Insights from the forefront of future of work thought leadership

At Axiom, company culture is central to what we do. Why? Because it is an essential component of business success, differentiating your values from that of your competitors, uniting your employees under a singular purpose, driving team performance, and promoting resilience.

Over the past two years, it’s fair to say company culture has had a huge shake-up, with employees forced to rapidly adapt to remote working due to the pandemic. This is something Australian businesses have done remarkably well, with many companies finding that productivity has actually increased over that time. As University of Michigan economics professor, Justin Wolfers, who is currently working from home in Australia, said to The Sydney Morning Herald: “Everyone is better off – no question. Total output has gone up.”

It’s no surprise, then, that as lockdown restrictions ease across the country, many companies are looking to continue the advantages of remote working with hybrid working environments. According to a survey by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, of the 50 companies they surveyed, 42 confirmed they will be permanently adopting hybrid working policies for office-based employees. This includes companies like the four major banks, Woolworths, Telstra and Afterpay.

So what does a remote company culture look like in a hybrid workplace model as we enter 2022 and beyond? To gain more insight into how company culture has changed, and how we can get the best of both worlds moving forward, we spoke to company culture expert and CEO of Culture Incorporated, Julie Alexander. Julie founded Culture Incorporated after her own demoralising experiences with company culture in the corporate world and is passionate about creating authentic company cultures where employees can bring their best selves to work and teams can thrive.

How has company culture and how we build that culture changed since the pandemic?

Looking back at this time of flux, it’s interesting to see how some companies have coped with this better than others. “Over time,” says Julie, “some of us have built life rafts, and some of us have built more permanent structures, but some of us are flapping around on the surface, not really sure what’s happening, and at the mercy of changing tides.”

One significant impact on company culture has been the loss of informal interactions. Managers have fewer opportunities to casually check in with employees, and those “watercooler” moments, where employees chat while making tea in the breakroom or on their way to a meeting, have been all but lost. “We’re getting less innovation, less spreading of ideas, less sourcing of ideas from other people, because we’re having less of those accidental incidental meetings and serendipitous chats.”

Remote working has also been particularly difficult for new starters, some of whom have never stepped foot in the office or physically met their co-workers, says Julie. Without the cues available in a physical environment – Is this an office where there’s lots of banter and laughter? Or do people prefer to sit quietly at their desks and get on with it? – it is difficult for new employees to get a handle on what the company culture is like. “There are also fewer opportunities to watch other people in action, to shadow them, and to be mentored on the job, in real-time,” she says. “Some of those opportunities haven’t necessarily translated well into the virtual environment – but there are other ways that you can do it.”

The companies that have managed the transition well are those that have been able to replicate those aspects of company culture in the virtual environment. PwC Australia, for example, use virtual reality (VR) headsets to train new employees, which they found was even more effective than training them in a classroom setting.

Canva was also able to take their social groups into the virtual. “These social groups were created by the Canva team, rather than being mandated from the top. Some people said, ‘I’ve got a love of wine’, and a social group was created around that. People would get together to have wine tastings, give each other recommendations and talk all things wine. When they moved to remote working, they carried the group on over Zoom, with bottles of wine being delivered to people’s homes.”

Similarly, “Zappos had a healthy eating club. And they translated that to remote working by sending people a kit that enabled them to grow their own produce at home. And they would all sit down and eat healthy meals together over Zoom.”

These examples show that there are ways to replicate even the most unique aspects of your company culture in a virtual environment – and retaining at least some of these moving forward to a hybrid work environment will be key to keeping remote workers engaged.

What is key to building a successful company culture in a hybrid work environment?

According to Julie, there are three things that are key to building a successful company culture in a hybrid work environment: a willingness to experiment, allowing for autonomy and flexibility, and providing an experience.

Experimentation

Julie says it’s important to approach building hybrid company culture with the right mindset, and that is “the mindset of ‘Let’s experiment.’ Nobody’s got the right answer. All we can do is try it.”

In this brave new world of hybrid working, it’s difficult to work out what will take, so employers need to think outside the box, be open to giving things a go, and be able to be agile when things perhaps don’t work out as planned.

“I think we need to have a sort of a broad vision for the future of how we think it might be, but then let people settle into that rhythm.”

Autonomy and flexibility

In the ‘old days’, it was more about ‘bums on seats’ – if people came in early, and left late, and spent the entire day at their desks, they were seen as doing a good job, whether their output reflected it or not.

But, as Julie puts it, “I don’t get paid to sit in a seat. You pay me to get a result, and to deliver on what it is that we’re trying to achieve overall – our vision, our goals.”

“I think we need to really push decisions out to the teams and start focusing on outputs,” she says. Workers should be able to decide what hours work best for them, and to work flexibly when they need to (e.g. to take half an hour off in the afternoon to pick up the kids from school), with the understanding that they have certain objectives they need to achieve in a given week.

She also strongly advises against using surveillance software that monitors remote workers. “When we start talking about how we can track the amount of time people are working and what they’re spending their time on, that for me is a massive red flag in terms of culture.”

Providing an experience

As shown by the examples of PwC, Canva and Zappo, there are ways in which companies can translate the employee experience to a virtual environment. The challenge for companies moving to remote company culture is how to create experiences for both in-office and remote workers while ensuring no one is getting left out.

Julie offers her own experience as an example: “I run these monthly sessions where I get people together to talk about company culture. We used to do them in physical office spaces all over Sydney CBD, so that people had a visceral experience of the culture in that location. When we went virtual, we asked ourselves, ‘How do we recreate that experience?’ Now, for some things, you just can’t. But we used to, for instance, provide a really healthy lunch. So we reached out to our caterer and said, ‘Can you create us a menu and then bring it to the virtual table, so to speak?’”

Of course, it’s not one-size-fits-all. What works for one organisation may not work for another. The key to providing good experiences for your employees, says Julie, is to involve the employees themselves. “This is an opportunity to get everybody to brainstorm and to think about what would make coming into an organisation better, what would improve the day-to-day and so on. This is also the opportunity to lead with questions, rather than try to provide all the answers.”

How can the physical office space support a strong company culture?

When it comes to a supportive hybrid working environment, it’s about enhancing those aspects that remote workers have been missing, but also providing those experiences they have grown to love about working from home. For example, you may think about increasing the areas where workers can socialise and collaborate, such as break areas, informal breakout rooms and collaborative workspaces.

Some workers have also been enjoying the peace and quiet of working from home, as well as the ability to mix things up by working in different areas of the house, such as at the dining table or in the backyard, so you may want to introduce quiet areas for deep concentration or provide places to work outside if you’re lucky enough to have an outdoor balcony or courtyard.

One of the challenges for many businesses will be dealing with the fluctuating numbers of employees in the office. You may, for example, have certain days of the week, month or year when all employees are expected to come into the office, and during busy periods more employees may opt to come in too. One way to manage this would be by creating flexibility in the physical office space – for example, moveable walls that allow you to accommodate large town hall meetings, and readjust to create more intimate meeting rooms. It’s also important that your tech is able to deal with this flux of employees, in order to promote digital inclusion.

Our recommendations for flexibility to be embedded in the office design and support the culture for whatever companies need, malleable & personalised workstations to suit an evolving work environment, walls that could be moved to create different-sized rooms, and agile meeting rooms with a user-friendly booking system to accommodate all types of meetings, from one-on-ones to 20-person meetings. “I think that’s the space of the future,” says Julie. “To support the culture, the space has to have that flexibility to morph itself into whatever people need.”

As businesses prepare to get workers back in the office, the hybrid company culture is right around the corner. Is your business ready? To learn more about the new norm of hybrid working, check out our comprehensive article, ‘Leading the Future of Work in Australia’.

The widespread shift from working in-office to working virtually has challenged leaders to effectively manage workplaces. The future of work will involve a blend of both in-office and remote working and it’s fundamental for organisations to cohesively manage this hybrid workforce while maintaining workplace culture.

Business leaders have a more challenging role than ever before. But threats to health, the economy and general uncertainty, have made the role of the leader even more important. With the dawn of the new hybrid work environment, it’s necessary for leaders to support employees no matter where they are working.

We spoke to business and leadership expert Mandy Holloway to offer a refreshing managerial perspective and provide some insights to help tackle the issues many leaders are grappling with as they move forward.

Mandy Holloway is a big advocate for positive workplaces that foster a supportive and unifying culture in a hybrid landscape. The future of work will look different, but according to Mandy, it’s up to managers to lead with empathy, equity, inclusion and empower individuals as they navigate the way ahead.

Why is the hybrid workplace a challenge for leaders?

It may seem daunting at first for leaders as they try to balance varying employee preferences while ensuring teams continue to work towards high productivity levels and constructively collaborate.

Some staff members may be enthusiastic to get back to working in the office while others may want to continue working from home. And for some, they’ll want a mix of both. It takes adaptability and willingness to trial new methods to successfully lead hybrid teams.

In the new working landscape, leaders may encounter difficulties with digital inclusion and ensuring all workers have the necessary equipment to do their job, maintaining workplace culture and sustaining effective communication with all staff, in and out of the office.

In this evolving hybrid workforce, Mandy says that leaders can better manage with trust and empowerment at the forefront of their processes. “Leadership now can’t be about control or power,” says Mandy, “It has to be about vulnerability, trust, and empowerment.”

Hybrid workplace leadership best practices:

Create company values

Company values are essential to impart guiding principles, common goals, and positive company culture for the sake of every individual.

Mandy believes that the organisational leaders who have struck gold are those that have acknowledged the wants and needs of all employees and called upon their input in formulating the company values. Mandy says that this helps to equalise and unify staff and as such, “upholds respect as well as inspiring empathy in the workplace”.

Encourage professional development 

Professional development should always be a priority in the workplace and shouldn’t ever be limited to the in-office work setting.

By heightening empathetic leadership, managers can assist individuals and teams to consistently “grow and develop their capabilities” which Mandy believes will make “employees feel valued and supported”.

Leaders should actively encourage their staff to strive to be their best. Through this continual pursuit for individual and organisational excellence, success is inevitable.

Promote autonomy, inclusion, and transparency 

It’s critical for leaders to “emulate the behaviour and work ethic they want to see in their employees. This helps staff to be more solution-oriented,” says Mandy.

There also must be intentional, genuine connection and interaction as this contributes to better communication and understanding in the workplace.

“Leaders need to have better conversations,” says Mandy. “This will empower their employees to make constructive decisions. It puts trust in them. The hybrid workplace will challenge leaders to converse and communicate better and sometimes, that means having hard conversations with emotionally charged content. It’s important for leaders to be prepared and skilled to do this, even via Zoom.”

Leaders need to connect with their staff at a human level in order for them to feel seen, heard and understood. This will boost the morale of individuals and teams which is extremely valuable in managing hybrid workplaces while supporting their overall output.

Deploy tech to support digital working

Employees need to have the right tools for them to successfully work in or out of the office. This means that all workers need to have equal access to technology and resources.

It’s important that technology functions as an enabler for all staff and not a deterrent. Making sure every employee is up to speed with the implemented technology can help leaders and their organisations stay ahead of the game. Workplace transformation can be more smooth sailing when staff are well-informed and onboard. This will help them to better engage with their work and be inspired to deliver results.

Cultivate learning agility and resilience 

Agility and the ability to not just adapt, but thrive, are key in achieving success. Leaders should make sure they’re regularly checking in with their employees to gauge what’s working well and what needs improvement within the hybrid workforce.

It’s also fundamental for organisations to prioritise the mental and physical well-being of their people. Mandy believes that this will reduce the “likelihood of burnout while strengthening the resilience of individuals” which is more crucial than ever.

Focus on connection across boundaries 

Connection is key and it should never be limited to face-to-face interactions. Leaders need to have an open and earnest dialogue to connect with staff and revitalise workplace culture, in and out of the office.

“We need to recognise that we’re dealing with whole people and really embrace human kindness,” says Mandy, “Leaders who are doing that are the ones who are charging ahead.”

As the ‘new normal’ that is hybrid working asserts its place, it’s imperative for business leaders to manage a hybrid workplace that’s applicable and practical to all team members. It’s important, now more than ever, for workplaces to adapt in ways that are considered rather than reactionary. To find out more information on how to successfully prepare for the new world of work, read Leading the Future of Work in Australia: Insights and Strategies.

Growth in Australia’s freight sector is estimated to outpace population growth over the next decade. In 2016, the domestic freight task grew by 50%, whilst the population grew by 18% over the same period. 

The increased demand has had a remarkable effect on freight operators nationally. Freight Australia says, “to meet the unprecedented parcels demand, Australia Post established 16 new or recommissioned parcel processing facilities, has chartered additional freighter flights, is operating some of its processing facilities 24/7 and has created more than 600 new casual roles.” 

With such major growth in headcount, facilities, and work volume, and corresponding investments in automation, robotics, and AI, there has been a rapid shift in the kinds of workers the industry seeks as well as the kind of work many are performing.  In addition, with transport roles experiencing long journeys, long hours and a sedentary lifestyle, and warehouse workers working in an implicitly dangerous environment, there has been pressure on the industry to invest more in the health and wellbeing of its staff. 

Workplace Strategy in Freight and Logistics 

The freight and logistics industry needs workplaces that are fit for today’s purpose but will also continue to adapt as the industry advances. In order to continue to attract the kind of skilled labour these organisations now need, we’ve seen the big end of town leverage workplace strategy for competitive advantage. 

This is because workplace strategy enables so much more than a good-looking office. It is a framework that helps organisations identify the ways a workplace can improve efficiency, productivity, wellbeing and culture. The right strategy delivers a workplace that can attract and retain talent via a productive, enjoyable and comfortable workplace experience – it can even help people deliver on broader business goals, such as innovation, or sustainability. 

Let’s take a closer look at the ways in which this industry can leverage workplace strategy and design for business benefit. 

Talent attraction and retention

The freight and logistics industry, like other sectors, has an aging workforce which is affecting the age profile of its employees. As these older workers leave the industry in the coming years, a challenge arises: matching younger workers to jobs traditionally done by a different type of employee. 

Unfortunately, the F&L industry has long been tarred with the brush of an ‘undesirable‘ career. But, with dramatic change has come a change in this image – with logistics organisations now needing every type of talent: from truckies to techies, from automation engineers to warehouse workers – they’re in demand. But perhaps the newer breed employee that’s required by this evolving sector is the highly skilled digital operator. 

These employees have come from different industries, and their needs and expectations are different from those who have grown up in freight; they require a modern, invested approach to culture, diversity, career development, equipment and environment. 

The environment component, therefore, requires careful research and planning. This includes a strategy for physical space – the actual layout, work environments, work furniture and equipment, and fixtures. But it also includes policies and technologies. Any workplace that is lacking or dated on any one of these will find it difficult to nab a world-class digital operator from Atlassian.  

Fulfil customer expectations

You already know, freight and logistics customers expect speed and agility in your service. Often new prospects and customers look for quality cues beyond the service you provide.  A modern workplace kitted out with automation, robotics, activity-based work areas, with health and wellbeing centres, stocked kitchens, and HVAC ventilation will signal more about your commitment to your people’s care and efficiency than your company bio on LinkedIn or Facebook. 

Whatever your business goal, workplace strategy can support it by defining the required facilities and layouts, specifying the appropriate equipment, and bringing it tangibly and visibly to life.  

Is workplace strategy for your organisation? 

Effective workplace design and strategy has many benefits. It can help your freight and logistics business to identify the best ways of working, support employees through change, attract and retain talent, and help people deliver to your commercial goals.

You can ground your workplace strategy by collating data and insights that first build the business case for your chosen path. Following this, your strategy, design and delivery will all be focused on delivering to those goals, and creating your future workplace of today, and tomorrow. 

If you want a workplace strategy partner to help you achieve these business objectives, before your competitors down the street, find a strong, strategic workplace design partner.

A meeting isn’t just a meeting anymore. In a hybrid working climate where people are working from home as well as in the office, you can’t simply just book a meeting room OR send out an invite to a Zoom call. Nor is it as easy to moderate participation and make sure everyone feels included.

So how do you host and facilitate a successful hybrid meeting?

To answer this question and more, we spoke with Trevor Ambrose, a sales training coach helping businesses and individuals in Australia and internationally to improve their speaking and presenting skills. Trevor will share the best practices for both facilitators and participants in running engaging, inclusive and productive hybrid meetings. We also touch on some practical tips to ensure your physical workplace can effectively support meetings in the new hybrid working environment.

From fully remote to hybrid

When the rapid uptake of working remotely began, there was uncertainty on how to proceed. According to Trevor, many were ‘technically challenged’ and had to learn and adjust to the new ways of working. “They didn’t know how to switch on. People were still fumbling around not knowing if their mic was on or off, how to switch on their camera, and even how to set up an account for video conferencing platforms.”

After several months working from home, some employees were getting ‘Zoomed out’ and overwhelmed by the constant virtual meetings. It became evident working full-time remotely is not going to be right for everyone or every role or business.

The need to bond and have physical connection with friends and colleagues signals that hybrid working will be the norm moving forward for most workplaces. “Even post COVID, it’s never going to go back to how it was where we would always do the physical face to face sort of meetings, but we’ll probably be doing a bit of both.”

Hybrid meeting best practices for the facilitator

With the higher risk of miscommunication and employee exclusion, managing hybrid meetings becomes more challenging than when everyone is physically present in the same room or all coming in virtually. Great facilitation is needed. One person, whether a team member or another participant, should be assigned to host or facilitate the hybrid meeting. Here are some best practice tips for the facilitator to help guide the meeting and keep things on track:

Plan an ice breaker or pre-meeting chat

Mandy Holloway, Courageous Leadership Facilitator, says that one way to get everyone comfortable at the start of a hybrid meeting is to have an ice breaker or a pre-meeting chat. This will get people settled and test their audio and video connections. More importantly, ice breakers can help remote participants feel included from the very beginning. You can start the meeting with some informal chats about the weekend or about a recent event. A short poll or quiz can also help start things off. But make sure your ice breaker is quick and doesn’t eat up the time for the official meeting.

Use people’s names

Like in a face to face meeting, it’s important to know every participant by name. In a hybrid meeting, it’s even more essential to know the names of participants coming in remotely. Trevor mentioned he writes down the names of remote attendees on a whiteboard. “So when I talk to people in the room, I always make sure to say ‘hi’ and ask them ‘what’s your take on this?’ And I would constantly bring them into the conversation so that they don’t feel excluded.” 

It’s easy for in-person participants to dominate meeting discussions. Knowing people’s names helps the facilitator to draw remote attendees in, keep them engaged, and ensure they have equal participation in every conversation.

Be interactive

Trevor highlighted the importance of making the hybrid meeting very interactive. If not, participants, especially the ones dialling in, will tune out and focus on other things in front of them. “As a facilitator, if I notice you doing something else or getting disinterested, I will begin to ask you direct questions to bring you back in. I will fish you back into that meeting, so that people will see I’m alert.”

You can also use some interactive tools like polls, Q&A or virtual whiteboards to keep participants engaged and focused. Facilitators can ask questions and have attendees answer through the chat box function within the virtual meeting platform.

Make the invite clear and stay on schedule

As a facilitator, it’s important to schedule the meeting properly for every participant. Make sure to send the invitation days ahead of time with the meeting room details for in-person attendees and the correct link to those joining virtually.

“Outline the purpose of the meeting and send a detailed agenda in advance. This can help especially when there’s more people attending. If there’s no clear direction in the meeting, it just fumbles around, and people get bored,” says Trevor.

Be prepared

This sounds obvious, but as a facilitator, you need to be prepared. You have to spend some time planning the meeting. Especially in a hybrid setting, you need to carefully plan an agenda and how to achieve the objectives of the meeting. It may also be worth readying some questions or discussion points to get conversations going. If you are doing some interactive activities, make sure remote participants can join in and have equal participation.

Before starting the meeting, be prepared with some guidelines and rules to guide participants. Set the rules about asking and answering questions, muting and unmuting, and who’s presenting and when. As a facilitator, you also need to be comfortable with the controls when sharing your screen, recording the session, and other technical aspects of the meeting platform.

Get your set up right

Nothing is more frustrating in a hybrid or virtual meeting than losing your audio or video in the middle of an important discussion. As a facilitator, take the time to test the audio-visual set-up for both the in-person and remote attendees. It might be worth doing a dry run to make sure connections are running smoothly, especially before a big and important meeting.

If you have a speaker or presenter, it’s essential to test their camera and microphone to make sure everyone, including remote participants, are able to see and hear them clearly. It’s also important to have the presenter position themselves properly – by having the camera at a good angle, centring themselves, and ensuring there are no distractions in the background. Trevor says, “I make sure that I’m positioned in a way that everybody can see me and I can see those people dialling in as well on a big screen. And that they can talk to me.”

Best practices for hybrid meeting participants

Hosting a successful meeting is not just dependent on the facilitator. The participants, whether attending in person or remotely, need to do their part.

Dress the part

“People need to step up more in professional meetings. Some people just look weary and tired with their body language, their posture and their attire. They need to realise that when they attend a meeting, even virtually, they are representing the brand of their company.”

Trevor encourages people to present and speak professionally, to look professional, and to have a professional demeanour when meeting with team members and clients.

Organisational leaders also need to set the expectations. They have to set policies for virtual meetings, communicate those policies, and even train employees how to look and sound professional. “I think companies should have a strong protocol. When you jump online, what is your dress code? If we’re going to do that in person, we might as well just do it virtually as well.”

Turn on your camera and get comfortable

Trevor noticed that some participants have been turning off their cameras during meetings. “This creates a barrier between people when you run hybrid meetings and presenting skills. You can’t see people’s reactions.”

Turning on your camera is essential in virtual or hybrid meetings. Seeing people’s faces, even virtually, establishes connection and trust. Similar to in-person meetings, it helps to see body language and understand when participants are engaged and focused or just getting bored and distracted.

Stay engaged

“I think the biggest problem is silent attendees. People are just sitting there and they just attend but they’re not engaged. They’re not actively talking.”

As a participant, you need to be involved in the meeting and ‘stay in the moment.’ Be engaged and don’t be afraid to speak up. Also, try to avoid in person cross-talks and impromptu side conversations as they can be distracting and confusing for remote attendees.

How your physical workplace can support hybrid meetings

Hybrid combines the physical and virtual environments. This means your physical workspace plays an important role in enabling and supporting hybrid meetings. Here are some things to consider when planning your workplace in a hybrid working environment.

Collaborative spaces for digital inclusivity

In a hybrid working environment, remote workers want to feel connected and that they are part of the team. It’s essential to design the physical workplace to have open collaborative spaces where both onsite and remote workers can work together as if they are sitting next to each other in the office. These collaborative spaces need to enable seamless connection to digital tools and virtual meeting platforms.

Axiom recently worked with Cisco Meraki to design and build workspaces that bring people together, which included a coffee bar area and tiered seating purpose-built for the monthly dial-in with San Francisco. These workspaces can also be used by onsite staff to meet and collaborate with remote colleagues, thereby enhancing workplace culture and community, even in a hybrid environment.

The right AV technology

Trevor cannot stress enough the importance of having the right technology to enable successful hybrid meetings. For best virtual connections in meeting rooms, make sure to invest in video conferencing and audio equipment. This includes quality web cameras, TV screens, microphones, speakers and soundbars. Also invest in digital tools that facilitate wireless content sharing, collaboration and communication. Make sure the tools and technology allow seamless integration so “people can just walk in, plugin, and boom, it’s on-screen.”

Lastly, it’s important to train everyone on the meeting technology. Help employees to get comfortable and familiarise themselves with all the technology in place – from logging onto the platform to switching screens and sharing content.

Acoustics

Aside from the AV technology, acoustics is also an important consideration when it comes to hybrid meetings. Poor meeting room acoustics can let external noise and other distractions come in – making it difficult for participants to concentrate and be productive. So, make sure to test noise levels in meeting rooms and invest in better sound insulation.

In addition, hard surfaces like glass walls, whiteboards and large screens can have a negative impact on room acoustics. One way to solve this problem is to add sound-absorbing material to the walls. This prevents noise from bouncing around the room and creating echoes that make speech and conversations difficult to understand.

If you want to learn more about hosting successful hybrid meetings, get in touch with Trevor Ambrose.

You can also read our guide to the future of work, and understand how to adapt to the fundamental changes occurring across workplaces in Australia.

The hybrid workplace model is the new norm in most workplaces, with employees dividing their time between the office and working remotely. Although this provides freedom and flexibility for staff, it is creating a challenge for employers in making sure everyone is productive, engaged, and feels part of an inclusive culture.

So, let’s talk about digital inclusion – what it is, why it’s important, and how you can ensure your future workplace strategy supports it.

What is digital inclusion in the workplace?

Each employee, whether they are working at a physical office or remotely, wants to feel part of the team, and be able to collaborate and work together with colleagues, as if they are just sitting side by side on their workstations or in a conference room.

Digital inclusion focuses on providing the same culture, conditions and opportunities to every staff member, no matter where they are working from. It means leveling the playing field for everyone, and delivering equal access to technology, resources and information required to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. 

Digital inclusion therefore becomes critical in a hybrid working environment, where you can have a physically dispersed workforce. It enables employees to feel connected, engaged and empowered to do their best work, wherever they are.

Barriers to digital inclusion

Achieving an inclusive culture is difficult enough when people are all working in the same office, but now there’s that added complexity of working with hybrid teams. Here are some of the challenges that would limit digital inclusion in the workplace:

Technology

Technology can be a great enabler for digital workplaces, but it can also be a barrier to digital inclusion. With people working from different locations, they don’t all have the same internet speeds and wifi capabilities. So, for remote staff, connecting to virtual meetings or conference calls may not be guaranteed or seamless. Also, not having collaboration tools like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace can create numerous issues that can impact productivity and collaboration between remote and onsite teams. 

Culture based on old habits and practices

Digital inclusion won’t work without the cooperation of every staff member. Some people can have the tendency to go back to old habits and practices. They can resist the change to a digital workplace, and prefer to work in a face-to-face environment, leaving out those who are working remotely. 

Lack of visibility and connection 

Another barrier to digital inclusion is the lack of visibility and connection with remote employees. Business leaders can easily connect with people they physically see in the office and be able to understand their needs and preferences. But it becomes difficult to maintain the same level of service and connection when dealing with remote workers, where there is no physical visibility.

Lack of communication

Equal access to company information is essential in achieving digital inclusion. However, this is not easily achieved. According to Igloo’s 2020 State of the Digital Workplace, nearly 60% of remote workers feel they missed out on important information because it was communicated in person.

Fostering digital inclusion in your workplace

Building an inclusive workplace can work wonders in improving employee engagement and productivity. Here are some ways your workplace can foster digital inclusion:

Conduct a quick audit. To implement any change in the workplace, it’s important to step back and understand the current situation. Observe staff interactions (both onsite and remote) and do interviews and surveys. How do people feel about working in hybrid teams? How much collaboration is happening? Do remote workers feel disconnected?

Create an inclusive culture. Integrate inclusivity in your core company values and then communicate those values effectively to the different teams. It’s also important that the push for digital inclusion starts from the top – so encourage leaders and managers to treat and manage everyone in the same way, no matter if they’re working in the office or remotely. 

Implement inclusive communications. This means all company information should be communicated effectively to all employees, both onsite and remote. And make sure you communicate in different ways, including email, chat and other internal communication channels. 

Have the right technology. It’s essential to implement technology that can work anywhere. This enables staff to do their best work wherever they are – including equal access to the right collaboration and productivity tools. 

Make sure everyone has a voice. Remote workers tend to feel isolated. They sometimes feel unable to participate and be heard. Especially in meetings, encourage everyone to participate and contribute. Ensure each participant has an opportunity to speak out and be respected for their ideas.

How your physical workspace can support digital inclusion

Although the hybrid environment deals with both remote and onsite teams, your physical workplace still plays an important role in supporting digital inclusion. 

Create meeting rooms designed for equal participation

Equal participation in a face-to-face meeting is challenging enough – but it becomes even more difficult when you have other people joining through a virtual environment. This requires more than installing a webcam, monitor and speakers in a meeting room. The furniture selection & orientation, in conjunction with appropriate lighting & acoustics, are vitally important to ensure digital inclusion is fostered. There needs to be a meeting moderator and a process in place to ensure that all participants are treated equally and have the same opportunities to speak out and be heard.

According to a senior workplace strategist at Axiom Workplaces, “You need to have great speakers and microphones. I think you need to have a moderator or a facilitator that can control the conversation in a way that the technology can keep up with what’s happening in the room and make it easy for someone who’s joining in remotely, to follow what’s going on.” 

Implement seamless room booking technology

Aside from providing equal participation, meetings in a hybrid workplace should be able to allow seamless connectivity and transition between virtual and physical environments. 

There is a strong need for an ‘intuitive connection’. People don’t want to spend too much time trying to book a meeting room then struggle to use the technology within the room – which is the usual situation in most organisations. “Breaking down the restraints between the physical space and technology is important. You need to provide dual screens, so that everyone who’s joining in remotely is on screen, despite the fact that you might be sharing information on another screen.” 

Deploy a desk booking system

A desk booking system allows employees to book or reserve desk space before they get to the office, through a web browser or mobile app. The system helps you manage the physical office with data and reports for workspace utilisation and planning.

Build collaborative spaces

To build a positive and inclusive culture, it’s important to build collaborative spaces where people can come together when they do come to the office. This will allow workers to build stronger connections with colleagues and make them feel less isolated when working from home.  

Axiom recently worked with Cisco Meraki to build a workplace that created a strong sense of culture and community within the organisation. The Axiom team designed workspaces that bring people together, including a coffee bar area and tiered seating purpose-built for the monthly dial-in with San Francisco. 

To learn more about building a strong and inclusive culture in a hybrid working environment, check out our interview with Cisco on creating a digitally inclusive workplace.

If you would like to learn how to undertake a Digital Transformation of your workplace click below:

 

 

We see the current climate in Australia as ‘yoyoing’ between working in the office and remotely, all dependent on something largely out of our control. So how can businesses build the necessary resilience to overcome these challenges and come out the other side stronger and more successful?

To answer these questions and more, we spoke with resilience expert, Heidi Dening. Heidi shared some valuable insights on workplace resilience – what it is and why it is important in the current working conditions. She also provided practical strategies on how to build resilient teams and explored what to focus on when designing the office to support workplace resilience.

Resilience has often been defined by the ability to bounce back…but is it?

“I believe resilience is really defined by somebody or a place’s ability to bounce forward, to be able to learn something from the challenge that we have gone through, be able to adapt it to what the new norm is going to be for that workplace, and be able to progress forward, to move forward, to bounce forward.”

– Heidi Denning.

Workplace resilience is often defined as the ability to bounce back from setbacks and handle difficult experiences or events. For the past 18 months, many organisations have been focused on resilience and in building resilient workplaces. They want to navigate through the challenges and changes brought about by the pandemic – until things go back to ‘normal’. If they can survive and bounce back, then the business would be considered a resilient business.

However, Heidi has a different view on resilience. She doesn’t believe we should “measure a person or a workplace by their ability to bounce back.” We all go through fundamental changes when experiencing challenges or adversities in life and at work. Even at a cellular level, we don’t really go back to the way things were. 

We have to adapt to the changes and keep moving forward – to learn from what we, our customers, employees and partners are going through; and not crave that stability and safety we felt before the pandemic began. 

The ‘yoyo’ working environment in Australia

With all the lockdowns over the past 18 months, the climate in Australian workplaces can be described as ‘yoyoing’ from between working in the office and remotely. How is this affecting workers? 

“It’s chipping away at them. Without a doubt,” says Heidi. The current ‘yoyo’ climate is forcing people to adapt to the new normal – working at the office when allowed to do so, and going back to remote working when lockdowns happen. To survive and still get things done, most employees need to change their lifestyles and implement new working habits. The bottom line, everyone is feeling overwhelmed, stressed and exhausted. This makes resilience in the workplace more important than ever in the current yoyo environment.

Why workplace resilience is important

Heidi highlighted that resilience in the workplace allows for creativity and innovation. The future is definitely unpredictable and unknown – but resilience enables you to move forward and think outside the box. It empowers you to do something new, different and unique. 

Resilient teams adapt quicker to the new ways of working, and figure out ways to be more collaborative and productive in a virtual environment. And when leaders build resilient workplaces, it’s a lot easier for them to create new business models, adopt new technologies, and develop new and innovative ways to deal with customers. All these help the business not only survive, but thrive in this uncertain and ever-changing world.

“When you have developed your resilience muscle, you’re actually developing your creativity and innovation muscle. I think this is the greatest benefit for a workplace.”

Building a ‘culture of care’ to help teams be more resilient

Now that we know how important resilience is in this current climate, how can leaders deliver a positive support experience for employees working remotely? Heidi has provided us with a number of ways employers can create a ‘culture of care’ to help teams be more resilient.

Be vulnerable and authentic

As a leader, you always want to appear strong, happy and confident. And sometimes, you need to be but during these uncertain and challenging times, your team also wants to see the ‘human’ side of you. Be vulnerable and authentic enough to admit that working from home is not always easy – that homeschooling and being locked in with your partner is sometimes difficult and can drive you nuts. This way, your team can feel that they’re not alone when they feel stressed and overwhelmed. So others feel okay to say, “I’m not okay.”

Bring a sense of calmness

Yes, you can be vulnerable and say you’re not at your peak at certain moments, but as a leader, you also need to show the team that you are calm and in control. Heidi stressed that “bringing that sense of calm in a world that’s feeling very unsettled is definitely important.”

Deliver relevant and accurate information

In times of crisis, most employees are inundated by news that they get from the media and from friends, families and even colleagues.  However, this information can be inaccurate or totally untrue. Leaders need to be able to disseminate information that is relevant and accurate. They have to figure out what’s real and what’s not – and deliver that information to the team in a timely way. 

Be a visionary

Your team will look to you for assurance and guidance. They will depend on you to create a path through this crisis. As a leader, you need to be a visionary – not in such a way that you can predict the future – but in a way that assures the team “we have what it takes to adapt and we’re going to be okay in this new world.”

Stay connected with your team

Heidi highlighted the need for leaders to “know what to look for, to make sure the team’s doing okay, virtually.” You have to know how people are going. So, make sure you stay connected with your team, through messaging, text or phone. If you would like to learn more about whether your team are resilient enough to cope with all the stress and uncertainty, take this short quiz.

How the office can support resilience

The long-term view is that most workplaces will have a hybrid working environment, where employees divide their time between the office and working remotely. So, the physical workplace may look different in the future, but would still play an important role in building resilient teams.

According to Heidi, there are a number of factors that impact resilience in the office:

Lighting

Light decisions in the workplace can make a huge difference in a person’s ability to sleep well. And sleeping well helps employees to be more productive and perform better during the day. Of course the opposite is also true, and a person will feel tired, exhausted and unable to perform his/her best, if he/she gets even just one bad night’s rest. 

Noise

“Sound is another one, because distraction at work is something that really chips away at our ability to work well.” Heidi noted that when people get distracted, whether it’s because of the sounds around the office or colleagues talking, it can really stress them out. Some are good at zoning out by wearing headphones or simply focusing intently on their work. But the majority of people struggle with sound distractions.

Technology

Technology has a big impact on resilience in the workplace. Whether employees are working at the office or at home, they need the right tools and technology to be able to do their jobs properly. Having the wrong type of tech or if things just don’t work, this can be a source of frustration and stress. “If you’re ambitious, and you want to get things done in a particular time without mistakes, then you need the tech to do that. And if you can’t, again, it’s just chipping away at someone’s ability to work.”

Social spaces

When designing your office, it’s important to create spaces that build connections between people. “Social health is so crucial for a team’s culture.” Heidi mentioned that employees go to the office to connect and collaborate with colleagues – to have a laugh and share life stories. “For many people who live by themselves or in really bad relationships, or, you know, lots of things going on in the background, the workplace can be such a sanctuary.” So, the office needs to be designed in a way that it allows social connection between teams and employees.

Axiom recently worked with ELMO, one of the fastest-growing HR tech companies in the Asia-Pacific region, to build a workspace that would foster connection and community engagement. The office design included a café and community space where staff can relax and socialise, and a wellness room where they can practise yoga and meditation.

If you’d like to learn more on how to better prepare your business and workplace for the future of work, read our Progressive Leader’s Guide to the Future of Work in Australia.