Some, like"Flex with Purpose” at audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG, try to balance workers’ desire for flexibility with bosses’ need for control. Others, such as 3M Co.’s"Work Your Way,” put the individual at the center. A few, like"Amex Flex” from American Express Co., play off the company’s well-known brand.
The result: About half of firms rely on informal guidelines, a Mercer survey found, while a third have formal rules and the rest just basically wing it. Half of workers don’t understand their own organization’s hybrid plan, according to a survey by professional social network Fishbowl. "We know the problems of flexible work, but we don’t necessarily know the solutions,” said Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University."This is an opportunity for organizations to loosen the strictures they had in the past and say, ‘We are a different kind of organization now.’”
Other plans echo this theme, like Dutch recruitment firm Randstad NV’s"Flexibility with Intentionality.” Jennifer Nahrgang, a management professor at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, favors this approach:"When people come into an office, they want a purpose. Time at home has a purpose, too.”
Other approaches to hybrid work put employees more in the driver’s seat. Examples include Spotify’s"Your Work Mode” and financial-services firm TIAA’s"Work for My Day.” The upside to such names is they"create a sense of empowerment so employees feel they have some control and autonomy,” according to Robyn Bachochin, a partner and senior communication consultant at Mercer, who works with companies on hybrid plans.