Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader of PwC’s People & Organisation practice, to discuss insights from their recent Workforce and CHRO Pulse Surveys. The surveys have been running since the start of Covid-19 with the aim of understanding the business community’s sentiment and experience with different aspects of the pandemic. The results we discuss here are based on responses from 2000 US workers and nearly 100 CHROs. You can view the full methodology and previous Workforce Pulse Survey data here.

The surveys explore questions on work and the workplace and how the workforce is feeling, including topics such as:

• Remote work

• Health and safety

• Return to work

• Mental health

• Cybersecurity

• Economic and political uncertainty

• Social injustice

• Systemic racism

myHRfuture: Let’s start by discussing the purpose of the surveys you’ve been running throughout Covid-19 and the insights you’ve recently published at PwC.

Bhushan: It's really important for organisations to understand how people around the world, especially if you're running global teams, are feeling about uncertainty, about re-skilling, about wellbeing.  Especially because we're unable to go out and physically meet people, the more that we can get data on sentiment, the better.

 We're all in this shared experience with lock downs in many parts of the world. And we haven't really fully reopened in our personal lives, with things such as travelling, going to theatres, sporting events, and meeting friends. It's an important point, in times of crisis to really take the pulse of your people and take the pulse of the workforce.

myHRfuture: We’ll dive into different parts of the research shortly, but before we do – what was the most surprising or interesting finding, in your view?

 Bhushan: It has surprised me, but it's probably more because I see it as an important part of my civic responsibility, that in one of our surveys in January, only 70% of people wanted to return to the office and were willing to wear a mask. 54% were willing to show proof of a vaccine.

It surprised me because we've been living in a pandemic. At that time, it was 10 months, and we are engaging in changes in our consumer life - you can't go to a supermarket or to a coffee shop without having to wear a mask. Yet, 70% is a huge number. Where only 70% were comfortable, 30% were basically saying, I will sit this out. If you're mandating masks, I will not come to the office for that reason. That was a surprise because the world I'm from is more, one of civic responsibility in that we’re all in this together.

And it's clear - you don't have to do a survey, you can just switch on the news - it's clear that we have many different fractures in our society who think different things. There's no collective on any of these topics - whether the question is should you wear a mask, should you take a vaccine, should we reopen, or should we send kids back to school? So that was a disappointment, I’m not sure it was a surprise, but it was a disappointment.

myHRfuture: What do you think the reason behind that 30% is? Is it unwillingness to follow safety protocols or unwillingness to give up working from home? Or something else?

Bhushan: For those businesses that are fortunate enough that they can adopt work from home and that have a very good business model, like a bank, professional services company, or tech company, they can interact in the hybrid model because those people can work from home.

That's why you have the 30% - because there's an alternative.

myHRfuture: So, the question is actually, do you want to work at home or not?

Bhushan: Yes. If there was a tube strike, you either worked from home or you walked to the office or cycled to the office -, there were minimal choices. But now, there’s lots of choice because very few companies, on the knowledge worker side, are going to mandate to come back five days a week.

Even the companies that you see looking to return back more quickly, the headline might be - two banks have returned this week to London and that they are at 20%, 30% occupancy and they want everyone back in the office. But the fine print is - everyone's going to implement some form of a hybrid work model.

myHRfuture: With some workers remote and some workers in office – is there going to be an inclusivity challenge? And what can organisations do about this?

Bhushan: The inequity of the remote worker is a challenge that a lot of companies are starting to plan for.

We've never done this hybrid work model before, where some people may be permanently remote, they may be remote for 12 months, or they may come in two, three days a week. The leader may be in the physical office or at home too.

In that environment, it’s crucial to operate in a way that makes sure that everyone feels included in the daily work. Leaders and managers have to make sure that if there are projects or client meetings, they don't forget about the people who are working remote. You have to make sure that they feel a part of it, especially as we reopen and get to 20% or 30% occupancy, and we start socialising and meeting clients.

Those social collisions are going to increase and, if you want to operate in a hybrid world, you have to very deliberately design to synchronise these social collisions happening remotely and in person. Technology will play a big role here. You have to give the tech firms credit for designing these hybrid work versions of their products, but they're also doing it because they know that's the reality, whether you're one day or four days a week at home, you need to have this kind of technology so that you can make people feel more included and you can mimic what the office used to be.

 I do worry that there'll be inequity. Especially as this is inextricably linked with things like schools getting cases and then having to close and the subsequent impact on working mothers, for example.

myHRfuture: Let’s talk a little about the data that’s required for managing hybrid work. What kind of data is becoming more crucial to manage this environment effectively?

Bhushan: Table stakes is sentiment data. It was before the pandemic and especially at the start of the pandemic. It has to be more than just “how are you feeling?” -  unpacking what causes anxiety, and what can we do to address that. Is it because you don't have Wi-Fi? Is it because you've got screaming kids? Is it because you're really worried about your own health situation? So really understanding what’s behind the sentiment data, which has aspects of health and wellbeing.

The second area that’s important is using data to get a holistic picture of the entire workforce. Where are people located? How many people may be on compressed work schedules or flex work schedules? This information is critical for effective decision making. 

If leadership’s position is that we've got to drive cost effectiveness and transform different parts of the business, or we want to make an acquisition or divestiture, how do we actually use our workforce data to try and make good decisions and answer that question? What are we doing around inequity? What are we doing around the pyramid in the workforce? Are we going to create more or less succession planning opportunities? Good visualisation of workforce data to support the business goals is critical.

And the third thing, which I think is absolutely new because of hybrid work, is organisational network analysis, social network analysis. In my experience, no one organisation has really done this mainstream. We talk about it in a very academic sense, who does Caroline interact with? Does she interact with people in the finance department, the HR department? What's the intensity of those interactions? Is it through video conferences? Is it through emails? Now we've got systems that can scrape all of those interactions.

It can't be used as surveillance to say, are you working effectively? Instead, it's to say, who's interacting with whom, because if we're missing the social collisions, we've got to understand why and what’s the impact. If research and development are not interacting enough with sales and marketing in a pharma company, for example, there’s probably issues there. If Finance is not interacting with HR sufficiently, maybe at year end when they're looking at compensation, that's probably an issue. That’s when HR professionals can support by tracking the social network interactions between people. It's a bit of a next frontier, but because we're taking the premise that hybrid work is here to stay, these types of tools that map interactions, I think will be important.

The final thing to say on this is the opportunity of using people's data to understand where there's risk of burnout. That’s also critical. Sentiment data is going to be important to understand this. Also working patterns. Are you taking vacation? How often are people sending emails on a weekend? Because we’ve seen a couple of big banks in the US already have employee activists starting to question their own attitudes here.

I think there's now a potential rise of employee activism. People will feel very comfortable in organizations to share when they are not being treated in the right way, whether their mental health is being valued. And, especially when corporations claim to be purpose driven.

myHRfuture: Have the events of the last year shifted what employees care most about? And how are organisations responding with regards to benefits?

Bhushan: At the start of the pandemic, people were focused on what we could call essential benefits. How can we help you with work from home stipends to get productive? How can we help you with compressed schedules, if you need to take time off or job share? How can we help you with connectivity?

Now what we're realising on the benefits side is people understand that cash compensation is table stakes. There's an increase now in the desire for people to say, I want to have more time. The currency of time is so important. Whether that's time to go on vacation, to volunteer, to invest in my own learning and maybe the company funds some of that and access to online learning.

People are willing to say, I need to read to reset and recover and therefore don't give me more money, give me more time. They say“I want to do stuff that's meaningful to me.” Volunteering is very personal. One person might want to spend time at a local school, teaching financial literacy or digital skills. Someone else might want to go into a soup kitchen. Someone else might do something at a local hospital. So, it’s about giving the time to do that.

myHRfuture: Let’s bring the discussion to what HR needs to do to be successful in a hybrid working world.

We asked business leaders what they think the biggest challenges are regarding return to growth. It turns out that workforce elements are the top issues. A majority said that their greatest constraint is access to the right technical talent. Following that is wellbeing and access to skilled trade labour. Re-skilling is also going to be critical.

To address that and be successful in a hybrid working world, the biggest actions HR can take are to work with executives to define workforce considerations in their return to growth strategy and enable the hybrid work environment, tending to inclusive leadership and prioritizing the wellbeing of employees. The workplace of the near future will ultimately need to see HR leading and planning the “future of work” discussion, covering everything from scenario planning and new organization models to how firms responsibly integrate digital and workforce strategies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bhushan Sethi is joint global leader of PwC’s People & Organization practice, where he shapes and drives the firm’s global network strategy across 11000+ practitioners in 150+ countries delivering standalone and integrated solutions across strategy, management, technology and tax consulting disciplines. Current member of T20 “Future of work task force” where he works with leading global think tanks, business and academic leaders to influence G20 public policy and current member of World Economic Forum Council on Skills and Education, having previously served on WEF Equality & Inclusion Council.

Caroline Styr is the Research Director at Insight222. She is a thought-leader, researcher and writer on people analytics and the future of HR. Prior to joining Insight222, she worked at the Center for the Future of Work where she was an advisor and in-demand speaker on topics related to the future of work. She has also held roles in digital services and transformation consulting at Cognizant. Contact Caroline at caroline.styr@insight222.com