In the April 22 webinar, Reimagining Hybrid Work, hosted by GCO FlexWork consultant Robin Mack, CCWA Talent Development Partner Maria Perry spoke candidly about her organization’s need to repair and strengthen its hybrid work program — which was completely unprepared for the stresses of a global health pandemic — and why it tapped GCO for the job. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Can you give us some history on when you started the program and why?
Perry: Long before COVID even came around, we did have a telework policy in place. Only a handful of employees used it. Then the pandemic hit. We went from a few employees taking advantage of the policy to about 80% of our company doing so. After the pandemic, we realized that rolling the program out in that crisis state had left a few cracks, mostly around eligibility, technical standards and even leaders holding their employees accountable, so we teamed up with Georgia Commute Options to rebuild the program in a way that fit our current state of workflows.
Q: When getting leadership and upper management buy in to adopt a hybrid model, what worked? What did they value?
Perry: When we approached our CEO and the rest of our executive team about keeping that hybrid model, we led with two things that they cared about a lot: the safety of our employees to continue that process and uninterrupted operations. The pandemic had already shown that telework could work and protect our people and keep business running. So that foundation was pretty solid. But what really tipped the scales was the data that we gathered afterward. We ran employee surveys, focus groups, pulled productivity metrics from other companies, and asked team leaders to share what had and hadn’t worked with their teams and departments during the first rollout. So the numbers and the stories made it real clear that employees viewed flexibility and work-life balance as essential — and performance hadn’t slipped!
Leadership’s biggest worry was sticking to the policy. So we emphasized accountability measures that we could put in place to keep those service levels high. One other piece that mattered to our leadership is our culture, which is family oriented. In 2023 our theme was reevaluate, reconnect, and refocus. To honor that, we paused the program so that we could reconnect and refocus and get back together in building those relationships, while in the background our leadership team was enhancing the program.
Q: What were some of the main reasons that you decided to bring in the FlexWork consulting team at that point?
Perry: Fresh eyes and the true hard data. We have plenty of opinions, but very little benchmarking. So Georgia Commute Options came in with specialized analytics and real world comparisons that we didn’t have. These showed us where our program stood and where we could go. We also like the fact that you all had the hybrid know-how. The playbook that you had in place saved us from reinventing the wheel and redoing things which would have extended the reevaluation of our program. GCO also provided guidance from start to finish.
Q: Can you walk us through one or two key changes that you implemented based on GCO’s recommendations?
Perry: We reviewed key guidelines and our policy, and we explained them in plain language so that our teams can clearly follow them without confusion. When we relaunched our program, we relaunched with a cap of working remote just one day a week. If our metrics look good and people are doing better with following policy, and leaders are holding people accountable, then later we can expand beyond just one day a week. The other thing that we did is we narrowed down the pool of eligible employees during the crisis. Before there wasn’t really a clear eligibility communication. We have 400 employees, and those who could work remotely were free to do so. But we tightened that up, so we narrowed it down to approximately 130 roles that would fit or be eligible for remote work. This keeps our service level strong, and it cuts down on that concern of “why me not them.”
Q: What, if any, challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?
Perry: A few people thought that we were going to roll out our hybrid program working remotely 2 or 3 days a week right out of the gate. But we explained that it’s a starting point and a great privilege for us to still have remote work. As long as we are aligning with our policies, we can expand it later. We also realized that some of the roles still have to be boots on the ground. So we had to explain that not everyone would be able to participate. But again, since we spoke to it from a role perspective — versus an individual — it was received a lot better. For folks who needed wiggle room, we gave managers room to be creative, so they could offer staggered times or compressed work weeks to give people that balance without shortchanging customer or team coverage.
Q: What advice would you give to other employers considering implementing a hybrid model or relaunching a similar program?
Perry: I would say definitely be very, very clear about accountability and equipping your leaders with those tools and training to hold their employees accountable. Make sure that you are answering those “what if” questions, those real life scenario questions, and fully equipping your leadership with that. Also make it very clear to your employees what remote work really is, so that, again, productivity is not going down. And then, evaluate the roles to see if they are truly eligible for remote work, so you’re not putting teams in an uncomfortable position.
Want more? You can watch the complete interview here!