No one could have predicted the world’s largest remote-working experiment, as offices closed in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19. Amid the upheaval, there have been benefits – no time lost to commuting, flexibility to work around family or home commitments, and being able to pop out for a walk or run at lunchtime. Now, as organisations eye a return to the office, there are signs employees want to make home working a feature of their professional lives.
That’s certainly been the case at PwC. After an extensive consultation with staff, the firm recently announced the rollout of a new hybrid work arrangement (known as “the Deal”) that’s available to all 22,000 UK employees and recognises the hard work, commitment and agility that its people have demonstrated. As part of the new Deal, PwC has introduced the “empowered working day”, where its workforce will spend an average of two to three days a week co-located with colleagues in the office or at a client site, can flex their hours on a given work day and have the option to condense their working week during July and August, finishing at lunchtime on Fridays. “Feedback so far has been really positive, both from staff and clients who are looking at introducing similar models themselves,” Laura Hinton, PwC’s chief people officer, says.
A report into flexible working by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), published in April 2021, found 63% of employers planned to introduce or expand the use of hybrid working in the future after 71% said that home working had had no detrimental impact on productivity. Survey participants pointed to increased wellbeing due to avoiding the commute (46%) and greater flexibility of hours (39%). A separate survey by Adecco, which assessed the attitudes of 8,000 white-collar workers in the UK, found 77% believe a mix of office and remote working is the best way forward post-pandemic.
For PwC, hybrid working represents the best of both worlds. “People value different aspects of office and home working and a mix of the two is important,” Hinton says. “The office is great for collaborating with teams, sharing ideas, mentoring and coaching … The average age at PwC is 31 and face-to-face interaction and learning is particularly important [for this group].”
On the flipside, there’s flexibility that comes from working at home. “It can be easier to fit in local activities such as a school run or dog walk. Personally, I value working at home when I want to focus on something for an extended period without distractions.” Other benefits of hybrid working include a reduction in the firm’s carbon footprint thanks to less staff travel, which is expected to help PwC reach its net-zero target by 2030.
It’s not the first time PwC has made efforts to introduce flexibility into the work day. The firm previously offered everyday flexibility, whereby employees were encouraged to adopt a work pattern that suited them and their lifestyle, and to dress more casually on days without client meetings. The firm’s post-pandemic flexible work offering has seen an evolution from everyday flexibility to empowered flexibility. PwC recognises that its people all have a unique set of skills, circumstances and priorities. It’s built on two-way flexibility and the trust that each member of its workforce will work in a way that suits them as individuals, but that also meets the needs of their team, the wider firm and their clients.
“We’ve long promoted flexible working, but it can take time for habits to bed in,” Hinton says. “Lockdown has helped normalise flexible working – people feel much more empowered to take up the opportunity and have seen it doesn’t affect their ability to deliver great work.”
There are challenges, of course, to making hybrid work a reality. When all the staff are office working, or they’re all working from home, it’s easier to be inclusive than it is with a mix of the two. “One of the key challenges is ensuring a level playing field,” Hinton says. “When everyone’s in the office or everyone’s at home, people have less fear of missing out on chance conversations. We want to ensure the working environment feels inclusive regardless of where people are based. But at the same time we don’t want to level down the in-office experience so people feel they might as well be at home.”
Technology can go some way towards achieving that balance. PwC plans to spend £75m equipping workers with new devices, and on redesigning its 20 offices, creating more open spaces to aid collaboration and installing technology to facilitate better meetings. The company adds that it will also be continually evolving and changing this offering to make sure it best supports its clients, building trust in society and empowering its workforce.
It’s about ensuring the firm “offers people something different to what they can get at home”, Hinton says. “Ultimately we’re going to have to keep fine-tuning the hybrid working model as people adapt to the new way of working.”
PwC has become one of the first global organisations to set out its vision for post-pandemic work, but it certainly won’t be the last. For employers contemplating their own hybrid future, Hinton has this advice: “Consulting with employees is key. No two organisations are the same and there’s no point making changes if they’re not going to work for your people. Lockdown transformed working life across so many organisations and has shown what’s possible. Now’s a good time to consider which aspects of this new way of working you want to keep and what you want to change.”
