COVID-19 changes to workplace relations continue to evolve.

The sudden move to working from home has shifted into hybrid work arrangements that include time at home and time at the office.

Public health orders in 2020 abruptly required employers to allow employees to work from home unless employers needed workers at their offices.

When the B.C. government tweaked those orders on Feb. 17 to allow employers to require employees to return to the office, or face dismissal, few employers rushed to return to pre-pandemic practices.

The pandemic accelerated a trend toward more employer flexibility in relationships with workers, and many believe there is no returning to pre-pandemic norms.

“The train has left the station of a new world when it comes to people’s relationship to the office,” said Christopher Krywulak, the majority owner of Chrysalis, the holding company for Vancouver ventures such as iQmetrix, Cova, Ready and Shiftlab.

Krywulak has been ahead of the curve in being flexible with employee schedules and creating an office environment where employees want to be.

More than a decade ago, Krywulak took BIV on a tour of his iQmetrix office, which included soundproof meditation rooms and a beer keg in the kitchen for staff to use at their own discretion.

“For organizations, and certainly for us, it’s relationships that are important,” Krywulak said. “We think about how we build [employer-employee] relationships.”

He has taken employees on trips, such as to a Burning Man festival in Hawaii. 

Krywulak said in-person interaction is important, and he expects most companies to evolve to have employees come into the office at least one day per week. “There still is a need [for staff] to connect at some regular frequency and work together, collaborate together and build relationships,” he said. “The office is one of those places that needs to change, but it is a good place to do that, as it is a space of our own.”

Law firms have similarly pivoted to allow employees to do more work from home.

Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP managing partner William Westeringh told BIV he expects the reality forged during the pandemic to continue. 

“Lawyers have to ensure they are properly servicing their clients,” he said.

“If they need to come in to the office or attend to a client’s office for meetings or to attend training sessions or brainstorming sessions, they’re going to be required to come in. In the absence of that, they’re going to be given much more flexibility to work remotely.”

(Image: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP managing partner William Westeringh expects his workplace to allow flexible work schedules outside of needed in-office activities | Rob Kruyt)

Cori Maedel, CEO of the human resources firm Jouta, told BIV that executives who do not allow staff to have flexible work schedules and office attendance will be at a competitive disadvantage.

“They will lose employees,” she said. 

When she hears clients question how they will measure employee performance or ensure work gets done if employees work at home, she said they need to solve a different problem. 

“If you have to ask those questions, then you’re probably not measuring performance as effectively as you can with the people who are in your office.” 

Key to having an effective remote workforce, she added, is technology to seamlessly integrate remote workers. 

Jouta’s workforce has largely been working remotely since 2015, Maedel said.

People who call Jouta’s office phone number likely reach a receptionist who lives in south Vancouver. That person could then directly transfer the call to an employee who lives in Squamish, in Penticton or elsewhere. 

That transferred call provides a more professional impression than to have the receptionist tell callers to reach the desired individual by calling a cellphone, Maedel said. 

Video-call meetings via Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) Teams or Zoom (Nasdaq:ZM) happen throughout workdays.

Employees who want to work a few hours in the morning and then take the afternoon off to visit an elderly parent, for example, are allowed to do that, Maedel said. Those workers then make up the lost time in the evenings. 

“We have access to each other’s calendars. We know when people are popping out – when they’re at their desk and when they’re not. We have set meetings that are at non-negotiable times that people need to come to, but other than that we’re flexible.”  •

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