New journeys in change: A ‘hybrid’ primer — Part one

The emergence from enforced home working driven by the 2020–21 global COVID-19 pandemic appears set to reverse two decades of workplace strategy and design homogenisation. Responses under consideration by organisations span a divergent spectrum, from returning to pre-pandemic ways of working at one extreme to entirely location-agnostic approaches at the other. In the vast majority of cases, the need to effectively lead and manage change will be of paramount importance where case studies and best practice on which to draw are rare. There remains a risk that a thoroughly considered workplace strategy may still fail, not on account of its technical robustness or philosophical cohesion but because people were not informed, engaged and involved in determining the outcome. Using modified extracts from the author’s latest book, the paper illustrates how we often approach and understand the subject of change in order to suggest more appropriate ways to manage the migration to hybrid working.