation was taking place at our executive about whether it's actually working for, for the company, whether it's working for individuals, with sort of went more of a melee working from home, rather than hybrid route, which is now throwing up some challenges without a doubt where we have really different behaviours going on some teams are pretty much, you know, working half the week in and week out, other teams are not working in the office very much at all. And I think there's just sort of lingering concern in the business, partly around well being, are we making sure that particularly new employees, younger employees are getting what they need, from, you know, the way in which they would have established relationships in the past, the way they would have developed and learn in the past is changed a lot. And I think from the company point of view, there's probably questions in some quarters about productivity, very difficult to measure. Lots of debates going on in the business about trying to shift away from managing the amount of time that somebody is sitting at a desk to what's the what is the output, and I think that is taking a fair amount of effort for many managers to shift their mindset about that as well. So partly a well being concern part of you and company productivity concerns

 

Jennifer Jackson

Thanks very much, Jacqui. Very interesting. We've got lots to discuss. Now anatomy of work Index published in 2022, found that work related mental health issues are on the rise. So you're right there to mention the well being aspect and with 62% of UK workers having experienced burnout in at least once, over the last 12 months, one in 520 1%, experiencing it consistently, four or more times in 2021. There was also widespread evidence of feelings of isolation and a struggle to balance priorities, establish clear boundaries. And on top of that, just 30% of Brits are satisfied with their work life balance, according to Randstad. So it's clear that communication with employees is vital for a happy and productive workplace. What kind of efforts are being made to encourage communication between line managers and their teams? And also between those working at home and those working in the office? Arti, can I come to you on that, please?

 

 

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that we again, if I if I talk specifically about some of the stuff that we're doing at Ocado, I think there's definitely a big push on manager support. And also manager, I guess, education and learning and development in terms of how they better support employees in this new model of working, and how they enable conversations where sometimes, you know, you used to, when you would see someone in the office every day have the ability, kind of notice if things are going away, or if they need support, because you kind of all had always had those informal meetups. But now in the absence of that, especially in a hybrid world, you don't have that. So it's being able to educate managers on that, and being able to allow for those conversations. And we feel like we are empowering employees to open up. And whether that means that they are then either communicating with our mental wellbeing champions, or listening champions, for example, or through some of our wider employee resource groups, we're basically focused on collecting all that data, and trying to understand what their what their challenges and pain points are, so we can really help to enable those conversations and share that feedback.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Thank you. Jacqui?

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, very, very similar themes. A lot of it is being managed definitely through the manager population, which… Last week, we had a three-day manager conference that we ran in the UK, and we're trying to sort of encourage managers to remember that when they were in the office, you know, they may well have had formal one-to-one meetings with people, but they also probably informally bumped into people quite a lot and had quite a lot of conversations. And when people are not in the office all the time, we're trying to encourage them to get into the same kind of rhythm as they would have had before but in a different way. So, we're definitely seeing more managers now doing a daily, they call it a daily standup, but really just a very short meeting, often at the start of the day, just to kind of get that team onto the same page, understand if anyone's got any particular issues that they're dealing with. That is definitely helping some teams because it's enabling everyone just to come together very quickly. As a manager you can spot, probably if there's an issue somewhere. I think that if not, if you don't, if you don't encourage that regular interaction, there is a danger that you can go quite a long time without having a direct conversation with somebody. And that's when I think some of this isolation could definitely start to, to build in and I suppose my overall feeling about this, and the thing that worries me perhaps about a lot of companies that have set very hard rules around how many days somebody needs to be in the office, how many days they need to be out of the office. It doesn't, to my mind, one size doesn't really fit all in this new world. And what works for you know, somebody at the perhaps at the end of their career, who's you know, perhaps been in that company for a very long time, knows a lot of people and knows who to go to, is quite different from somebody who's just joined the organisation. So, I'm, I'm a bit unsure about some of those really hard and fast rules that some companies are definitely starting to set. I think that they're doing it on the basis that they're kind of, again, a bit worried about, where's the business going? Are we getting the productivity we need? But I think sometimes that might actually run counter to the wellbeing from an individual point of view.

 

Arti Kashyap-Aynsley

I agree. Sorry, Jennifer, I might just jump in quickly. But I completely agree with what you just said, Jacqui. And I think one of the pieces that we've definitely tried to look at Ocado and I think you know, in line with sort of a lot of tech organisations is that we've tried to, in some areas, loosen those requirements. So where we were very prescriptive that it was two days in the week like in the office, we basically have been able to step back and say that kind of equates to, you know, 20% of your time or whatever that equates to and whatever that looks like, we'd rather you look at it in a broader perspective, so doesn't have to be aligned to a week, it could be aligned to a month, it could be aligned to a quarter. But actually, what we want to empower you to do is look at the activities that you need to do in order to be successful in your job. And try to understand what activities require you to be in the office and help you to be successful in your role. And what are the activities that that you don't need to be in the office for? And then therefore, then you set your time accordingly. And in some of those areas where we've been able to do that, it's really been a positive shift and how people start to understand and are looking at what's the guidance on when you need to be in versus, you know, why do I need to be in and what's the role the office plays? I think the other thing is that we've charted in those areas, we've tried to shift the view on what's the role of the office. So, is it somewhere where everyone has to come in, because, you know, there's a requirement for us to watch you and see what you're doing so to speak? Or is it a place that fosters collaboration, creativity, connection? And how do we then drive people to come in for those reasons? And what are we then doing? And I think, you know, we haven't definitely rolled that out globally, across the organisation. It's definitely been test case stuff that we've done. But I know that there are many organisations that have started and beyond that, that has definitely started to look at that activity based around your role, versus the prescriptive, you know, to Jacqui's point, like making it feel like there's a hard and fast rule that fits for everyone when, you know, especially when we talk about things like employee wellbeing and then obviously, from an inclusion perspective, you know, that everyone is vastly different and requires different things.

 

Jacqui Summons

Absolutely, yeah. And I would just, I agree entirely about trying to really clearly define what's the office about, you know, we had a number of people in the early stages, who would be coming in effectively to almost tick a box or served on my, my day or two in the office. But actually, none of their team are in the office that day. And it's kind of a complete waste of time, you know, having your travel to the office to do the same thing that you would have done unless you can coordinate that with other people. So, I think increasingly, people are now working out: okay, so this is about collaboration, we've also changed our offices to be more like a collaboration hub, we've kind of rejigged them a bit. They're not so kind of desk-orientated. They're more about people having opportunities to sit in, in more informal settings. So, people are starting to think, right, okay, this is about going in to collaborate, I need to be there with other people that I wouldn't normally interact with, but I need to for this particular project. So, I think there's more thought going into it now. And I totally agree with that, if you kind of put some kind of general parameters about how much we'd expect you to be in rather than be too prescriptive. It allows people to float that up and down. You know, there are times when they're working on stuff that they need to be around people a lot. There are other points where they may have a whole week where they're needing to do some really quiet work, and they don't need to be at the office. You know, I'm making it perhaps more simple than it is. It's not without challenge. But I think what we have to remember is we're adapting to something, a change that is absolutely fundamental. And so different, the way we've worked for many, many years isn't going to change overnight. I think it will take a while for people to adapt to the new way of working.

 

Jennifer Jackson

You both seem to have a very positive approach and adaptable, that if employees do have concerns and preferences about hybrid working, and the way they want to work that they you know might not be being heard what kind of channels exist either in your organisation or that might exist in other organisations that people might not necessarily be aware of, or that can be put in place for employees to voice those concerns. And why is it so important to take this collaborative approach? Jacqui, what do you think?

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, I think we do have an environment where we have a pretty good handle on what people think. But to encourage that further, we do use our engagement survey to ask questions about this anonymously as well so that we get a feel for where, you know, particular teams are having particular difficulties with it. We also have employee forums that run in our company as well where again, it's an opportunity for people to voice that sort of informal this isn't really working thing very well for us as a team a bit. We also have Mental Health First Aiders in the business as well. So, we do, we do pick up individual concerns through that. I think lots of different channels, that, you know, the manager remains really keen to this. And it's why we're putting a lot of emphasis more than we've ever put really on supporting our managers and developing them, because actually, they are often that sort of first point, sort of port of call. If the relationship works there, well, then individuals hopefully will voice some of the concerns they might have. But I do take your point, that not all organisations are like this. I think that's very true. I've heard some, there are some pretty worrying examples, maybe where, you know, particularly senior leaders have got a really strong personal view about what people should be in the office or not. And they're dictating that through their business. I've heard that happen. And I think that that will kind of not help them ultimately, with their own retention, because if other companies are operating hybrid, do you think that will impact on their business as well? But yes, it does vary an awful lot across across different companies.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Sure Arti, do you have any tips or ideas on the types of channels for people to voice any concerns about how they're working?

 

 

Arti Kashyap-Aynsley

I mean, really similar. I feel like Jacqui kind of covered most of them. The only additional ones that I would add in or the only additional pieces that would add in is that, I mean, the lines that we tend to take outside of those channels that Jacqui’s mentioned is that, you know, everyone's circumstances are different. And so they are encouraged to lean into their managers, and to get that support. And if they are in a position where they don't feel like, you know, their manager, for example, is not supportive, or someone that they can get that guidance from, then we also encourage people to visit and get connected to their people partners and use that as an avenue for support. We also guide people to things like, you know, it's not necessarily always about office versus home and or what that looks like. Sometimes it's a matter of the fact that actually, we've gone through a lot in the last few years. And people's perspectives and life circumstances have changed. And therefore, then there might be a need to look at things like flexible working policies or other policies that are in place. And we definitely encourage all of that, right. Because there's, there's multiple avenues. The thing that we are trying to empower people to think about is, you know, we are on a change journey equally as they are. And we understand that people have gone through quite a lot. And so what we want people to do is to understand what their needs are along with what they feel like they have to do from the role perspective, and how we can support them. I think the challenges that we face are very similar to what Jacqui alluded to that we don't necessarily always have senior leaders that are aligned to that. And what that tonality can drive in an organisation. But culturally, we are trying to promote and push those messages and empower people to own what that looks like for them.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Great, thank you. Now in November, Gartner released figures showing that human-centred work environments which focus on cocreation and empathy-based management, are 3.8 times more likely to see high employee performance, they're 3.2 times more likely to enjoy high intent to stay among employees, and 3.1 times more likely to see low levels of fatigue among employees. So, with that in mind, how can employers ensure that all employees can cocreate their own good job, regardless of what their role is? Arti? What do you think?

 

Arti Kashyap-Aynsley

I love this because there's also a paper that was written by business in the community, which drove the concept of, you know, good work and making your job good for you, essentially. And it's totally the thing that I aligned to. I mean, my background was I was a management consultant and moved into the space of wellbeing and now inclusion. And the biggest piece that I used to encourage people to do when I was doing the wellbeing role in the management consulting space was, you know, understanding the pain points that exist for you in a day-to-day and then look at a week-to-week and period-to-period basis. Like they look vastly different. It's funny, because I feel like every time I'm asked this kind of a question, I always go to some of this one resource. I feel like I should have shares in the company but I don't, unfortunately. But there's this amazing website called the Manual of Me. And the Manual of Me concept is very much driven by this idea that, you know, in our lives in our day-to-day lives, we understand how things operate around us and we're very focussed on all the procedures and policies around everything around us. But very often we forget about, you know, what's the operating procedures or manual that we need for ourselves to feel like, we are doing what we need to thrive. And that could be in life, it could be in our job and the way that we used it when I was at Deloitte before I joined Ocado. And we use it in a similar format at Ocado. We would encourage people to fill out and complete their own personal manual. And then it basically gives you this way of articulating what your needs are, and how you can structure what you're, you know, what your job looks like, and how you can make it good for you. Because it asks you these hard-hitting questions around, you know, what are your ideal working patterns? What are the ideal ways you work? What does stress in the workplace look like for me? What does support for my stress look like? Or stress support in general? What are the things you need to know about me, I think the challenge that we were always facing is that we felt all these things, we just didn't have a way to articulate it. And we knew that something might have been off, or there might be something that doesn't sit well with us. We just don't know how to come across it. And we've started to instil this concept of the manual men in Ocado also now in various forms, we use it a lot with the emerging talent area, actually, because it's such a great tool for new graduates as they're coming in, to really understand how they navigate the workplace. But it's just a way to kind of own it, because I think it's in some ways, sometimes we like as employees, we look at our organisations as the big scary parents, and we're like, you know, the children that are just going to do whatever the parent tells us to do. But at the heart of it, we're in this adult environment. And we need to feel like as employees were empowered to have these adult conversations and are able to own what that looks like. I mean, on one side of it, it's the list of tasks that are associated with the role that you've been hired to do. On the other end is like, how do I build the environment that supports my ability to thrive in that role? And what's the part that I play to enable that, essentially?

 

Jennifer Jackson

That sounds brilliant, thanks for that it. Jacqui, do you have anything to add to that?

 

Jacqui Summons

Oh, I'm just kind of fascinated by some of that stuff, actually. And some of that's quite new to me. And it's given, I'm sitting and having some ideas about sort of my work in at EMIS as well. So yeah, this is this idea that I just love, the idea that you've kind of really have very honest conversations about what's important to you, and then you establish something going forward. Why I suppose I think works for us is that the, the sort of ability to be able to do that stems right from the top of the business down. So, one of the things that our CEO always talks about, is, I mean, he calls it family-first, but that's probably not a great title for it, really. But he's almost saying things that are important to from a wellbeing from a family point of view, from a flexibility point of view, they have they come first and work is secondary. So, if you have a reason why you have to take some time to do something that you should do that, that sort of allows people as far as possible to sort of know that they can build that degree of flexibility. And but what really amazes me is that even though we have that we've talked about that for a lot, we're still, I still find that you have conversations sometimes with people and you find that they're doing something which is local, you just take the time that you need to go and do that, I'll give you an example. Somebody in my team is, is learning to drive quite later on in life. And certainly the difficulty is all of the time, it's quite hard to get driving lessons in the evening. So I said, Why don't you just take an hour during the day and have your driving lesson. And then you can do that hour if you want to another time. Okay, that's okay to do that. And it's that sort of conversation piece that just seems to need to take place people have been so used to working in a very set way. And being almost measured on being present in an office between certain hours, that the mindset shift of saying, actually, this is going to help me enormously if I do whatever it is I need to do during the day, and I'm going to do a little bit more work. Another point to catch off is, is that piece that when I talked before about it's taken a while for it to, to come to fruition. I think that's where I'm mainly thinking about that. It's just going to take a while for people to think that they can actually do those sort of things in organisations. And getting going to go forward.

 

Jennifer Jackson

And it's creating that culture right, for people to know that that's okay, and that they're trusted. And I mean, it all sounds great that employees having a say in creating their own good job, but from the perspective of the line manager, you know, they're accountable to the business as well and their employees. So how can line managers ensure that they achieve aligned autonomy and cocreating those good jobs so that they do balance the wellbeing needs of the individual team members with the goals for the wider business?

 

Jacqui Summons

Yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of hitting the nail on the head. And I think it's one of the problems. And it's the note for me, a manager who can't articulate what needs to be done in that particular team, you know, can't take the high-level strategy, and put that into specific objectives for people and be really clear what the expectation is, will then tend to look at how long somebody's working as a measure, rather than what the output is. So, you know, we certainly have encouraged a lot of conversations to say, if you're really clear about what the business requires of you, if the strategy is really clear, if you translate that very specifically into what you expect to someone in your team, and you measure them based on what they produce what that output is, then you're going to be less concerned about exactly when they're working, where they're working. You know, it's more about how their work and what they’re delivering. That's the shift that we're trying to achieve. It is taking time. And we've certainly got some really mature managers who really understand that, we've got some less experienced managers who I think really struggle with that concept, and keep coming back to I really want the person in the office because then at least I know they’re working. Which is a complete misunderstanding of the fact that someone's working, because it's just as easy not to work in an office as [we’re] witnessing. So, it's just trying to kind of get that mind shift. That is where we're focusing on.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Great, thanks, Jacqui. Arti, what do you think?

 

Arti Kashyap-Aynsley

Yeah, I mean, that's a hard one, right? Because all of us balance that level of accountability. I think it's sometimes it's unfair for us to put all the pressure on managers to say that they're the only ones that balance that business accountability, because you can argue that individually all of us do, right, again, going back to the what's the purpose that we have the roles that we have, and what we were hired to do, we all play a fundamental role in achieving the success of the business. And I think it's just about having those open and honest conversations. I think for someone especially works like predominantly or did predominately work in only the wellbeing space, it's very easy in this space to lean on only the empathetic, empathetic and compassionate sides of the conversations. But it takes a lot of talk to be able to balance those conversations with expectations. Yeah, and being able to draw that line, right. And I think, again, it goes back to some of the education that we give to line managers, but equally, the level of empowerment and education that we give to employees to also understand the role that they play, and how they then balance those wider responsibilities as well.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Thank you, Arti. Now circling back to the wellbeing aspect, if we look at the hybrid workplace with a wider lens, what are some of the socialisation challenges and maybe even opportunities that arise when workers are working remotely? And how can they be brought into the culture of the organisation? And also, what are the implications for inclusion and diversity skills development, as well? And is there a role for technology? There is quite a lot to discuss that. Arti, do you want to start us off there?

 

Arti Kashyap-Aynsley

Yeah, I mean, in some ways, if I talk about Ocado, like Ocado was a is a British organisation that started in the UK, but actually, we're global, I shouldn't have started by saying we are British organisation, but we're a global organisation that initially began in the UK. And I think pre-COVID everyone saw the organisation as predominantly being in the UK, but actually, we are growing globally quite quickly. And I think the balance of being able to hybrid and remote work has therefore then helped to shift the dial on that. And it's helped to make people more aware of the fact that we are a global organisation and that the UK is not the centre of the universe, where everything happens, and in some ways, and that has enabled us to lean on technology to connect people. So whether it's things like leveraging live streams, or using platforms to host conversations, we are definitely trying to enable more of that breadth of how do we connect people irrespective of where they are. Because even if they are all based in one country, they tend to be a different offices, and everyone will have a different working pattern. And so what we want to do at the heart of it is drive inclusivity so how do we drive inclusivity and what we do in a sense of belonging? And what I would say I think Jacqui alluded to it earlier, I think sometimes it's easier for people that have been in the business for a really long time because they have established networks. I think it's harder for people that have started in the environment that we're in that are that are trying to enable their growth in an organisation where they're just starting from, you know, how do I even build my network or get to know my team?

 

And I think in those scenarios, there's a lot more pressure on the teams to kind of revisit how they integrate and what they do. And there's no prescription on what works best. That's literally left up to the managers to decide what, what's the right thing for them to do. But what I would say is that we definitely have started to, link all of it to a wider inclusion conversation. And in some of that, that's been the expansion of things like our employee resource groups, and how we rely on them to help drive other senses of culture and equally a place of, you know, psychological safety and belonging to drive for people in the organisation. And we've asked them to think more broadly on how we leverage technology to bring those communities together. Because even in our organisation, it's, you know, I've alluded to it before, there's, there's multiple types of employees, you know, we have our hourly pay populations that can't connect in. And so, technology is not the right way to engage them. And it's really understanding what the individual employee profiles look like, and how we then derive a strategy that helps to bring them all together, if that makes sense.

 

Jennifer Jackson

That's fantastic. Thank you, Arti really, really interesting stuff. Jacqui, do you have anything to add to that?

 

Jacqui Summons

 

I mean, I would definitely agree with a lot of those points, that the ability to bring somebody into your, into your culture, when they join the organisation, I think is one of the biggest challenges. We have lots of people, when they you know, are about to join, the organisation will ask what the culture is like? That's the question that we often get asked. And I think in the past, you know, our culture, that we're not hugely international, we have a UK group and a group in India. I think, in the past, some of the cultural discussion we had before someone joined does actually focus quite a lot on the culture of a particular office or a particular location. And I do feel those barriers have broken down a little bit. So now it's more about what's the [overall] culture. But we noticed whenever we bring people together, we, you know, as I said, alluded to before, we had a conference last week, for three days, and lots of people came together that wouldn't normally be in a room together. And many of those were new to the organisation, many have joined through the pandemic as well. And for some, it was one of the few opportunities they've been together with that many people. And they kind of all went away, having had this really collaborative day talking about how they were going to keep that going, how they're going to try to ensure that they have more opportunities to be together to sort of foster that the working culture that they wanted to create going forward. We're also putting quite a lot of emphasis on the mobile, how we bring new employees in through the induction process, you know, it's always gone back to a more traditional approach of actually having face-to-face induction opportunities for people once they've been in for a few months, just so that we don't lose that opportunity to share what it is, you know what it is to work at EMIS in its widest sense, not just in the team that you've joined. So challenging, I think, absolutely difficult to do. But I do think some of the, some of the barriers that used to exist between offices have broken down. So there used to be a sort of a feel of: that office, they can tend to do that, that office, they tend to do that. Now you hear people talking more about [the overall]. So that's definitely a positive that's come out of the pandemic after the change of working arrangements.

 

Jennifer Jackson

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you, Arti and Jacqui. Well, I hope you've enjoyed listening to what our speakers have had to say and picked up some really useful tips to take back to your teams. I know I have. Thanks to my guests today, Arti and Jacqui, for sharing your insight experiences and expertise of these most trying of times. And thank you to Zellis for partnering with us on this podcast series. This was the final part in our series, and you can listen again to the previous five episodes as well if you want to, and that's on People Management Insight. I'm Jennifer Jackson. Thanks for listening and have a good day.