Workplace Change Management Guide
Part 1
Shifting Paradigm of
Hybrid Workplace
Move towards hybrid working
model with clarity and confidence
Introduction
In the years to come, workplace experience
will become the major component of
employee value proposition. Therefor,
organization’s ability to get the hybrid
working model right will become a major
factor contributing to business success over
long term.
Companies which fail to adopt thoughtful
and strategic approach to hybrid early on,
are at high risk to be left behind,
outmatched by competitors and unable to
cover workforce gap at increasingly
competitive talent market.
In this 3-part Workplace change
management guide will cover some most
impactful success factors on this
transformation journey, as well as potential
challenges and risks. Then, we will suggest
some approaches to change management
process which relies on collaborative effort
and insights sourced from organization’s
integrated data. Finally, we will boil down
the transition process to a few critical steps,
look at implementation scenarios,
approaches and tactics.
CONTENT OF PART 1
01.
02.
03.
Diversity of hybrid work models
Cross-functional approach to designing new policies
Evolving concept of hybrid work
Diversity of Hybrid
Work Models
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to hybrid.
Every organization will need to create their own
custom model based on specific workflows, business
processes and unique organizational culture.
01.
Unthoughtful moves around making decisions and communicating plans on return
to office can undermine employees’ trust and damage employer’s brand.
Strategies that have already proved to be unviable or start showing worrying signs
can be split into three major categories.
1
Top-down decision
This approach has been the major
trigger of what is commonly referred to
as “the great resignation”. Leaders who
chose to make the decision on their own
and deliver it as an after the fact
announcement, faced massive backlash
and in many cases were forced to revisit
their decisions.
2
Relying on employees
With the offices being reopened, employees’
opportunities became no longer equal. The
reason for that lays in personal circumstances
and ability to easily regroup one’s life again.
Simply allowing employees to make their own
choice as to whether they want to come to
office or not, can quickly escalate such
inequality and entrench a two-tier culture.
3
Delaying the decision
Large number of companies remain to
this day in “wait-and-see” mode, hoping
thereby on others to blaze the trail,
which they could follow then with low
level of risk. Yet, more often than not,
delaying decisions only increases the
risk of culture deterioration and
productivity stagnation.
Cross-Functional Approach to
Designing New Policies
Getting the hybrid equation right on all fronts
requires collaborative effort of all internal
stakeholders, and the stage for a multi-faceted
conversation needs to be set up early on.
02.
Get key stakeholders at the
strategy table
need to establish continuous data feedback loop. It
should be an automated process, and the insights
need to be universally available for everyone inside
the organization.
Corporate roles which historically have been
considered as service functions, now need to
take a leading role at the strategic table. If
this is not done at the conceptualizing
phase, multiple issues will come up during
the implementation cycle.
Clarify expected data inputs
and accountability
This could be done in form of working groups
which meet periodically to align on next
strategic moves. It would help to
communicate decisions easily and effectively
along the functional verticals, helping
thereby make things transparent and have a
more unanimous buy-in across the
organization.
Workplace strategy is no longer the
prerogative of corporate real estate
department. In fact, facility managers and real
estate teams should be stepping into towards
the end of workplace decisions chain, as they
need to act in accordance with the company’s
entire workforce strategy.
Deliver role-specific insights
based on integrated data sets
In order to keep things on track and be able
to detect any issues early on, companies
How should existing offices be repurposed,
where satellite spaces and collaboration hubs
should be located, which equipment,
amenities and facilities should be accessible
on-site – to answer all of those questions, FM
would require detailed guidelines from other
departments.
Workplace Decision Cadence
People
• Employees’ needs and
expectations around
workplace
• People’s choice of places to
live – city vs suburb
• Compensation preferences:
higher salary vs flex
workplace and commute
allowances, etc.
• Sentiments around
corporate values and
employer brand
• Talent supply and demand
across different geographies
Processes
• Which tasks can be done remotely
and which ones require co-location?
• Compensation packages structure
and replacements costs
• Long term business and workforce
strategy
Places
• Amount of space required for
diverse tasks, done by different
teams with shifting co-location
schedules
• Amenities, services and
equipment required
• Free cash requirements
• Geographical distribution of
existing workforce
• Corporate culture and ESG goals,
Employer brand strategy
• CRE market supply in target
geographies
• External economic factors: taxes,
labor legislation, insurance costs
Decision around
corporate real estate
portfolio have to rely on
an entire chain of
considerations,
communicated by other
department leaders to
the RE&FM teams.
Bad companies are destroyed by crisis,
Good companies survive them,
Great companies are improved by them.
- Andy Grove
Former CEO of Intel Corporation,
“Father of OKR”
Evolving Concept of
Hybrid Work
03.
Hybrid is here to stay. But it’s got to move on. We need to
be clear about the difference between WFH as an
emergency response and hybrid working as thoughtfully
designed long term strategy.
The concept of hybrid is
still at its infancy stage
To this day, business leaders, managers
and employees alike have not been able
to take full advantage of hybrid work as-itshould-be. In many cases, hybrid model is
perceived as a trade off between
employees’ flexibility appetites and
managers strive to regained full visibility
and control over workflows.
The true virtue of hybrid, however, lays in
internal radical flexibility, extended access
to diverse talent pool, ability to innovate
at high speed and swiftly adopt to ever
changing economic landscape.
Home / Office Polarity
needs to be overcome
Part of the problem is overwhelming
fixation on a bipolar picture of hybrid,
limiting options of locations to office and
home, while turning our focus away from a
wide range of equally credible, or perhaps
even superior alternatives.
It is not a journey from
point A to point B
Hybrid workplace design will have to be
continuously adopted to ever changing
landscape. We are learning a lot on every
step of the way and already revisiting
many of our initial moves. It is
crucial to build that capacity to
iterate on the fly, adjust our work
models and policies, as secondary
and tertiary effects of this grand
shift will start revealing
themselves.
Sustainability is the most
challenging part
While there has been a genuine surprise
with a surge in productivity right after
lockdowns started, soon the
unsustainable nature of the reasons
behind it was revealed.
As the crisis mode keeps fading away,
forward-looking thinking with focus on
sustainability has to be adopted.
Future-of-work discussion
Is taking new shapes
WFH as a Global
Contingency Plan
Hybrid Working as Trade Off
between Office and Home
Lockdowns and stay-at-home orders
Partial reopening and social distancing
People are stressed from overnight
shift and uncertain future
People are stressed from having to go through shift
again ready to change job in order to retain
flexibility
All employees share same
constrains and use same methods of
communication
Employees are no longer in equitable workplace
situation
Instead of anticipated collapse –
surprising surge in productivity
Reasons behind initial productivity rise prove to be
unsustainable and dangerous
Tech tools prime goals:
communication & activity tracking
Labor legislation and taxation rules are changing;
Tech solutions become integrated and focus more
on data intelligence around productivity and
engagement
Wave of flex office solutions
Hybrid Working as Enabler of
New Opportunities
Digital and physical data layers merge
and create a holistic digital capabilities
5G connectivity enables seamless
communication and faster navigation
across urban environment
Commercial real estate is unbundled
and functions as an open platform.
Designation of spaces is reinvented
Businesses leverage remote talent pools
to innovate at high speed
Face to face interactions are free of
constrains
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