How marketers are adapting to the new world of hybrid working

The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic trans­formed dai­ly life for many employ­ees, paving the way for hybrid work­ing. This presents unique oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges for mar­ket­ing, which relies on the inno­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty that so often come from col­lab­o­ra­tion. 

In the war for tal­ent, hybrid work­ing is now a ‘must have’, with busi­ness­es fac­ing grow­ing demand for flex­i­ble work­ing mod­els. A report by tech­nol­o­gy firm Veloc­i­ty Smart showed that near­ly half (48%) of UK work­ers are ready to leave their cur­rent job and look for new oppor­tu­ni­ties if their employ­er fails to offer flex­i­bil­i­ty. 

“We are see­ing the hottest tal­ent mar­ket in decades and com­pa­nies are increas­ing­ly com­pet­ing on how flex­i­ble they are. Those employ­ers resis­tant to change will lose tal­ent,” says Mark Evans, mar­ket­ing direc­tor at Direct Line. 

For the mar­ket­ing indus­try, it will be crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to deliv­er the right struc­ture, skills and tech­nol­o­gy. Lead­ers must address how and when their peo­ple work, the ways in which they inter­act and the role of the office.

Nurturing creativity

The past two years have under­scored the impor­tance of mar­ket­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly the need to cul­ti­vate a strong brand mes­sage and the key role of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion and dig­i­tal deliv­ery. 

“Hybrid work­ing can help make con­ver­sa­tions more imme­di­ate, inclu­sive and pro­duc­tive, par­tic­u­lar­ly for a glob­al busi­ness,” says Andy McQuil­lan, glob­al mar­ket­ing direc­tor at Legal and Gen­er­al Invest­ment Man­age­ment. “The trick for mar­ket­ing lead­ers is to think dif­fer­ent­ly about how teams and indi­vid­u­als con­nect to put delib­er­ate struc­ture into cre­at­ing the con­di­tions for cre­ativ­i­ty to flour­ish.”

For McQuil­lan, an opti­mal mar­ket­ing struc­ture should be “loca­tion agnos­tic”, break­ing down silos and har­ness­ing diverse tech­ni­cal dis­ci­plines. 

“It should cre­ate the con­di­tions for each team mem­ber to achieve their career poten­tial. Get these fun­da­men­tals right and a mar­ket­ing team will be well placed to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties of hybrid work­ing,” says McQuil­lan. 

The pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion of an effec­tive hybrid struc­ture will nat­u­ral­ly dif­fer between firms. How­ev­er, the big issue fac­ing mar­ket­ing direc­tors is strik­ing a bal­ance between employ­ee demand for greater flex­i­bil­i­ty and auton­o­my and main­tain­ing a sense of struc­ture and belong­ing. A com­mon approach is to des­ig­nate home days for every­day tasks and office days togeth­er for col­lab­o­ra­tion, brain­storm­ing and learn­ing.

Trav­el group Explore has sug­gest­ed two days in the office and three days at home. How­ev­er, it offers flex­i­bil­i­ty, with some employ­ees choos­ing to come in once a week and oth­ers opt­ing to work full time from the office. 

 “Hybrid work­ing allows for peo­ple that are cre­ative at dif­fer­ent times and in dif­fer­ent set­tings,” says Jae Hop­kins, mar­ket­ing direc­tor at Explore. “Not every­one has their best ideas on the spot, in a meet­ing room or at a desk between the hours of 9am and 5pm. My team are all tal­ent­ed mar­keters and I com­plete­ly trust them to man­age their own time and to con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to and grow­ing our busi­ness.”

Office advantage

How­ev­er, Explore asks teams to come togeth­er in per­son once a week to ensure they main­tain a bond as co-work­ers. Hop­kins encour­ages employ­ees to do things they can’t do from home, even if it’s just catch­ing up with a col­league over cof­fee. 

“We all enjoy the ener­gy of being togeth­er and see­ing oth­er peo­ple with­in the busi­ness. These days often cre­ate the first sparks of cre­ativ­i­ty, but every­one fans those sparks in the way that works best for them,” she says. “Hap­py, moti­vat­ed employ­ees always pro­duce the best work and flex­i­bil­i­ty is absolute­ly key to this.”

Employ­ees should come into the office because they want to, not because they have to, says Evans. “It’s impor­tant that employ­ees con­tin­ue to feel a sense of belong­ing and we work hard to cre­ate days in the office that enable our team mem­bers to col­lab­o­rate, brain­storm and learn. The key is demon­strat­ing how valu­able our time togeth­er is and mak­ing that time mat­ter.” 

There are many ben­e­fits of remote work­ing, but the rai­son d’etre of mar­ket­ing is to bring the out­side in, says Evans. This means “you need to have your fin­ger on the pulse and under­stand what cus­tomers want. For­tu­nate­ly, mar­ket­ing is blessed with work­ing with part­ner­ships and cre­ative agen­cies, many of whom con­tin­ue to be pre­dom­i­nant­ly office-based, and these face-to-face inter­ac­tions con­tin­ue to bring an ener­gy to the media land­scape which is cru­cial.”

Rachel Ker­rone is brand and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at Star­ling Bank. Every fort­night, the entire mar­ket­ing team heads to the office for a day of cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion, she says. There is a ded­i­cat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion space, free of desks and screens, where mar­keters, cre­atives, copy­writ­ers and social media experts gen­er­ate cre­ative ideas togeth­er and run brand audits and sprints. 

“We look for­ward to hav­ing focused time where every­one knows that no idea, no mat­ter how big or bold, is a bad one. The prac­tice has led to some bril­liant activ­i­ties,” Ker­rone says.

Need for empathy

Such set-ups may appear more flu­id and less restric­tive than the tra­di­tion­al 9–5 office mod­el. How­ev­er, they also require greater com­mu­ni­ca­tion, trans­paren­cy and lead­er­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly as employ­ees jug­gle two dif­fer­ent work set­tings. 

A study by recruit­ment agency Mon­ster found that 69% of employ­ees work­ing from home are expe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms of burnout, while sep­a­rate research from Avi­va revealed 52% of employ­ees believe the bound­aries between work and home life are becom­ing increas­ing­ly blurred. 

“Lead­ers need to be com­mu­nica­tive and ensure that indi­vid­ual employ­ees don’t slip into silos,” Evans says. “The role of a leader is to inspire and moti­vate and this is even more impor­tant when peo­ple are work­ing sep­a­rate­ly.”

Com­pas­sion and empa­thy have long been key lead­er­ship traits, but Evans says the pan­dem­ic and sub­se­quent shift to hybrid work­ing have accen­tu­at­ed the need for lead­ers to under­stand how their employ­ees are feel­ing and the pres­sure they may be under. They must be able to recog­nise when to push, when to take a step back and impor­tant­ly, when to reas­sure. 

McQuil­lan says lead­ers must work hard to empow­er their peo­ple and cre­ate the con­di­tions for them to flour­ish. “Soft skills, active lis­ten­ing, read­ing the room, hold­ing pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tions are para­mount, but require more dis­ci­pline online.”

Legal and Gen­er­al Invest­ment Man­age­ment uses a traf­fic light sys­tem at the start of meet­ings to flag indi­vid­ual well­be­ing as a proxy for body lan­guage sig­nals. 

“Of course, lead­ers now have to put sim­i­lar effort into ensur­ing mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion when we meet in per­son. It’s such an impor­tant part of get­ting hybrid right, the joy of con­nec­tion and replen­ish­ing the bank of trust between us,” says McQuil­lan. 

With busi­ness­es cater­ing to a pletho­ra of employ­ee needs, expec­ta­tions and work­ing styles, cre­at­ing the per­fect hybrid work­ing mod­el is undoubt­ed­ly chal­leng­ing. How­ev­er, it’s clear that mar­ket­ing direc­tors are ris­ing to the chal­lenge and work­ing hard to nur­ture teams that will flour­ish in this new era.