In the post covid era the world of hybrid working continues to evolve, leaving leaders and managers asking themselves how to achieve organisational goals whilst getting the best out of – and doing the best for – their employees.
The world of work has changed – the shift to hybrid working
Where recruitment boards once advertised vacancies strictly labelled as either full time or part time and permanent or temporary, along with details of the location you’d be working from, prospective employees of the post covid era now find a plethora of filter options available to them; flexitime, hybrid, fully remote, work from anywhere, #WorkTogetherWednesdays and many more.
However, contention around hybrid working remains; research by Towergate Health & Protection suggests that 98% of employers have implemented measures to persuade employees back to the workplace, while Microsoft reports that 51% of UK hybrid workers would consider leaving their company if flexible working wasn’t available.
One of the organisational impacts of hybrid working has been a reduced commitment to rituals and routines (e.g. coming in every day) that acted as the fabric or glue that held organisations together. Beyond their social value, these rituals play a key role in enabling coordination and collaboration. Outdated or ill thought-through approaches have the opposite effect – and can even have a net negative effect on performance and engagement:
“I resent travelling to the office to only spend 30 mins of the day actually interacting face to face with my colleagues. The ones who are not there have either not been expected to show up, or have not been willing or able to travel in.”
Hybrid working has become a lightning rod for a range of issues in organisations, and designing a coherent and accepted approach is complex, often sparking cultural conflicts across generations, gender, and race.
Meanwhile, the matrix, where employees report to multiple leaders, remains the most common organisational structure for medium to large organisations[1]. Boards and CEOs continue to ask whether they have the right operating model to deliver on their goals, and in most cases the answers they come up with are a variation on the matrix that was already in place.
While on paper these structures seem eminently pragmatic and practical, they often have bad press due to fears about lack of clarity and/or autonomy; concerns around navigating multiple reporting relationships; and negative experiences of working in poorly implemented matrix structures. Much of this is linked to the high levels of coordination that matrix structures require. We can all point to examples where a particularly tricky issue is finally resolved through a well-handled conversation, as trust is finally built between individuals and teams. While this can be done online, impromptu face to face interactions often play a part.
Matrix structures combined with hybrid working practices run the risk of damaging the relational fabric of an organisation, impacting employees’ ability to get things done at pace. A key task of leaders and managers therefore becomes to ensure that the relational fabric is not only maintained but strengthened. Put simply, that there is enough coordination in place both to deliver performance and create a sense of belonging. Designing those cadences and rituals well requires facilitation skill — knowing how to structure conversations so they build connection, shared context and clear choices. Our article on how to facilitate conversations that flow offers a practical framework for exactly this.
If you are considering how to strengthen coordination in your matrix structure, our more recent article on designing cross-functional lateral connections offers a practical toolkit of structural and social mechanisms to consider.
In this article in the HR Director, Dev Mookherjee and Sophy Pern explore ways in which organisations can get the best out of hybrid working and matrix structures: https://www.thehrdirector.com/features/future-of-work/hybrid-working-matrix-organisations-perfect-storm-leaders-managers/
Interested in our research on organisation design? Find it here.
