Companies wrestle with hybrid work plans – awkward meetings and midweek

The insurer Prudential Financial Inc.,

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which expects most of its approximately 42,000 employees to work in the office half the time from the Labor Day, wants to make sure that not all staff members prefer to stay home on Mondays and Fridays and then work in the middle of the office. At the travel company Expedia Group Inc.,

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managers try to figure out how they can personally hold meetings that harm those who are not in the room. Other employers, including software company Twilio Inc.,

predicts that the new era of work could lead to fluctuations between teams, with staff members moving to bosses who prefer their work style.

Hybrid work “is going to redefine expectations, rules, permissions,” says Kevin McCarty, CEO of the consulting firm West Monroe in Chicago, which employs 1,360 people, and he reconsiders when his employees have to work at home or in the offices.

The new work style will probably be a transition again for workers who had to adapt to life at home a year ago. Although managers say it will be easier to manage if every employee returns to an office, or everyone stays at a distance, surveys have repeatedly shown that most workers want a mixed approach because more adults are vaccinated. In a February survey of 1,000 companies commissioned by LaSalle Network, a national staffing and recruitment firm, the majority of companies said they would use a hybrid model.

Companies also researched their organizations to find out how employees feel. By Prudential,

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most employees have indicated that they enjoy working remotely, but miss the planning, ideas and collaboration that takes place in person, says Rob Falzon, vice president of the company.

Prudential has redesigned its office space floor by floor and reused most of it for meeting spaces, collaboration and open space, making people more likely to communicate. Mr. Falzon says he has insisted on adding video capacity in more small meeting rooms, not just conference rooms, so that people working from home will not feel excluded.

Like many employers, the company reduces its physical footprint so that there will be no desks available for people who want to go to the office more frequently, with the exception of some employees, including dealers. “We do not have a desk for you every day,” he said. Falzon. “We have a desk for you three days a week.”

Hybrid models vary by company. The technology company Adobe Inc.

plans to have employees work from home two to three days a week, and staff can make reservations for office desks, says Gloria Chen, head of the company. Other companies are reluctant to release a specific number on days allowed at home. Factors, including the length of a commute, type of job and the seniority of an employee, can determine how often an employee should visit an office, managers say.

“We will not prescribe” at the enterprise level, says David Henshall, CEO of technology company Citrix Systems Inc.

“Based on the type of role you have, you will find the right balance.”

With flexibility can come challenges. When a team meets in person, but not everyone can manage it, it can create a sub-experience for those who are not in the room, says Peter Kern, CEO of Expedia. Before the pandemic, the travel company opened the first phases of an extensive campus – with Wi-Fi-equipped rocks – on the shores of Elliott Bay in Seattle, and initially plans to allow spatial group team meetings at its headquarters.

Mr. However, Kern says he has questions about whether those at Zoom will get the same level of learning, encouragement and career growth as those in the room. Then there are the scheduling issues.

Managers may need to set up group meetings according to a crazy algorithm of: Who is available when? Who has a flexible day, when? Mr Kern says. ‘There’s a lot of friction in it all. It’s much easier to say, ‘Everyone is going to work.’ Now someone’s calling a meeting, and you’re all there. ‘

A new way of working requires the company to think differently about performance, says Mr. Core. Managers need to be careful not to make biased statements towards those who can spend less time in the office, and require the company to be ‘really considerate’ about how we judge people and give people the opportunity so that we do not end up with a skewed outcome. ‘

Training and boarding can be more difficult in a hybrid environment, especially if new employees find it harder to grasp the company’s culture without regular, personal interaction with colleagues, says Tom Gimbel, CEO of LaSalle Network. With younger employees, “they need to be with the more experienced people to learn something,” he says.

Other companies have said they will allow teleworking in limited circumstances. In a memorandum, New York Times executives Co.

said the company plans to reopen its headquarters in September and does not intend to be completely remote. The company will “only approve remote work in places where the team and the nature of the work can accommodate it.”

Some people from human resources believe that businesses have little choice but to meet the demands of the workers, as an inflexible workplace can drive away employees as the economy recovers, and because many workers have been proven to work everywhere.

“Previously, the employer could only say, ‘This is our culture,'” says Tara Wolckenhauer, a human resources manager at payroll processor Automatic Data Processing. Inc.

“Employers need to take a step back and think very differently about it.”

—Krithika Varagur contributed to this article.

Write to Emily Glazer at [email protected] and Chip Cutter at [email protected]