Team update: A lot has happened since this blog - all great things! We’re now in the United States and our new product launched in November 2021, helping teams in fast-growing organizations find and hire their best-fit junior and mid-level talent in Sales, Marketing, Operations, and Customer Success. Try it here for free. This means some of our articles before this date may have product shots that look a little different. That’s all from us, enjoy the blog.

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What is the best approach when it comes to flexible work, post-pandemic? It’s tempting to look for a silver bullet, but take our word for it - there isn’t one. Coronavirus inadvertently threw us into a real-time experiment in remote and flexible work. Now we’re planning to go back to our office after 3 months, but we aren’t defaulting back to how we used to think about flexibility.

In simpler times, we worked from home every Wednesday. A mid-week interlude to take a breather, get deep into work and tick off tasks piling up on our to-do lists. When Coronavirus lockdowns came along, it gave us time to be more experimental and creative with flexible work. It’s made us think differently about what we as a team want this to look like moving forward, and how we strike the delicate balance between start-up momentum and flexibility. 

While there is still a lot of testing and learning to do, we’re working towards a clear goal. We want to achieve a working model that is:

• Flexible: where we’re individually productive.
• Productive: create momentum through collaboration and room for spontaneous 'aha' moments.
• Healthy: finding a balance between our work and non-work.
• Connected: being able to share experiences, build trust and forge friendships.

Here’s our approach to thinking about flexible work and returning to the office.

What does the team want?

During the Coronavirus lockdowns, remote work looked different for everyone in the team. Some moved to Tamworth, Perth and the Sunshine Coast; others moonlighted as teachers and converted their kitchens into coworking spaces with their housemates. We’ve all become more thoughtful and aware, by choice or necessity, about what routine and environment works best for our productivity.

To get a read on how the team were feeling about remote work, we sent out a survey at the end of May. Survey questions included:

• What % of your work week would you prefer to work from home? And what is your thinking behind this choice?
• Should we have set office days/work from home days?
• Are you open to a shared desk system to better utilise our office space?

The majority of the team’s preference was to work from home 50-70% of the week and have set days in the office. Feedback was that this would allow for team meetings, workshops and bonding to happen, while also providing predictability for life outside of work, like school drop-offs and hobbies. 

With this in mind, what could research tell us about how we make flexible work, work, in the long term?

What does the research say?

Thinking back to our goal, we spent some time researching how best to go about achieving it. Here’s what we found:

• Balance is best
  When it comes to remote work, there is no one-size-fits-all. The ideal environment to get work done will depend on a team member’s role, personality and the task at hand. A common thread in many remote work studies is that working remotely two to three days a week allows for a balance of collaboration (at work) and individual concentration-time (at home).
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• Remote work makes face-to-face (F2F) time more meaningful
  Workers who split their time between the office and working remotely are more likely to have their development and relationship needs met. F2F time allows managers to get to know their employees on a personal level. They can develop an understanding of their unique strengths and better manage them compared to fully remote workers. 
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• Let the task determine the location
  Working from home makes us better at some tasks, and worse at others. Brainstorms are challenging to do remotely; they rely on ideas bouncing around the room, whereas standup meetings can happen with ease without needing everyone in the same place.

This research all pointed towards a flipped workplace model, where the team can focus on individual contributions at home; choosing the most productive time, place and pace for them. This model allows for time in the office to be dedicated to fostering collaboration, inspiring brainstorms and maintaining company culture and connections.

We’re using these research insights as #inspo, not gospel. Why? Because we’re wary of the law of averages and that these findings are averaged over thousands of businesses, each of different sizes, characteristics and needs. We’d be attempting to put a square peg in a round hole if we didn't think about them through a uniquely Hatch lens that considers our needs.

So, what did we decide to do?

We’re in the midst of an exciting planning & strategy phase for Hatch. This means our work is highly variable and subject to change. To ensure we’ve got ample time together to collaborate and reconnect with one another, we’ll start by going back to the office 3 days a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) during July. In August, we’ll trial 2 days in the office for comparison.

We’re lucky that we moved into a new office mid-March* this year that gives us the luxury of space that will make social distancing a whole lot easier.  And some practices will become our new normal: travelling outside of peak hour, hand sanitizer on desks and having visitors wash their hands on arrival and provide us with their details.

And if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to be ready for change at any moment! We’ll be keeping an eye on NSW Health guidelines and any acceleration of COVID-19 cases locally. 

What’s working? What’s not?

Finding the right balance of office time and flexible working will require some trial and error. Through check-ins with the team and data from self-report questions, we’ll determine whether:

• There’s been enough time for individual work and team collaboration.
• The team have been able to balance their life commitments with work.
• Our energy levels and team connection is maintained at a high level.
• There’s been an impact on individual and team productivity.

While we gather this feedback over the next couple of months, our goal is to decide on how many days and what days we spend in the office Vs at home, by the end of August. We’ll share that update with you and look forward to hearing about what flexible work post-pandemic looks like for you!

As we continue to iterate on our approach to flexible and remote work, it’s exciting to think about what this could enable in the future - 3 months of remote work in the South of France? Let’s cross our fingers. 

*Unfortunately timed with Coronavirus lockdowns, right? Next task: belated office-warming.

Photo by Callum T on Unsplash