Working from home, or hardly working?

For many workers, the requirement to work remotely defined the pandemic's impact on our lives. The global crisis necessitated quarantines, lockdowns, and self-isolation, resulting in millions worldwide shifting towards remote work, rapidly accelerating the workplace experiment of remote working. The ongoing debate about remote working arrangements, flexibility, and productivity sees businesses and individuals continue to reassess and increasingly vocalise their stance on this topic.

Who is suited to remote work?

Remote work varies across countries based on sector, occupation, and activity mix. Only a small share of the workforce in advanced economies in finance, management, professional services, and information sectors has a high potential for sustained remote work. In short, remote work arrangements are concentrated among knowledge workers.

Is remote work good for productivity?

The pandemic shifted cultural and technological barriers to remote work, leading to a fundamental shift in where work is done. Companies are still redefining how best to deliver training remotely and configure hybrid workspaces, among other thorny questions. Employees must find the best home-work balance and equip themselves to work and collaborate remotely. The biggest question is whether the work is being done effectively.

From Zoom for check-ins to team chats for communications to time trackers for performance, for many years now, there has been no shortage of productivity and productivity monitoring tools. Many more factors come into play when determining whether productivity is better or worse across a more widespread remote or hybrid workforce. No productivity tool has ever answered why some humans perform better than others, regardless of where the work happens. It’s always going to be case-by-base because humans.

In one more extreme recent case, a large insurance provider dismissed a work-from-home employee of 17 years for failing to work as required after a retrospective review of her keystrokes data revealed 90% inactivity. The employer, which supported a hybrid approach to working from home by this time, had recommended employees start returning to the office. With the consultant choosing to work from home full-time, the employer deemed the failure to attend to her duties an OHS risk putting pressure on her colleagues. The FWC upheld the dismissal, noting the "regrettable" circumstances given her previous satisfactory service.

In some respects, remote work's limitations and benefits are now clearer. In other respects, the increased requirement for closer monitoring using technology has brought to light employee performance that may or may not have already been waning within the workplace. Most productivity successes referenced seemed to stem from employees being empowered to work in the manner that best suits them rather than through a more rigid and prescribed framework.

The conversation should not be reduced to the binary extremes. Further, the pros and cons listed aren’t weighted and won’t apply equally to all workers – even to those staff who, on paper, may look identical. Instead, it is one that needs to be discussed with reference to a gradient or working from home and office working and addressed at an individual level. Thankfully, we haven’t needed to implement keystroke tracking.

To what extent will remote work persist for lawyers and legal support?

Opinions on remote and hybrid work vary greatly on this wide-reaching issue. They are shaped by many factors, motivations, and personal circumstances, with the issue often split into binary conversations – remote versus office working – with pros and cons for each. Unfortunately, there are some limitations to this approach. According to many reports, the concept of a “hybrid” remote work model will likely persist, at least for some people.

Sky Discovery is and always has been, a business that supports a hybrid working structure – accommodating a mix of office and remote work. As knowledge workers, we and our clients, lawyers, fit squarely into the sectors most suited to remote work models. Perhaps one of the benefits of being a relatively young company is that we didn’t have any existing legacy or “baggage” to deal with when implementing this structure. While most lawyers are theoretically compatible with remote work, the traditional stereotype of legal teams being chained to their desks, doing a lot of reading, and referencing is still true in some cases. Many law firms are, however, adopting formalised flexible and hybrid working policies, resulting in positive outcomes for well-being, happiness, and productivity.

How is Sky Discovery maintaining a healthy hybrid model?

Hybrid or remote working is part of Sky Discovery, but it is informed by a broader value of being a great place to work. We have no fixed perspective on how things “should be”, which allows us to tailor arrangements to get our jobs done efficiently, effectively, and securely. This means that some work from the office almost full time. For others, they work from home almost full-time.

At this stage in our journey, hybrid and flexible work arrangements empower our teams to work how it suits them – provided they continue to deliver results. This isn’t to say it’s the perfect system or always works. We aren’t professing to have nailed it, and frankly, we don’t think it is possible to have it nailed. Our business and workforce must adapt to evolving environments.

Although our workstyle has many benefits, it also presents some challenges. With a more distributed workforce working in and out of the office on their own schedules, it can be difficult to bring groups together and form meaningful relationships amongst colleagues, old and new. To address this, we empower leaders within each core office to regularly bring their groups together and ensure important connections are formed.

Despite these challenges, there are benefits. For instance, many staff have gone through or will go through changes in their personal circumstances, such as additions to the family, interstate moves, or family or personal illnesses. Our workstyle allows our team to navigate these circumstances more flexibly, enabling them to attend to their personal needs parallel to fulfilling obligations to clients and colleagues. Honest and open dialogue is key to making this work.

As champions of technology-assisted work practices, we are committed to adapting, learning, and keeping our eyes open to the possibilities of new ways of working and the benefits they bring to our team and clients. We are also exploring more ideas to ensure the team and our clients connect more often in person, both inside and outside of work. We remain hyper-aware of the impact of increased technology use and remote working on feelings of isolation and disconnection from the people behind the work. People enjoy and do their best work when they feel like they belong — included, valued, and equal. This is the company we want to create.

Explore more

To help bring to light some of the perspectives in this ongoing debate, we have gathered some insights and resources that explore, in a constructive way, the ongoing discussion around hybrid work.

Tech giant Atlassian's work futurist, Dom Price, regularly posts insights on creating enjoyable work environments. Atlassian's Team Anywhere concept is publicly available.

Lawyers Weekly recently interviewed several Australian law firms to gain insights on what has informed the current approaches to remote and hybrid working for Lander & Rogers, Dentons, Hamilton Locke, Mills Oakley, Gadens and more.

The College of Law earlier this year shared some other views on building effective and functional hybrid working spaces and practices – with insights shared by law firm leaders and industry leaders.

Alexis Zahner and Sally Clarke share research-based insights on modern work and building better company cultures through their platform, Human Leaders. They discuss working styles and concepts like autonomy and connectedness.