HSBC UK was the winner of the inaugural Hybrid Working Award, sponsored by Employment Hero, at the Personnel Today Awards 2023.
The bank created a “superbly structured and sustainable approach to hybrid”, according to our judges. Hybrid working is implemented with a focus on digital innovation, inclusion, and generational impacts. Here, we take a look at HSBC’s entry and celebrate the work of our other finalists.
WINNER
HSBC UK
As with many employers, the pandemic changed the way HSBC and its employees viewed work. The first half of 2022 saw the bank develop its hybrid proposition to include practical tools to enable new ways of working, including a global test and learn framework that operated a principles-based approach. The business completed more than 100 ‘test and learns’ to gather insight and data from customers, clients and colleagues. This helped to identify a group of hybrid trailblazers who would complete the Future Fit Leaders programme.
The programme aimed to address leadership challenges in activating hybrid working, build line manager confidence in granting flexibility and agreeing workstyles, supporting career progression and performance managing remote workers. It would help to establish greater accountability among people leaders, embed guidance, and reinforce an outcomes-based approach to hybrid working. A multi-disciplined HR project group designed and launched the programme to connect 400 cross-functional leaders to embed hybrid working and role-model it across the UK. It included sessions around digital innovation, inclusion, managing change and generational impacts of hybrid working.
Confidence in activating hybrid working increased in a survey conducted at the end of the programme, there was a 17+% uplift in employees taking up a hybrid workstyle, and 84% of teams engaged with guidance and tools on offer. Even six months after the programme launched, people leaders reported an uplift in skills, including improved communication, collaboration, wellbeing and D&I. External partners have identified the programme as innovative and there are now around 400 leaders who are hybrid advocates across the bank.
RUNNERS-UP
Bank of Ireland
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The Bank of Ireland introduced a fully flexible hybrid working model in 2022 which centres on enabling colleagues to work any way that supports them to be productive but also collaborate with colleagues. It has meant that colleagues can live outside major urban areas, reduce their commuting time and support local economies. In a competitive labour market it has allowed the bank to attract and retain diverse talent.
The programme, New Ways of Working, helped to map out the change journey, supported by representatives from different functions including property, technology and culture. It was divided into three delivery pillars: workspace, technology, and ways of working. For workspace, 13 remote working hubs were introduced in Ireland as alternatives to office buildings and homes, alongside five collaboration hubs in offices. A wellness centre was launched with both online classes and digital options. Microsoft Teams was rolled out with training for all colleagues and meeting rooms were updated with hybrid audio-visual technology.
The bank launched a guide, Flexibility in a Framework, giving employees clarity on how they should consider work locations, advice on capturing agreed working arrangements for teams, and training for managers on getting the best out of hybrid working. Around 7,500 employees now have the option to work in a hybrid way, and a survey in December 2022 showed that 77% felt it supported their team to work well together. More than eight in 10 feel it helps them to balance work and personal commitments.
RSPCA
Historically the RSPCA operated standard office hours of nine to five, office visibility was expected and teams worked in isolation. The charity’s People & Culture Directorate subsequently strived to modernise, to become a more diverse and inclusive charity that could flex to meet the changing needs of its workforce. However, a colleague survey showed that only 39% of respondents felt the organisation helped them to achieve a positive work-life balance.
The RSPCA piloted a new flexible working initiative focusing on core hours and hybrid working. As long as colleagues’ core hours of 10am to 3pm were worked, they could manage their own start and finish times between 8am and 6pm, as well as where they worked. This meant employees could manage school drop-offs and pick ups and be more flexible about their work location. A trial of ‘Hello Hybrid’ took place during the pandemic, with no set minimum days in the office. Using the RSPCA acronym, it encouraged managers and colleagues to: reconnect, socialise, prompt, collaborate and ask.
To support colleagues, the charity set up focus groups to gather insights, arranged briefing sessions and toolkits for managers, a microsite with information and weekly email, shared desks and mobile phones for all colleagues. There was also wellbeing support, new branding and specific guidance on lone working procedures. More than 90% of those that took part in the trial enjoyed the new arrangements, 62% used core hours, and 74% wanted this arrangement to become permanent. Almost 400 colleagues who were invited to opt in permanently have now done so.
UCAS
The pandemic helped UCAS to see the advantages of remote and hybrid working, and the organisation had invested in new laptops for everyone and rolled out Microsoft Teams. As the pandemic eased and it began to contemplate a return to the office, it realised it needed to look at new long-term norms and ways of working. Through extensive consultation with staff, UCAS defined some principles to build on.
Findings showed that more than 80% of staff wanted to work one or two days in the office each week; that many would like a formal agreement in place that supported hybrid working and requirements for home offices and wellbeing needs. In its own building, supplier partner Coodart came up with some designs that reimagined the workspace as a ‘home from home’, a more informal environment than before. Alongside this, UCAS rewrote employee contracts, policies and procedures so they were fit for hybrid work. Around 200 employees took part in the consultation process for designing hybrid workspaces and procedures.
Since then, the organisation has rolled out its UCAS United approach to hybrid working, which sets out etiquette for meetings and the hybrid-first approach for working together. Busy periods such as around A-level results day critical employees receive treats whether they are at home or in the office. Wednesday afternoons are deemed meeting free, reducing people’s time spent online. Unplanned staff turnover has reduced from 16.1% in 2019 to 11.41% in the current year, and sickness absence was just 2.7 days in 2023, compared to a 4.7 days average per employee in 2019.
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