Recent research indicates that 47% of employees are now less career-focussed as a result of the pandemic. This presents a unique opportunity for employers to tap into a moment of clarity, to find out how employee sentiment has changed, and respond sensitively.

The lockdown experience has arguably given people a clearer sense of how they could live their lives and spend their time; they have been able, from a distance, to see work in a broader context. This broader context included family commitments, physical wellbeing and creative pursuits (even if that was only the chance to consume an entire box set in one sitting).This means that the return to office-based work is actually a critical juncture–a choice point for employers and employees alike collectively to evolve the way forward. 

Carmel Moore, director of The One Moment Company is urging employers to engage to reinvigorate early and often, well ahead of the return to the workplace. “The process of engagement needs itself to be engaging.  It already needs to feel different.  Engagement needs employer-employee dialogue, a program of courageous and carefully curated conversations; not just a box-ticking, bog-standard, one-off soulless, joyless online employee engagement survey. I mean an ongoing, company-wide process of engagement, online and in person, that is hosted by leaders–relentlessly, inclusively, and ubiquitously.” explains Carmel.

Carmel believes leaders have a dual responsibility–not only to lead by restating, refreshing and clarifying the business strategy post-pandemic, but also to listen to their people, to hear their ideas for inventive and sustainable hybrid ways of working that can deliver this. Not every idea will be taken forward but every idea needs a place to be heard and recorded.

“A practical way to start this process is simply by asking people questions about their perceptions of hybrid working time,” she says, “Ask a series of careful questions about what worked well in the past e.g. “that time when the whole team collaborated on the product launch” and then ask what employees want, or need, from the future, e.g. “What is the ideal arc of your day?” Ask about their fears, e.g., “Do you worry that time spent working at the office will be perceived as more valuable than time spent working at home? The outcome of these conversations can be distilled and incorporated into a set of new time agreements, a “Time Charter” to give employees confidence when making decisions about when and where to work”

“Employers who listen closely and are willing to experiment and adapt to new working practices will have a source of competitive advantage; a loyal and motivated workforce who contribute their value from a place of trust.”