The Evolution of the Workplace: Charting a course for the future

Launch of an interactive discussion series with SSI USA and guests

Since March 2020, organizations have learned to work differently out of necessity. It started in response to the pandemic and has evolved into various workplace trends like the great resignation, quiet quitting, and most recently, bare minimum Mondays. Simultaneously, the demand for remote and hybrid job opportunities rose dramatically and continues today. Organizations have therefore had to rethink onboarding, performance measurement, synchronous vs. asynchronous working, and more, to attract and retain talent.

Many studies and swaths of anecdotal evidence show that executives, managers, and employees view the return to the office (RTO), working from home (WFH), and hybrid work differently and have differing opinions about productivity, innovation, and creativity outside the synchronous workplace. The executives demanding their employees’ RTO will miss out on some great talent, and the concerns regarding lowered productivity, innovation, and creativity have not been proven to be affected by where one works. What has become clear is that by prioritizing employee well-being and creating inclusive, supportive work environments, employees can thrive.

Organizations worldwide have started transitioning, or have transitioned, to a post-pandemic work environment, where employees are returning to their offices on a full-time basis, WFH, or working from a hybrid model. The move into remote and hybrid work has uncovered silver linings and challenges, with many organizations reporting that it has been a steep learning curve. Semco Style Institute (SSI) USA has created an interactive discussion series with leaders from various organizations to hear first-hand what their RTO experiences were like, and learn from what they tried, what worked, and what challenges they encountered.

Last week, Christian Wandeler, the founder of SSI USA and Eliza von Baeyer, Semco Style Expert, had the first of several virtual chats in the series with Samantha Morris, Head of Assessments and Talent Development at Northwestern Mutual (NM), a Fortune 100 insurance and financial services company that is over 165 years old.

What we learned about the return to the office and hybrid work from Samantha Morris

Samantha had just returned to NW in January 2020 after working elsewhere for several years. So, when the pandemic hit, she and her team were new to working with each other, and the workplace strategy they had put together for the coming months ended up being rewritten. However, because NW was already quite employee-centred and supported some flexibility in occasional working arrangements before the pandemic, the new realities brought about by the pandemic were met head-on. Although there were many unknowns and uncharted territory to be navigated, Samantha mentioned that it always felt like NW was looking out for their employees’ safety and well-being.

Northwestern Mutual took a deliberate and cautious approach to RTO. As an older organization with low turnover and high tenure, many people were used to the old ways of working, connecting, and collaborating. Working in person was what they were comfortable with and how they gained success in their careers. However, a couple of years of working during the pandemic demonstrated that new ways of working were here to stay.

Like many companies worldwide, the initial shock of the pandemic, the lockdowns, and organizing the widespread move for everyone to WFH was accompanied by a significant learning curve for leaders and employees. Despite any challenges, employees reported they felt NW had their well-being and safety in focus right from the start. One such challenge surfaced at the very beginning of the transformation. Because employees were accustomed to collaborating face-to-face with their teams, the WFH equivalent became scheduling video meetings to do their work. This created calendars full of video calls from early morning into the evening. So, along with checking and responding to emails and moving between calls, workdays became overwhelming, and some work-life boundaries went out of sync. With the right technology and coaching, new ways of working were found to mitigate this issue.

Recently, when it was time to begin moving towards a return to the workplace and instituting a hybrid model, NM pivoted by leveraging what had worked since March 2020. They viewed it as the next step in their collective journey. The strategy NW instilled was to continue collecting data through surveys as they piloted initiatives, starting with an experimental return to the office for a small group of employees. At each step for the experimental group, then for the broader organization, feedback was solicited, and any needed course corrections were made. They also kept the transformation as transparent and human-centric as possible and created continual, informative, timely, and transparent communications for all employees. NM supported these efforts with handbooks for employees and managers, collected surveys to learn how the processes worked, and made adjustments when encountering challenges or pockets of resistance.

Takeaway actions from NW’s return to the workplace

• View the transition to new ways of working as a journey
• Find a balance between the needs of employees and the organization
• Be clear about what is truly necessary versus nice to have, and what your employees’ needs are, and then find a reasonable compromise
• Untether productivity and performance management from the concept of “bums in seats”. Employees can WFH and be just as successful, if not more successful
• Upskill managers to equip them with knowledge, skills, and coaching to grow and develop themselves and their teams within the new ways of working
• Concentrate on teaching managers how to have empathetic conversations with their employees and empower employees to have conversations with their managers
• Leverage managers and HR business partners to lean in and support any pockets of resistance that occur
• Make the workplace convenient by reducing common burdens of being onsite: Pet care, child care, elder care, take-home meals, etc.
• No bait and switch. If an employee was hired to work remotely during the pandemic, then that agreement would continue to be valid

Next up in the Evolution of the Workplace: Charting a Course for the Future series…

March 17, 2023 @ 10am PST | 1pm EST

Reinventing Organizations — What are “Teal” organizations and can we evolve to make work in North America more awesome?

Certified Semco Style Experts Rachel Murch, formerly Zappos, currently Monarch Group, and Ron Quartel, Teal, Agile and technical coach.

And Ed Frauenheim, author, speaker, consultant, and co-founder of The Teal Team

https://www.eventbrite.com/x/creating-awesome-hybrid-workplaces-reinventing-organizations-tickets-569840336787

March 27, 2023 @ 9am PST | Noon EST

How can organizations leverage Semco Style to create an awesome employee experience?

Andy Golding, Certified Semco Style Expert and Remote Work Manager at the fully remote SaaS Procurement company, Sastrify

The link to register will be out soon. Stay up-to-date by finding us on LinkedIn and by signing up for our newsletter here: