What the new 'blended' future of working might look like in the Gulf

Companies across the Middle East are busy reworking their business models based on a “blended office and workforce” to allow them to adapt to future crises like the coronavirus pandemic, experts have told Arabian Business.

Management and human resource insiders say that while remote working has been in practice for technology and consulting firms for a while, more traditional industries are now rethinking office layouts and support infrastructure.

“Companies are now in the process of changing their business models and office workspace to support a blended working model,” Ashutosh Sinha, author of a recent international bestseller Breakthrough and the global HR leader of a GCC-based corporate major, told Arabian Business.

Gopal A Iyer, associate director, EY GDS (global delivery services) and programme leader for GigNow, added: “The role of professionals and other workforces across companies are also expected to see drastic changes going forward, with resilience and sustainability becoming the new buzz words for companies in view of apprehensions of more future business disruptions.”

Sinha said the impact of the global pandemic has led to a realisation that there are some serious long term benefits related to productivity, safety and well-being if companies are willing to change.

“As there is every reason to believe statistically that eventuality of other crises more or less of similar proportions may become a periodic world phenomenon, companies which anticipate and plan for this now will not be caught unawares in future,” Sinha added.

“This would make it ‘real’ that “blended offices” may be here to stay,” he said.

Author Ashutosh Sinha

As a principle, a blended approach means the development of a workforce that works partly in the office, and partly remotely.Some management experts familiar with the planning by companies said that even as governments have embarked on vaccination drives in the region, uncertainty persists for businesses due to the discovery of new strains of the virus.

“It has been now close to a year since organisations have been dealing with the uncertainty which hit businesses worldwide. Every month is a guess on whether the next quarter business will make a comeback or the virus will continue to push normalcy further down,” said a senior executive with a GCC-based FMCG major, who wished not to be identified.

“With the advent of vaccines, there is a certain ebullience in the air. However many are now taking a more pragmatic outlook,” the executive said.

Experts said reduced use of office space, reduced property rentals, enhanced use of tech interface in HR, speed of execution and selective compensation policies focused on the most deserving will be some of the features of the blended business model.

As a principle, a blended approach means the development of a workforce that works partly in the office, and partly remotely

Sinha said the next decade is going to see a major shift towards the arrival of a blended workforce where professionals of different workstreams will collaborate and work together towards organisational success.

“Increasingly much of that collaboration will be between human workers and robots – not the physical robots – but intelligent bots programmed to take advantage of the blockchain approach of completing mammoth transactional tasks in a matter of minutes.

“It’s already happening but in specialised pockets. Soon it will become a more inclusive reality of the new age workforce,” Sinha said.

HR experts said the move towards a blended workforce will also mean that career definitions will also change.Iyer said: “These disruptive changes have given rise to several workforce models for organisations that include virtual talent, agile workforce, hybrid talent, and talent clouds.”

Iyer also pointed out that with the employee roles increasingly getting ‘taski-fied’, companies will be looking at “talent consumption rather than talent acquisition” going forward.

Gopal A Iyer, associate director, EY GDS

“This would also mean that every profession getting ‘byte-sized’, with each role getting split into several tasks, being done by different people.

“Companies would be increasingly dealing with only ‘outcomes’, as they could outsource various functions to employee platforms,” Iyer said, adding that the current pandemic has accelerated the evolution of this process.

He also said that even the manufacturing sector is expected to bring down the number of employees with increased automation, as part of its move to redesign workplaces to adapt to Covid-related restrictions.