While the Covid-19 pandemic forced remote working to become a necessity, as social restrictions have ended in the UK, businesses are becoming more acutely aware of the benefits of office working.
With this awareness in mind, many businesses are now looking at adopting, or have already adopted, hybrid working practices for the long-term future. The benefits of maintaining an office space, according to EY’s Liz Campbell, include the healthy sustaining of organisational culture, good work-life balance, easier relationship building, and an assured quality of workplace.
One business leader who values the importance of the office environment for his firm is Mark Hobbs, owner of financial advice firm New Leaf Distribution Ltd. Based in Southend-on-Sea, Hobbs has grown his business into a £15 million turnover company with over 200 advisers across the UK, from its roots as a family-run company.
For Hobbs, company culture has been one of the central tenets of New Leaf Distribution’s success. Sitting down on The Leaders Council Podcast with host, Scott Challinor, Hobbs talked about the dependence of business culture being upon employees having a place to go and work.
Hobbs explained: “My view is that the culture of a business is dependent upon the employee being in a place of work. I'm talking primarily about small businesses here and we are one of those. I think if you're going to create culture, create longevity and retain staff, you need to have a place where people frequent together on a regular basis.
“I'm not against or averse to the hybrid model. However, I’m really motivated by being with my staff. I like to be in the room with them and share ideas and when we are delegating responsibility and working in teams, we need to be face-to-face as a team.”
Indeed, while some companies have proven to be more productive under home-working formats, it has not necessarily proven to be the case for all. Yet, Hobbs does acknowledge the value of the hybrid format and being able to work flexibly, as he explained.
Hobbs said: “I found that actually some of our groups at New Leaf, certainly those that are working in admin and are very admin focused, did not perform as well when they were working from home. For them, they have a need to be in that working environment to motivate each other and keep each other on track.
“But the hybrid model is going to be the way forward for us. So, we allow our employees to work from home when necessary. We have a scope for each employee where we discuss how they want to work and we sign it off as a leadership team. London has come back to life and the commuter trains are packed again, so it is obvious that workplaces are coming back to life and we are in London probably two or three days a week now. I'm seeing that people are coming back to their workplaces, in large, large numbers. And I think that's a really good thing.
“That said, we have to acknowledge that the hybrid model has also been engaged within some of the biggest business in the world. The likes of Google have used the hybrid model for years and home-worked for a long time and they still hold their physical premises in high esteem. For us as a smaller company, it’s important that we are together the majority of the time.”
Listen to the full interview with Mark Hobbs on The Leaders Council Podcast below.
Photo by Israel Andrade on Unsplash
