Lawyer Monthly Magazine - September 2021 Edition

goals. They solicit advice & ideas. From these, they come up with creative solutions that fit their organisational purpose and then start implementing them. Of course, this may require some trial & error and you will need to embrace this risk positively from the outset. Chris: A key factor going back to the three Cs is that the direction of travel within the organisation is clearly communicated, understood, and has collective broad-based buy-in from employees. Josie: Absolutely. It’s not just what you say but how you say it, to whom and how often. Chris: Yes. Communicating vision effectively is fundamental to a sense of shared purpose and leads to significantly higher engagement, whether office- based or hybrid. Picking up on Josie’s earlier point, knowledge workers are being paid to think for a living, so why not take into consideration more of their ideas. Since when did all good ideas emanate from the C-Suite? You mentioned earlier that organisational context is important. Could you elaborate on this? Josie: Sure, for example, we could contextualise knowledge work- tasks into predominant typologies; Information work, Evaluation work and Creative work as described by the team at Steelcase, a US real estate consultant. Informative & Evaluative work can be done far more easily remotely than Creative work which requires a higher degree of in-the-moment collaboration and collective energy which cannot be easily recreated in a digital or asynchronous setting. The benefit of bouncing ideas in a room together is, therefore, more likely to bring Creatives back to the office than Informative or Evaluative workers. Chris: Equally you can divide the workforce demographically. Data from a 2020 Gensler study suggests that Millennials & Gen Z workers actually want to come back to the office (okay, maybe not 6 days a week!) because their remote working-set up may be less ideal. You could also contextualise the workforce by Learners, Provers and Leaders. Learners may want to be in the office more to gain experience from senior colleagues and actively seek advice and mentoring in order to develop their careers. Josie: I would also argue that leaders need to increase their visibility and presence to engage with the wider workforce to model open communication and ease of access to their knowledge. How can leaders score some quick wins in the process? Josie: Being seen to engage with employees and be open to new ideas and dialogue between the levels. UBS for example seems to have modelled this well. They recently carried out an internal study of their 72,000 employees soliciting feedback on a range of topics. It concluded that two-thirds of its workforce were in positions that would allow for hybrid working. Merely by demonstrating a willingness to listen and adapt, I would be very surprised if that communique had not significantly increased employee engagement at a time when the battle for talent is white-hot. According to a study by Microsoft, a staggering 40% of knowledge workers are considering switching to a new employer in the next 12 months as a result of their pandemic experience and re-evaluating their goals & objectives in terms of work- life balance. Listen up, leaders! Chris: I would also add that leaders and people managers at all levels of the organisation should assess their own relational skills and take some constructive feedback on development areas. This is a huge opportunity for L&D. It has been well-documented that Millennials and Gen-Z workers, in general, seek more feedback, guidance and encouragement from their leaders. Possibly more than current Gen-X leaders may have received as they were building their own careers. Even in a hybrid world, there are some easy fixes for this. Praise direct reports in public & critique them more in private. Pick up the mobile phone more often to express gratitude for a job well done or for going the extra mile for a colleague and make a habit of doing so to build social capital with your employees. That personal touch can have a huge impact even though it may take a few minutes. This all sounds great but what is the impact of getting it wrong? Josie: You’re likely to lose your best people! The market for talent became global overnight with remote working. Now, if an employee is dissatisfied with the status quo or pace of change 34 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | SEP 2021 LEADERSHIP IN A HYBRID WORKING WORLD