In this interview, we cover the balance between management's desire for presence in the office and employees' desire for flexibility, the impact of hybrid work on corporate culture, and strategies for increasing employee satisfaction and productivity in a hybrid setup.
Flexibility vs. office presence: How can the two be combined?
Werner Albrecht: So I would like to say one thing right from the start: We no longer bring people back to the office unless there are people who cannot or do not want to work at home. With me, they always have the chance to get an office where they can close the door and have peace and quiet. Most people want that, but doing their own work quietly at home is convenient because they also save travel time. It is primarily a matter of time. And anyone who can work flexibly from home or anywhere else in the world saves on arrival and departure times that should not be underestimated.
But there are people who don't want that. And they still have an office. The others don't come to work in the office, but to communicate with other people, exchange ideas, and develop new ideas in meetings. And so the question is, how do we bring people together in the context of work that also takes place in person? And how can the energy be developed? It can be at home. This can be anywhere in the world or in an office provided by me. And that difference is important to me.
And when many companies unfortunately often call on people to come back again, I find that a bit noticeable. To be honest, we got them into this way of working during the pandemic. Undoubtedly for health protection reasons. But people have noticed that it works. And why should I question a tried and tested form per se? It is therefore more about how do we organise people to meet.
Nice example of what happened to me at Stadtwerke. In the beginning, people worked in the office, but the people who were important to them were not there. It is also an important issue. How do we organize transparency when it is worthwhile for me. And then I can arrange a coffee date with you right in the morning, maybe at 12:00. Or I'll sit close to you to talk. When we have this transparency, we take a big step forward.
How do employees recognize that there has been added value?
Werner Albrecht: On the one hand, it was important to me when people came to the municipal utility center, it was because it had to create added value. So it must be different from the work I do at home or in third places. And what is this added value? It's a communicative one. To meet other people, be it in very small, very spontaneous moments. I'll see you tomorrow, I want to talk to you about this and the topic from person to person. Or we have a specific meeting in which we unleash creativity. Or even feedback meetings. These moments work best of all. Because something like this is also a team thing. A feedback conversation has a lot to do with attention and I do that best when we sit across from each other and can see, hear and listen in a completely different way.
The question at the end of the day is: When people are on their way home in the car or on public transport, it takes another three quarters of an hour and then ask themselves why they came to the office. Here they must be able to say that it was good that they were in the office today. The additional time required must be justified.
What initiatives have you taken at Stadtwerke to provide employees with added value for face-to-face days?
Werner Albrecht: With the four-day week, for example. What many people don't understand is that life time is at stake. And we also have the opportunity to give people the gift of life time in the new way of working. Conversely, it is about creating incentives time and again so that they nevertheless step out of this mode of convenience or time saving and experience added value over and over again. And that's why it's worth it, as satisfaction increases. And then people are also prepared to accept a longer journey.
By the way, I have people who moved away from Munich during the pandemic and asked me back then whether they could rely on the fact that this would still work even after a while. You can do that. But at the same time, there will always be moments when you just have to accept a longer journey or maybe even have to spend the night with friends in Munich because we see each other two days in a row. Then I don't want any grumbling. And people agreed to it right away.
Do you sometimes see a discrepancy between the ideas of management and employees?
Werner Albrecht: Even during the pandemic, the question was raised as to what understanding of leadership should exist. This focused primarily on the work, working methods, new forms of work or different places of work of employees. How do I deal with it? How do I trust them? What is the understanding of self-reliant work? And here I said to the managers, be honest. Even though people were there, you didn't always look at their office to see what they were doing. Just the fact that the people were there at all gives many people a sense of availability. And that is not the point. It is about results. And I really don't care where people achieve these results.
And I've also always warned against never underestimating the job market. Keyword skilled workers. The labor shortage has long since ceased to be the sole shortage of skilled workers. Never underestimate that people are no longer willing to accept such conditions after they have learned otherwise. It is therefore the key to talk to managers about this over and over again.
I've always said that I would like employees to talk to their partner at the dinner table about how they organize themselves. Keyword care work, childcare, etc. The next day, discuss it with your colleagues at 12:00 with your manager and in the afternoon you will have a decision. Why should I tell them where to sit? In the end, we have a common understanding of the result, the product, the performance, the measurability and transparency.
How do you meet your employees?
Werner Albrecht: At the beginning, we virtually transferred almost all formats to the virtual world. And I say that there were formats that definitely work better in presence. And that's when we had to learn that we must also mark and offer exactly these as face-to-face formats. And then people come too. What people no longer want me to send them to the office and then realize that they could have done the work at home. As far as I am concerned, people can also come from 10:00 or from 11:00 to 14:00. Then they don't have to rush hour on the busy subway to the office on busy roads in traffic jams.
You can decide for yourself whether to process your emails at home and then set off later. Or whether you come in really early because you're meeting with your colleagues. And the same goes for hookup dates. So don't just think in terms of face-to-face days, but in addition to the meeting, lunch to exchange ideas together should not be underestimated.
After all, the meal is not only an exchange about professional matters, but also about us privately. That doesn't just have something to do with the office, but with a creative space, with a spontaneously individually built space that fits the respective topic.
How do flexible working models affect employer branding and employee retention?
Werner Albrecht: In our company, we had three different works agreements at the beginning. In each case, this means an agreement for different areas of responsibility or for different companies. Two of the areas have insisted that mobile work can only be done three days a week. People must be on site for two days. In my area of responsibility, we have done things differently. I didn't want to pretend. People should organise this themselves. But in the end, this area worked no differently. They were always there for two days, but they were self-organized. And don't underestimate the effect that has had. The other two companies have heard that our employees can decide this for themselves.
The result was the same, but it was fundamentally different in our heads. People don't even want to flee from the office per se. However, they want to organize themselves independently in context with others in exchange. And that is an incredibly powerful opportunity to change work as well.
How does flexibility affect productivity and ability to innovate?
Werner Albrecht: At Stadtwerke, we have our own Innovation Management and Idea Management department. It tries to encourage us to invite people even more to use their creativity to make us better as a company. We don't really measure the extent to which people are more creative or innovative when they can decide for themselves where or at what time they can work. I myself am someone who relatively often works remotely. And then I often jump from one appointment to another. I always plan a 5 minute buffer to get something to drink. It used to be different. The Stadtwerkezentrale office is spread over 5 buildings. In the past, I sometimes had to allow 10 minutes of running time to get from one meeting room to the next.
Today, people continue to work continuously in those 10 minutes. But that alone shows that we have recommended that people not invite appointments for an hour or 30 minutes, switch them off and then have a buffer to take notes. In the past, this period was also used to mentally prepare for the next appointment. And this has become incredibly concentrated in mobile working. People also report this back to us. Sometimes you feel more stressed than before. And that is very surprising from my point of view.
Christopher Bieri: So your practical tip is to plan time between meetings?
Werner Albrecht: I think we're underestimating what's lost in these concentrated meetings. At the end of a meeting marathon, I sit there and wonder what the essence of the conversations during the day was. And of course I was able to reproduce them somehow. But it would have been different if I had written down the thoughts directly during the conversation. And it's amazing that we can afford something like that. Because we are unproductive if we don't include such times. This is where we really lose a lot of the results we have achieved if we only partially remember them later.
What tips do you have for managers & executives to stay close to their team despite physical distance?
Werner Albrecht: It's not really difficult when we create face-to-face times over and over again. Because these are once again multipliers for people involved so that they can then continue in other formats as well. My experience was that if I didn't offer a presence for too long, then social contacts would be reduced. We didn't drink any more coffee, we weren't at lunch, we didn't even quickly shout anything to each other.
The moment I bring people together again and again and then make them tangible, I notice the power that is created there. Whenever I let people sit together in a shared space, be it in a large office or even in a creative room, it in turn results in them making another appointment for the next week. They want to actively continue working on topics.
It therefore appears to me that neither of the two forms is correct. But balance is important. I have managers who want to encourage people to be present for 5 days. I think that is harmful. Because people are jumping off, they won't put up with it. They did the same for me and left the company. We then immediately counteracted this. I also don't believe in not getting people into an exchange at all; I also think it's foolish and harmful and wrong. That's why the mix does it in place.
What does the presence of your employees look like in this form?
Werner Albrecht: At Stadtwerke, of course, we have someone who is responsible for our real estate and therefore also for managing our office space. For example, we have a classic distribution with the peak on Wednesday and heavy load on Tuesday and Thursday. Monday still works, but the real disaster is Friday. That's when I can really consider whether to stop heating buildings.
But here we are back to the point of getting there. Friday was also often a shortened day for my employees. Friday is the end of the day early. And I don't drive back and forth for an hour if I only work 4 or 5 hours. We notice that on Mondays and Fridays, the offices are in fact empty or that there are only a few people sitting there. If this could be better distributed, then we'll be back to the question of how the teams will then organize themselves. Because on Wednesdays, creative spaces have always been booked out for the next six months because everyone else is there. And here we're trying to smooth out the curve a bit.
Christopher Bieri: We are trying to solve this with Seatti by using social nudging to give people natural incentives to see who is coming to the office and then arrange to meet for lunch, for example, even when there are no meetings taking place.
Werner Albrecht: So I have managers who say that there is such a face-to-face day and if we don't have any team meetings, then at least that day we all go out to dinner together. And that is not to be underestimated how important this social contact is. Especially when people go home in the evening and think about the usefulness of office days. But it is most important of all when people consciously arrange to work together. It's less about focus work. Because people don't want that at all. They'd rather do that at home.
How does Seatti help you coordinate in the hybrid work model?
Werner Albrecht: We actively use Seatti and have had the experience that it immediately meant that people had help. Because they organized themselves beforehand. They used to call each other who would be in the office next week. And now we have a completely different level of transparency through Seatti. I look in and immediately see who is there the next day, where they are and then I can simply sit down.
And that's how it happens that people date before that. They are planning to do something together on office days together. As a result, we have created structures that we were in fact unable to achieve with instruments we knitted ourselves before.
Christopher Bieri: What are the benefits of the software for employees?
Werner Albrecht: Thanks to transparency, employees know who will also be in the office, which significantly increases motivation. When people see that their favorite colleagues are also coming to the office, it makes it easier to get up, get dressed and leave the house.
Christopher Bieri: Werner, thank you so much for the interview!
