Redesigning Work for a Hybrid Workforce

UNSW Business Insights Institute Briefing: Redesigning Work for a Hybrid Workforce is the narrow association of hybrid work with working from home hindering progress in creating improved workplaces and limiting career advancement?

Join industry leaders and academics from the UNSW Hybrid Work Leadership Lab for a Business Insights briefing that will explore the evolving hybrid and flexible work culture, its impact on organisational design and systems, and the necessary adaptations of workplace culture to thrive in this era where "Thursday is the new Friday."

While there appears to be a consensus that some form of hybrid and remote work is here to stay, there has yet to be a consensus on what hybrid work will look like post-COVID. How will traditional systems of work, hiring practices, career progression, and individual contributions be transformed to adapt to this new way of working?

Confirmed panellists are:

• Ranna Alkadamani, General Manager, People & Culture at Frasers Property Australia and Frasers Property Industrial
• Philip Oldfield, Head of School, UNSW Built Environment
• YingYing Mai, Experienced HR Advisor/ Business Partner at the Art Gallery of NSW

The background 

Recently, Cal Henderson, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Slack, announced Salesforce employees (following Slack's acquisition in 2021) are expected to spend at least three days a week in the office. In attempting to solidify their hybrid work arrangements, Meta and Google have similarly instructed their employees to return to the office for at least two days per week.

At face value, these directives from organisational decision-makers sound reasonable, yet bring added costs considering the advantages of working from home in terms of helping to balance work-life responsibilities, reducing commuting time, and mitigating expenses all-around.

On the other hand, time spent working together in the office is clearly valuable as learning on-the-job, assimilating into the organisational culture, and advancing in one's career often depend on interpersonal experiences that can be difficult – if not impossible – to replicate remotely, particularly in industries such as technology, finance, sales, marketing, and consulting. As organisations seek to promote both learning and wellbeing across their employees, organising work arrangements continues to be a major challenge.

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