Evolution of Work: Trust, Transparency and Transformation in a Hybrid Reality

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Courageous Leadership

In this new normal, Stephanie McKee, Vice President, Human Resources at IPG emphasized the importance of "building connections and relationships that are driven by courageous leadership, fueled by sensitivity and emotional intelligence (EQ)" as organizations create new processes, while maintaining their cultural identity. She shared the highlights of the recent memo from IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky on "Moving Forward Together," which outlined how the company was planning to implement flexible work arrangements while maintaining safety and recognizing the importance of an "iterative process" that will require trial and error with continual refinement.

Flex Rules!

The key takeaway from all the panelists was simply that "one size does not fit all" and leaders need to take the time to lend an empathetic ear to the needs of each department when designing for flexibility. Faye Tylee, Chief Human Resources Officer at Avaya shared the importance of thinking "beyond Work from Home (WFH), to Work from Anywhere Anytime (WAA), the third place, creating a sense of flexibility and community through digital tools and resources."

The key to creating flexibility is to first spend time understanding how high performing teams behave, and from that zero in on what actions individual team members need to take to create a flywheel of collaboration, empowerment and business results. It is an optimization exercise of maximizing performance while also recognizing the job to be done, team member preferences, equity and fairness considerations and OKRs (objectives and key results).

Time and Place Dimensions

Tina Daniels, Managing Director, Google shared how the tech giant is providing both time and place flexibility while still maintaining its office-centric culture, through a three-day work-from-the-office policy and a one-month work-from-anywhere benefit. In terms of the place dimension, Megan Smith, Head, HR, Canada, SAP, emphasized that work location decisions should be driven by the nature of the job and task at hand. "When the work involves brainstorming and visuals for idea-sharing, the in-person place is ideal," she said. Smith also highlighted the value of using digital collaboration tools for more everyday decision-making and routine discussions. The key is to take an agile and iterative approach as we continue to learn how to operate in this new mixed mode world.

Preferences vs Fairness Tradeoff

The panelists also emphasized the important trade-off between meeting individual employee needs, while maintaining fairness and standardization across a diverse employee population.

Aparna Seethepalli, Senior Director, AdTech & Data Innovation Partnerships at Yahoo, used the metaphor of a garden with different plant varieties, each with unique needs, and emphasized that leaders need to take a "person-by-person approach while maintaining a macro landscape view of the team to ensure it thrives and grows."

McKee emphasized the "importance for leaders to be aware of the values that drive their teams and think of the motivational impact on talent retention and attraction." She also underscored that team members need to see authenticity and consistency in the actions leaders take, highlighting that "leaders need to role-model the behavior they are encouraging -- if you want teams to flex, then as a leader you need to flex also." Another important leadership trait is the ability to listen with empathy and handle the delicate tension when making "decisions that are best at the individual level and at the corporation level."

Performance Imperative

Ultimately the workplace policies adopted need to drive performance -- individual performance, team performance and company performance. Importantly, it also needs to align with the cultural forces that permeate the company and values that shape behavior. Given the stellar performance in the last 18 months of many of the world's largest tech, advertising and media companies, the question is how to maintain this trajectory in the brave new reality of hybrid work.

"If you are going to be successful in any company, you are signing up to work a lot, and being engaged and in-person is fundamental to career advancement," Daniels asserted. The panelists agreed that one of the key drivers of success is relationships and creating an environment where serendipitous interactions occur at a healthy velocity is important to keep employees energized and engaged. Further, ensuring leaders provide autonomy is critical so that individuals and teams can decide on when and how to create those serendipitous moments both offline and online.

All the panelists pointed to the important role that innovation plays as an engine for growth and said the right talent model needs to be designed to trigger the sparks of creativity, freedom of expression and empowerment that will ultimately fuel breakthrough thinking. As we redesign and evolve the work model, there is a recognition that organizations that effectively balance performance imperatives with individual work preferences will win the war for talent, leading to exceptional growth that is powered by a bolder, more empowered and more human workforce than ever before.

Photo credit: Domenico Loia / Unsplash

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