Hybrid Work, Leadership & Time: An Experiment at Nationwide
What would you do with more hours in the day? It’s a question that's been asked of knowledge workers throughout the pandemic, as commute times and business travel have reduced. Unfortunately, based on data from 3 million people in the last 12 months, the way many of us behaved is probably not in line with how we would have answered:
We’ve worked longer. We’ve attended more meetings. We’ve sent more emails.
It’s a downbeat start to an optimistic research summary. But to make that leap, we must first acknowledge that the trends catalysed by the pandemic - like hybrid work - are not intrinsically good or bad. They just have potential. And whether we realise that potential depends on how well we pro-actively design our working lives.
This isn't a controversial position. Extra time only becomes valuable when we use it well; just like flexible working, collaborative technology and everything in between. It’s a principle that was summed up in four simple words at a recent event at Nationwide, an organisation that has been leading the way on the future of work:
“Better needs a plan”
This article charts how we applied that thinking to leadership at Nationwide. It summarises our experiment and findings and makes a broader strategic point about how to unlock the potential of Hybrid Work. Not with big bets and crossed fingers, but with testing, learning and constant adaptation.
Our Partnership with Nationwide Building Society
The time pressures mentioned above reveal an interesting leadership paradox. People are seeing less of their leaders on a 121 basis and want them to be more visible and accessible, but those leaders are already feeling stretched to the limit. How should organisations intervene without taking up more time and making things worse?
When we first spoke to Nationwide, their focus was on building capability in hybrid leadership. We thought that might be necessary, but it was too soon to go down that path. If leaders were reporting time pressure, maybe they already have the right capability but lack the opportunity to use it? And if that was the case, wouldn’t additional training and away days just make things worse?
The team at Nationwide love when we ask interesting questions and are always open to experimenting for the benefit of their colleagues and members. We called our alternative intervention ‘The Reset’, and it drew on the work of our brilliant colleague, Dr Laura Giurge (also a research fellow at the London Business School).
The Reset
Our design phase began with genuine awe at how teams at Nationwide had responded to the previous 18 months. In difficult circumstances, they had stepped forward and achieved incredible things. And while personal care and wellbeing had been given utmost priority during that period, it’s understandable that there hadn’t been much opportunity to pause and reflect on ways of working. We wanted to offer that chance while reprioritising workload, unlocking time, and resetting the relationship between leader and team.
These aims would be achieved through three stages:
The Reset Session: one hour for the team and their leader to reconsider priorities and re-distribute work accordingly.
Focus time: pre-block time within Microsoft Outlook to focus on those priorities over a six-week period.
Check-in: pre-book 30mins on a Friday or Monday to evaluate last week’s progress and plan for the following week.
While we kept our intervention minimal, the actual changes we'd proposed were quite extreme. We encouraged teams to block out significant chunks of their diary and their leader to step away from delivery and play a supporting role. Of course, teams were only able to do this if they were to reduce their workload overall, which meant some hard conversations about priorities.
We designed the experience to have a positive effect, but as researchers, we were neutral in its evaluation. It was plausible that these changes could cause more complexity and introduce friction between teams and their leaders. It was also possible that leaders did not have the capability to use the framework to create a positive effect. To really understand our impact, we evaluated The Reset with 50 teams and c.300 employees in a Randomised Controlled Experiment:
The Results
Survey measures
Difference in productivity compared to the pre-experiment survey (%)
FOCUS GROUP SUMMARY
“The collective experience was overwhelmingly positive. My view is that this intervention supports leaders, individuals and teams to be more effective and improve wellbeing. I was particularly pleased to hear that it supported leaders to reflect on how their teams operate and make positive changes. ”
Behavioural DATA
We asked our teams to self-submit Microsoft MyAnalytics data on their digital behaviours, but the response was too low for a robust analysis. Still, we think it’s worth mentioning some of the trends we observed. First, teams who took part in The Reset spent less time working outside their core working hours in comparison to our control group. Second, the number of emails sent reduced as a proportion of employees’ overall collaboration time, which suggests a move towards higher-quality interactions. Although both trends seem promising to us, more data is needed to better understand the dynamics of employees’ digital behaviours.
We remain excited about combining Microsoft Analytics and Survey Data, and have multiple ongoing experiments and data projects that will push the boundaries of what is possible with these tools. If you’d like to learn more or collaborate with us, please get in touch below.
What now? An experimental approach to The Future of Work
We recommended that The Reset is rolled out across Nationwide alongside the three conditions below. Based on the evidence we collected, we think they’re necessary for teams to extract the greatest value from the experience:
Leaders and teams must be supported by their Executive Team.
The Reset must be positioned as voluntary and for the benefit of the team.
The phases can be adapted by the team, for the team.
It’s also important to acknowledge that while our data showed that The Reset worked for most teams, it did not work for all of them. So, we’ll go back to a discovery phase and explore what works for teams that have unique working patterns such as those working part-time or on multiple projects. We may also end up identifying some core capabilities that need to be developed to make the most of The Reset.
Finally, we hope this study offers a glimpse into how and why an experimental approach will unlock the potential of hybrid work. No one has all the answers, so we need to continue to ask bold questions, approach them with openness and curiosity, and evaluate interventions with neutrality and rigour. Organisations that commit to that approach will be at the forefront of the Future of Work for years to come.
A huge thanks to Nationwide for their long-term partnership and for allowing us to share these insights. Thanks also to our teammates on this project: Clive, Helen, Brett, Bryan and Kelly, and to our sponsors Mandy Griffin and the rest of the executive team in the Resilience & Agility Community.
MoreThanNow will continue to explore the many dimensions of the Future of Work, blurring the boundaries between academic research and practice. We’re designing and testing ways to make hybrid work inclusive, alongside researchers at Exeter University; sustainable, with the London School of Economics; and high-performing, with a variety of academic partners, including our own Dr Laura Giurge. If you would like to commission a research programme in your organisation, now is the time.