Categories
Business Performance

21 for 2021

2021 is just around the corner and many companies are deep in the planning cycle.

I have 21 predictions to help you and your company for 2021 and beyond.

The predictions include company culture, mental health support, building and adapting to the hybrid office, company strategy and experience-based on-sites vs offsites.

  1. Company Culture is taken seriously and treated a dedicated recurring workstream throughout the year not just quarterly
  2. Staff happiness and development will be treated as business-critical. Businesses have to evolve away from sending more pulse-based surveys into more actionable and trackable methods. 
  3. Culture community managers are formally hired or existing staff member moved into the role 
  4. Company culture because a pillar in company strategy 
  5. Flexible schedules vs traditional 09.00 to 17.00.
    There will be a fundamental shift away from one schedule fits all, this will means more and better flexibility for teams, departments, offices and companies. Flexible will mean communication has to improve and calendar management is taught. 
  6. The hybrid workforce is built out and developed, hybrid requires real investment from leadership teams, the staff at all levels and tech investment and positive shift away from forcing in-person work into the existing tools 
  7. Remote first continues – while 20% of staff work in remote locations not from home. This will be key for managers of all levels to understand and build out flexible tools and methodologies to support their teams and departments.
    in 2021, businesses have to work out how to manage this safely and work with external providers and tools to manage this and support staff safely. 
  8. Satellite office spaces are scoped out – centralised HQ will be essential but smaller geo focused areas will need to be scoped out and offered to truly answer all of the requirements in the modern work environment. 
  9. Office Design: On sites will replace traditional off sites – on-site in the office, reconnecting with the space (the office), the identity and the people will be vital, off-sites were often used as a break away from the small four walls, now many will need their feet in their base. There will be a need for training and workshop consultancy to ensure high quality outputs
  10. On sites will be arranged every month to replace poorly co-ordinated video calls 
  11. Experience-based on-sites and off-sites will be introduced, vs sitting around a large conference room table, we will see more outdoor spaces utilised  
  12. Small project(s) on sites and QBR will be selected to take place over away from video, where permitted safely.  
  13. Remote offsite sessions and more traditional team-building getaways will be selected to bring teams closer together. Leadership teams will create bi-annual getaways to address strategy 
  14. The virtual HQ will become popular for a small set of tech-minded companies. Colleagues building their own avatar within a virtualised HQ where you meet in the kitchen, in breakout spaces and 
  15. Video calls are not optimised for more than three participants – we will rooms and gestures to talk move forward 
  16. The move away from ‘chat first’ based apps to asynchronous communication starts to develop 
  17. Phone calls – walk and talks replace recurring video calls. Typically for one to ones and meetings / stands not requiring screens or multiple screens 
  18. Gesture-based apps are integrated into chat (Slack, Teams, Workplace) tools to add benefit to presenting remotely 
  19. Pre-recorded video’s, pre-recorded audio will become commonplace vs long-form written content, pre-recorded video will become one way we reduce reliance on poor presentations and multiple voices and questions over video 
  20. Mental health support and large double-digit investment by companies into external partners and apps 
  21. Colleagues will require more emotional support and have formal times where they can take burnout and mental health time. This requires many companies to adapt and change their HR policies 

For many leadership teams, 2021 can feel daunting and uncertain, however, by building the right plan of action and running through these questions will enable you and your company to succeed and reduce the stress and anxiety that will seep through your company.

Happily reach out to discuss the future.

Categories
Company Culture Leadership

Rethink The Leader – Manager – Coach – Mentor – Operator Dynamic

Rethink The Leader - Manager - Coach - Mentor - Operator Dynamic

Each week in Focus’ newsletter Leaders Letters, we discuss leadership, what a leader is and is not and how to channel that inner leader on important topics.

2020 – 2021

Throughout 2020 there has been a number of recurring themes, one of which is your role within the company vs the job title you have.

Role Vs Job Title

There are a few core tiers of role vs job title that often stands out and is important to raise and for you to discuss.

Often we see a hierarchy, we see it by the org chart, the title you have or the role you play within the business. This org chart rarely suggests or shows the different roles you play and how you operate. Hidden Leaders often play multiple roles within your org, they might not a manager but can be a coach and a mentor alongside being a high level operator.

Many hidden leaders are not ‘a people manager’ and this is actually a bonus to their career and the people around. I dislike the term individual contributors as this is so limited to what some people offer and the impact they have on those around them and the service they bring company.

In leaders letter, fewer managers more coaches and mentors we recommended a way to rethink your company set up and question do you actually need more managers and more hierarchy, or does reshaping your business with more mentors and coaches actually make more sense.

The Impact on Company Culture

Hierarchies will often dictate decision-making processes, the flow of information or in some orgs who is the ‘ultimate decision-maker”, this impact staff happiness and what is your company culture.

Leaders Are More Than A Title

Leader – Manager – Coach – Mentor – Operator for many are defined tags or labels you have and associate into your title. For others, these are hard labels you have and enter into a tiering system.

For me, these are interchangeable and should be used by companies to help colleagues understand different layers of leadership and development.

I challenge many managers to list down which of these roles are the people within their team and those who could offer reverse mentorship to them or identify a reverse mentor within their business who would help both parties and the company to progress.

The Roles Explained

  • Leader – A leader doesn’t have to have a C or V title. You do not have to be the most senior to be a leader, you can set the example and drive behaviour forward whether you are inexperienced or the most experienced or most senior.
    Leaders come in many forms and it is essential you understand the true difference between a manager and a leader.
    A leader can be a good coach and a mentor providing they have the time to dedicate and the energy to provide true value to their colleagues. Some of the smartest leaders have reverse mentorship and provides tremendous benefit to the org.
  • Manager – Typically a title, you can be a manager on a project and be less senior but have an important role to play on a project and manage those around you. Project Managers often drive businesses forward and made important decisions over more senior titles.
    Managers can be extremely busy and many are not taught to develop their team members or their department, this is where coaches and mentors will be valuable members of the company’s development and evolution.
  • Coach – Coaching is one of the most difficult and most challenging but is the most rewarding activity of work when you see your colleagues grow.
    A coach although typically older is someone who helps individuals grow, improve colleagues skills and helps to nurture the business forward. Some of the best coaches in business are inside of your org, they are likely in other areas of the business but can help improve your skills and might actually be lower in rank and title but will coach you.
    Remember the best sports coaches did not have huge professional careers, they have the best approach and methods for improving others.
  • Mentor – Mentors are often unspoken of, at any point you will see many people mentoring others, this is most regularly informal and is helping colleagues to guide others without having hard written goals or targets.
    I am personally extremely passionate about mentorship, many managers are just too busy to help you, often you can arrange fortnightly or monthly mentoring sessions with more senior members of staff and gain huge amounts by discussing your work, your aspirations and growing your role and influence. Many organisations will help you arrange a mentorship programme if you have not organised a mentor programme consider how you will match colleagues together.
    Try not to make the mistake many businesses do by only organising this for the raising stars or standout performers.
    A mentor will provide your business with a large amount of benefit, they will be guiding force and help those around them as much or more than most managers.
  • Operator – A specialist operator is hard to come by, they are often stand out performers and often led towards a management role. This does not actually benefit the operator or the business, this is often down to conditioned ways of thinking. An operator can be a better coach or better mentor vs having to take on formal management roles.
    As mentioned above an operator can be far more than just an individual contributor and offers far more than a flat title as this.
    A high-level operator (many from a developer background consider this the only way to progress) will feel pressure to ask for a manager or a senior manager, consider how you help to shape their careers and help the team or colleagues around them gain the most from the operator.

Move Away From Flat Titles

Moving forward I challenge you and your business to move away from flat and ignorant titles and build out layers in which truly reflect the impact and influence colleagues have within the organisation.

Pay special attention to developing out who would make great coaches, mentors and leaders and building managers who can manage their time, benefit from reverse mentorship and built out succession planning and the next evolution of leadership within your organisation.

If you would like to understand and develop this out further, I recommended reading a related and worthwhile article is what is leadership.

Categories
Company Culture

The Department Joker

joker card
Photo by Akshay Anand on Pexels.com

There is an art to building a great set of individuals to make a great team or department.

As a department lead you are ultimately responsible for building out a set of teams that can deliver a good working environment where people feel safe, valued and they have played their own part and recognised for it.


Juggling Act

One of the most challenging aspects of this is balancing personalities, abilities and interpersonal connections.


Informal Roles

Everyone had a job role but unlikely there is an informal and unwritten role assigned to them within a team or department.

Looking back two decades of my career, there is one role that is often overlooked but undervalued.

The role? The team or department joker.

The Role Of The Department Joker

The joker often is the smartest on their feet, witty and can create a relaxed and humour-led environment.
When the environment can be tense or stretched, many colleagues look towards this person to lighten the mood or play their part in releasing the tension or offering a rest bite.

Like a hidden leader, there are some environments where this role can be overlooked. In many traditional setups, their role is downplayed, misinterpreted or dismissed.

I have found that the joker or humorous role plays a vital connector within the team and despite the odd side note or comment actually can align teams and drive them forward.

Company culture can thrive with the right blend of people including department jokers.

Develop The Joker

If you work closely with the joker, they are smart, they learn quickly and typically want to learn. They are usually good communicators and can gain cut through where others struggle. Learn from them, develop them, leverage their core skills.

In the remote world of work, the joker is harder to have an impact and release tensions but it is important as a leader you know how to keep engaged and playing to their strengths.

As I recommended in writing a letter to your team the value that the joker brings should be called out with praise within the letter and in the in-jokes should be enjoyed department-wide.


Maybe A Secret Weapon

Maybe the secret weapon within your company is a specialist, maybe actually it is the joker, maybe they act as the glue where if there weren’t with your firm anymore you’d potentially lose that extra layer in company culture.

Moving forward, I recommend you embrace your department joker, you work with them to help them develop their skills, help you learn from them around communication and insights and you create a team that can thrive with this person.

Sign up to the focus newsletter, emailing you every Monday morning with one leadership action to take the week ahead

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If you are looking for more information on the hidden leader, this video for Isolated Talks will help you.

Categories
Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 26 – Productive Working Relationships

30/11/2020

Dear Leaders,

How are you shaping up for the end of the year?

In today’s leaders letter, I am going to cover working relationships. What could come under company culture or company performance.

The older you become, typically the higher you progress, the more likely you have to proactively work on your working relationships between colleagues and fellow members of management and leadership teams.

If you are not working on this, you are, unfortunately, likely losing.

Often you will have to develop “productive working relationships”. In life, there are going to be people you just don’t get on with and in the professional world you will encounter this (I know I did) and you will have to proactively work on ensuring you can work together for the best of the company and for the best of your colleagues.

I personally would struggle with two behaviours.

  1. Colleagues who would be ‘independently motivated’, those who would work behind the scenes to put their interests first or proactively work to have dedicated time with the HiPPO to force their agenda through. Providing you get Face-time and zoom-time and build a relationship, you will beat those who don’t work on this.
  2. I would also struggle with people who would be CC warriors, say one thing and then pounce on any opportunity to CC in leaders or leadership teams into emails. This is and will always be unprofessional behaviour.

We all face these behaviours and have to develop our own approach.
The most professional and the best way I found to tackle this is to speak directly to said person and make them aware that their behaviour can and likely will cause issues and typically you both decide how you move forward.

With some individuals, their motivations will not change but it is something you have tackled and typically allows you both to be on the same page and will be able not to let this behaviour creep into your interactions and with your teams.

Throughout my career, I have seen many co-founders drift apart, some co-founders proactively take each other apart, build a CC warrior culture, and lose the company around them based on their working relationships.

One, in particular, was so messy it went into administration from misalignment and distrust of each other. Part of the culture became deciding which founder you would side with and proactively back. For the younger and less experienced it was unfair and uncomfortable. For the older, it became more than work.
This behaviour filters through the business and this behaviour can become the norm if not managed correctly.

When the chips are down and performance is struggling, you need to come together and coordinate fighting external factors, not the internal factors.

Working on relationships is an essential part of the business world, it doesn’t have to be political or have an agenda other than wanting to improve your working environment and remove poor behaviours and subcultures within your business.

In the coming weeks leading up to Christmas focus on:
Planning in sessions where you get to know each other professionally and personally, understand the motivations of your colleagues and when you feel comfortable to have feedback sessions where you have open discussions around how behaviours and actions can influence the company and causes rifts.

As recommended previously, create agreed principles and share throughout the business. Reduce company anxiety levels by reducing friction points, 2021 will hinge for many businesses on company culture driving company performance and how you will fight for the same cause vs internally fighting over many.

Have a good and proactive week,

Danny

PS if you need help with company culture, happily get in touch below

Categories
Business Performance

The Fear Of Innovation

high angle photo of robot
Photo by Alex Knight on Pexels.com

For the year ahead we have to start thinking outside of the box.

Customers will want to see you are leading the way forward whilst answering their core problem, this has not changed, but the number of competitors and smart offerings have. 

Staying relevant has never been as challenging for businesses as it is today, especially with quicker tech cycles and the ability to develop apps and businesses and unbundle industries.

Even the biggest market leaders have to innovate. Seems obvious but it is often overlooked or goes unspoken. 

For the companies I have worked at or advised, Innovation is actually a core pillar to disruptor and market leaders strategy, having the desire and drive to innovate their product and services to acquire more customers and retain existing customers.

Those who cannot build internally, look externally, others who want to build but don’t have the team often bring in external resources.

2020 – Forcing Functions

This year we saw even the largest brands build out direct to consumer offerings in record timing and look to continue offering these innovative steps.

Innovation doesn’t have to big or intimidating, it can be smaller moves towards your company being more relevant or becoming a bigger player, it can be small changes that lead to a much better product offering or it could be a way to preposition pricing. 

From some of the most successful businesses I have worked with, it is often the smallest steps that enables step changes.

Offline to Online Example 

O20 (Offline to Online) was something that was overlooked and “hard to track”, QR codes were rarely used and then had to explode with usage as the world shifted.

QR codes became standard practise in the Western World, is the next step following more of Chinese use cases and applying a QR code to our identity and buying directly for items? Most likely.

barcode cellphone close up coded
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Tech Shifts – Causing User Issues 

Whatsapp shifting to allow shopping via their support business feature and Instagram fundamentally shifting their app from creator first to shopping first were huge steps towards making these more diverse, more profitable while innovating.

Users will keep on using both WhatsApp and Instagram, they will still go live and perform, they will still chat in their large groups on WhatsApp, they will still forward meme’s and ask for help. 

We Are Not All Equal 

It is important to call out, not every company can be like Tesla, not all companies can be in the same ten-year planning and ruthless company strategy executing cycle like Jeff Bezos at Amazon. 

Innovation can be buying a company and having the foresight to invest for growth and being early. Amazon famously brought Twitch in 2014, 2020 was Twitch’s year of evolving away from just live gaming. 

These examples of large companies help to serve you in discussions with the most senior and most cynical. Other examples of restaurants pivoting and offering cook and bake at home are other examples that show foresight and business acumen.

Never Fear Change & Innovation 

Innovation should not be something you and your company fears, one of the main reasons is placing a big bet on a larger spend to bring the future to vs doing what you have always done can feel intimidating, it can strike fear in those who do not see the future or have future seers internally, or do not understand the shift in and around them. 

Boardroom Conditioning 

The biggest fear in most board rooms is doing it differently, having to ask someone brave enough to explain in the greatest detail for the change and the investment requests. 

I have spent months of my life, analysing markets, understanding the SAM, TAM and mapping out the landscape and predicting the future through spreadsheets and presentations. 

Tweaking, repitching, repositioning for it to be rejected because others do not see it or do not have the confidence in change the numbers means change and almost everyone hates change. 

Some others just are not wired to understand and drive change, some builders do not want to use new materials, some chefs won’t use new ingredients, companies act the same way. 

Small Steps Will Help You Win

Innovation can mean investing in a Growth department or growth advisor to help develop out steps towards innovation. Innovation can mean running a larger test into product enhancements every quarter, it could mean repurposing some of the Marketing spend on research and development. 

No Fear Moving Forward 

Innovation can be core to positively improving company culture. One of the main reasons stars leave an organisation is the lack of direction or wanting to change, accept ideas and innovate.

Do not fear innovation, do not allow old ways of thinking to dictate your moves forward. Our conditioning will always challenge our thinking but it is important to open your eyes to change and keep using your ears to help guide your steps forward, even if it seems a huge leap of faith.

Here are five roles for 2021 that will help you gain more success next year.

Categories
Business Performance

The Five Roles For Success In 2021

Back in September I wrote the 5 roles for success in 2021 to help business plan their hiring and prepare their Q4 and Q1 2021 for success.

The roles were

  • Culture Community Manager
  • Retention Marketer
  • Project Manager
  • Growth Specialist
  • Innovation Specialist

The reason why I wrote this was to drive a different thought process than just hiring what your team managers are thinking about looking around their teams but instead look at the gaps in most businesses and drive cohesion and delivery.  

The Case For A Culture Community Manager

Within your business you have someone who knows: 

The pulse of the company, the temperature of how it is operating and how people are feeling, importantly they understand your people.

They understand the business, how it operates, they want to know the numbers, and what makes the business tick (or in some cases, what used to make it tick) 

They have trust amongst colleagues and the most important aspect, the respect of the business (ideally they have the support of the leadership team)

They most likely don’t work in HR and likely are not part of the senior leaders, they understand why these things matter but haven’t been given the right company-wide role to formally influence the business. 

This is who should be your Culture Community Manager.
If you cannot identify them quickly, go and find them ASAP.
For the last two years, I have been a big advocate for this role.
Why?
Speaking to numerous businesses and understanding their ongoing issues, the next most important role the most important upcoming business issues are likely within culture, staff retention and happiness. It is essential to keep in mind, this is a political role, this is a role that takes time to formally bed in but a lot less time to influence change, it requires good IQ and high levels of EQ. It also needs a lot of self-confidence and backing from leadership and HR to build out the highest level of trust to drive change within your business.

Having worked with companies and helped to roll this role out, it is important this person is already in your business and likely one the secret weapon

As I suggested in no rules rulescompany culture is something Netflix was very deliberate with and they had senior management (the top 10% of the company) were always focusing on culture and the inner workings. 

Another role I believe that will be essential is the Project Manager. 
In many organisations the Project Manager fell out of fashion, it was not about delivering to a set date, it was when the product was as close to perfect as possible. Or rolling out a MVP that isn’t something that a Project Manager typically owned.

As I have stated before, in business we have lost our focus and it is time we bring back focus and direction and an owner who drive projects to delivery and keep everyone up to date with the right information. If you have ever worked with a brilliant PM you will truly know their influence and the importance of well communicate, good delivery on time. 

Upon reflection, I noticed these roles are actually intertwined:

  • Culture Community Manager to look across the company and connect people with teams, connect cross-functional projects, build connections and layers of support, all connecting with the strategy and goals of the company. 
  • Retention Marketer role to connect with customers and existing customers, helping the customer to come back and stay engaged, this will help the company to stay connect and aligned with their users. 
  • The Growth Specialist job is to help persuade, encourage and tip those users in your product to actually use it and get the most benefit, Growth and Retention go hand in hand.
    These roles should connect with the Culture Community Manager to help them talk confidently about the customers and help these to connect to the strategy and the mission you are on.
  • The Project Manager helps to deliver vital updates and programmes while keeping everyone to date
  •  The Innovation Specialist is then to be the future seer and drives development in and out of the company. These roles build trust, executes on delivery, builds direction and build trust throughout the organisation and with the customers. 

These links build out on some of Focus’s foundations for success: 

Communication ➡ Culture ➡ Trust ➡ Delivery ➡ Strategy

I highly recommend you and your business have a think about the roles you need within your organisation or agency, understand there are likely people within the org you can shuffle into some of these roles and identify which roles you are short on and help decide how you shuffle your company around or how you re-shift your 2021.

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Company Culture Uncategorized

Isolated Talks – Hidden Leaders

In our second video for Isolated Talks, here is a build on Hidden Leaders.

Find out:

  • If you are a hidden leader
  • What hidden leaders are to their companies away from performance metrics
  • Why hidden leaders are so important to companies
  • Why, when they leave companies, companies really struggle to understand why

Hidden Leaders Video

If you are in the position to help today, please consider helping those who are someone struggling in isolation.


Hidden Leaders Presentation

If you prefer a presentation to flick through, this is the presentation for the video.

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Business Performance

Isolated Talks – The Focus Manifesto

It was a great privilege to be able to support Isolated Talks with one of two videos for the cause to help those struggling with isolation and various different lockdowns.

The Focus Manifesto was written at the start of the first lockdown, it is Focus’ reason to exist, to fix the broken world of work.

With this Focus Manifesto video we get to support a great cause!

You can support Isolated Talks by clicking the button below and donating to Samaritans.

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 25 – Google’s Answer To Preventing Burnout, No Meetings Week

23/11/2020

Dear Leaders,

2020 has been one hell of a year. Hopefully, we will not have to live through another nine months like we have had to again.

December is notoriously difficult, wrapping up projects, delivering the most critical product rolls outs, historically December is when companies start turning profits and when staff can feel the pressure the most and work-related illness increase double digits.

This week Google announced their approach to preventing employee burnout.
The first is providing those who ‘can’ with two extra days off, the second is no meetings week.

Both sound like good measures right?
From a headline perspective these sound good measures and potentially the right steps to take, unfortunately having lived through both options there are some downfalls and here are a few things to consider when looking to roll out similar within your teams or organisations.

Extra Days Off:

  • Extra days off work if your colleagues are in a place to take the time off and can finish their work, if not you add additional stresses and can feel particularly unfair to those who aren’t in a place to take the extra days off.
  • Many colleagues struggle to use up their annual leave additional days annual leave requires more management and processes. Does your organisation allow days to be rolled over? Consider how this could be helpful within your business. Is there a way you could reward staff with afternoon’s off?
  • While working remotely the line is blurry, the pressure to check emails, instant messages and check-in are found to be much higher, it is important as leaders you manage this and allow colleagues to actually take the extra time off.
    The always-on generation struggles to shut off as do many leaders.
  • Recommend Action: Proactively manage these steps and allow colleagues to take the time off and manage expectations that they will likely have to finish projects and campaigns before they take these extra days off.

No Meetings Week:

  • Have you worked in organisations where no meetings day work? The likelihood is they struggle to make these stick or work, the typical reason is like I call out in the Focus Manifesto this is where so many decisions are made or the only way decisions are made. Help your teams know how you are going to replace decision making and how you will let your colleagues know what the decision is and how you are going to collectively action it.
  • The question for many businesses will be what constitutes a meeting and what doesn’t. Especially in the remote world of work we operate in currently, anything on Zoom, Teams or Hangouts would appear to be a meeting. Help the teams to know what a meeting is and is not and how to replace. A meeting subculture can often have a long term effect on company culture.
  • Help your colleagues to understand how to communicate your actions if meetings are used as status updates and the actions you are taking for the week ahead. Standup’s, sitdowns, wrap up’s, are all technically shorter meetings so think about how you could replace with video or audio updates and centralised.
  • Management teams have to follow this and have to proactively promote following the no meeting week. Without this, you will see meetings take over again.
  • Recommend Action: With meetings etiquette, even the most forward-thinking companies have meetings and follow similar patterns to the most traditional and out of date companies, consider this an opportunity for a small SWOT team to come together to rethink meetings for 2021 and how to reduce reliance on meetings and roll out recommendations to address meeting fatigue and burnout.

I applaud Google for openly calling out these steps to reduce burnout and burnout within their companies, there will no doubt be many smart people who consider the first to third order effects within Google.

Moving forward many of your colleagues will likely read the headline, share internally and feel like this is something you should be following, manage expectations, explain why this likely won’t work within your org and how you are tackling to make it better within your own business and the steps you will be taking to reduce burnout in December and for 2021.

Thanks and take some time to consider your approach to burnout and optimising the end of the year for a better more proactive 2021.

Danny Denhard

P.S, Read my hybrid perks should be on your agenda ASAP

Categories
Company Culture

Rethinking Office Perks & Introducing Hybrid Perks

In the move to the Hybrid Office, the office perk has been lost for many businesses.

The move to remote first has become a level playfield for others who struggled to offer the same level of perks as other companies.

The Perk Problem

The office perk was often mistaken for company culture, whether that was the ping pong table, the food, bi-weekly healthy snacks, free after work drinks or the office dog.

I strongly recommend you read what is company culture if you are struggling with what company culture really is and what perks are and how they work together but should not be considered the same thing.

Some of the office perks were included in job descriptions and considered in the reason for wanting to join a company over another or whether you stayed in your current role.

If you are lucky enough to be able to hire or looking to expand your hiring, perks will now have to look and act differently and appeal in completely different way, especially if you are connecting into your company’s mission or include as part of your unique company culture.

Craving For Old Normal

There are a number of people who deeply missed the office, they miss their desk, they miss their colleagues, the interpersonal time, their favourite breakout space, their routine and likely even the less fun elements like fighting over meeting rooms and causally gossiping.

There are a number of businesses that crave for their teams to get back to working in the office, to work safely onsite vs the now normal working remotely.

Some organisations are actively developing ways to entice and encourage colleagues back into the office with in-office perks, with more courses, more apps, more flexible working hours while working in the office. There are some companies proactively looking at their office and environmental design to build a new in office working experiences, enabling more space and more open collaboration in the next normal and other fresher ways to encourage teams being back together and an attempt to differentiate against competitors for 2021 and 2022.

Move To Hybrid Perks

The Hybrid Office is a new way and an opportunity to rethink an important element of your company subculture, it is a new path to build out layers of perks and move to what Focus calls Hybrid Perks.

What Are Hybrid Perks?

Hybrid perks are as they sound, a way to reward your employees and colleagues while working remotely, instantly hybrid perks should be available to all and should not be limited to be based in the office. Hybrid perks can include:

  • Offering extended mental health support and paid subscriptions into mental health and therapy apps
  • Expanding out physical health membership and paying for remote classes
  • Offering help with building out your home office, ring lights, microphones and dedicated webcams for improved online meetings (remember important humans cues are being lost with poor video and internet connectivity)
  • Supporting staff with better WiFi connectivity,
  • Ensuring healthy snacks are available and can be delivered to employees homes
  • Localised discounts for local stores
  • You can borrow one of Focus’ offering of an anonymous text helpline for colleagues to have external support.

These are all areas in which Hybrid Perks can help your teams function as well as possible and build a remote company culture that people are proud to refer your company to other people and potential new talent.

So rethink your office perks system and look to build out a hybrid perks programme you and your teams will be happy to receive and be part of.


Want to know more about what company culture is?

Here is the Focus what company culture deck