As discussions around the nature of work as we emerge from Covid lockdown measures, the consensus seems to be coalescing around a hybrid form of work that will see a greater mixture of home and office-based working.  Indeed, research from Stanford suggests that around 70% of organizations are planning for hybrid working in some shape or form.

If hybrid working is to become the norm, the question then moves on to just what form this might take.  For instance, how much control will managers give employees over when and where they work?  Traditionally there has been a lot of evidence in favor of giving employees control and autonomy over their work.

For instance, research from the University of Melbourne found that giving employees autonomy over their work results in higher performance levels and greater loyalty towards the employer.  A second study, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, found that having control over our work-life boundary is sufficient to buffer the spikes in stress so often caused by work-life balance issues.

How much control

The pandemic has created a situation unlike any we’ve experienced before, however.  For instance, in an ongoing analysis of the American workforce during the pandemic, the Stanford team found that around 32% of us don’t ever want to return to the office.  These people are typically employees with young children who would ordinarily face a long commute and who live in a pleasant home environment with ample space for working.

Alternatively, they also found that 21% of employees want to return to the office as soon as possible.  This cohort has very different circumstances and are often young, single, and living in the city center, either in their own apartment or in a flatshare arrangement.

This relatively clear divide would logically be another argument for giving people the autonomy to choose the environment that’s best for them, with the old adage that it doesn’t matter where people work so long as the job gets done.

Coordinating activity

It’s not an approach advocated by Nicholas Bloom, who led the Stanford research, however.  Indeed, he has flipped his original support for autonomy and now argues that for teams to function effectively they need to be coordinated.  He suggests that having half of the team in the office and half out of the office can create just the kind of in-group/out-group dynamics that were often undermining flexible working in the pre-pandemic era.

For instance, he reveals that people have confided in him that they know that while meetings are usually streamed over a video conferencing platform, home workers also know that conversations will inevitably continue after the meeting has formally concluded, thus threatening to exclude home workers from important discussions.

There are also concerns around just who will work from home and who will work on site, and what this distinction will do to the diversity of the organization.  As mentioned before, home working is hugely popular among people with young children, and especially so for women with young children, who typically request to work from home around 50% more than men do.

Out of sight

This matters, as research from Georgia Southern University and Brigham Young University, finds that leaders suffer when they’re working remotely.

“We found that people are biased toward the people they are physically located with,” the authors say. “People who are working remotely on a team can be at a disadvantage when it comes to being seen as a leader.”

In other words, if the majority of a team are located together, and the leader can only communicate with them virtually, that leader is likely to experience significantly more problems than if they are all located together.  Similar problems have also emerged for non-leaders, with stretch assignments, promotions, and so on, tending to go to those physically close to the manager.

This was starkly illustrated by a 2014 study from Bloom that showed that those working from home would have a 50% lower chance of promotion than their office-based colleagues.  If organizations are truly striving to be more diverse and equal places, then this is a situation that can’t endure should working from home becomes a more common occurrence post-Covid.

Not straightforward

All of which means that it’s not quite so straightforward to simply say that employees will be given full autonomy to choose their workplace and their work schedule post-Covid, as this may inadvertently create a diversity crisis within our organizations as those willing and able to work on-site climb up the organization at the expense of those working from home.

Instead, Bloom argues that managers should take control of the situation and work not only to ensure that opportunities are not allotted based upon who is within their line of sight, but also to try and ensure that teams are together at least some of the time.

While there’s certainly a logic to this, it does risk creating blunt solutions to what will inevitably be unique and nuanced circumstances.  What does appear clear is that it won’t be as straightforward as we might like to think.