- Iñaki Lozano, bicg's CEO
“Before February 2020, in conversations with clients, I remember using one of these charts showing how little progress we had made in Europe in terms of flexibility and remote working in recent years, even though we already had plenty of tools to do so. It was nerve wracking for me as, at bicg, we had been promoting new ways of working, including hybrid working models, for more than 20 years, and at the time there were many who were reluctant to make it part of their employee experience strategy.
Then came the pandemic. And what was to be a few months meant that many organizations spent almost two years remotely, at least a large percentage of the time. And it proved to be possible, and not only possible, but in many cases positive: creating an opportunity for many families to organize themselves in a different way, to work more comfortably, etc. But not everything was always perfect, far from it! The remote model has its disadvantages, and during those two years we perceived (including myself) a loss in some aspects, especially with regard to our culture, values and the difficulty of team bulding [especially with new people], the worsening of work in silos and sometimes a lack of agility to make decisions.
With 2023, the return to the office is (finally) consolidated; organizations are implementing a hybrid model, each with its own casuistry, percentages, conditions, etc.
But has it been a success?
The rumbling every time I sit down with CEOs is that professionals don’t want to return, they don’t see the value added. They lose talent because they look to the competition for more remote, more flexible models.
“How can we solve it, we want them to come back, we believe that there are activities that are better done when we are together, and we have lost part of what made us unique, what can we do to get professionals to support the measures?”
I will try to answer as concisely as possible through an allegory we have created that compares some aspects of the cinema industry with the return to the office :
Creating a good script.
Every film needs to start with the script: we must create a backbone in the office experience and generate a differential experience.
The location takes on special relevance.
The office must respond to the needs as we no longer need go there for everything, it is important that we design our location well so that it adjusts to the new needs.
The shooting, the moment when all the protagonists must coincide.
A proper synchronization of teams and people and a smart dissection of activities throughout the week allows for an optimization of the office and remote work of the whole team and a significant improvement of the work experience.
Success and measurement.
It is easy to identify the success of a film through its box office and awards and so it is with the model that has been designed for professionals. Whether through productivity KPIs, NPS, satisfaction indicators and employee experience metrics.
To make it all work, the director (managers), the executive producer (the Chief Experience Officer – a newly created position that will become more and more relevant in the upcoming years) and the actors (professionals) must work in alignment, each playing their role to make an exceptional film. Taking stakeholders into account in a change management process is essential to ensure success with the new model.
At bicg, we have designed a program called Welcome back, in which we create an integrated approach that builds an experience that gives value to the professional and the company when returning to the office.
This is not obvious, and for this we must conduct an orchestra with musicians playing different instruments, but this effort is worth it, because at the end of the day we are playing with the culture of our organizations… and this certainly needs to be on the CEOs’ agenda, don’t you think?”
