Hybrid working: are we really that flexible?

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently re-ignited the remote work debate by ordering staff to return to the office five days a week. The new policy, which takes effect in January, will “strengthen our culture and teams” and make collaboration “simpler and more effective”, he said – and it seems corporate travel professionals tend to agree.

In a live poll of more than 300 professionals at the recent GBTA Europe conference in Copenhagen, 55 per cent said the ‘dynamic’ between manager and employee is less effective in a remote work environment than it is in person. The majority (82 per cent) also believe new recruits or early-in-career employees need the structure of an office environment to learn and develop effectively.

But that doesn’t mean remote working is dead. Far from it. Seventy-four per cent of the GBTA Europe audience said their current workforce is ‘hybrid’, while 13 per cent are ‘fully remote’ and 9 per cent are ‘onsite’. In addition, 80 per cent believe ‘working from anywhere’ is not a trend that will fade any time soon.

Does it matter how the work gets done?

According to Emma Gregory, director of UK-based Urbanberry Recruitment, travel management companies seem to think so.

“Roles that are advertised as ‘hybrid’ are usually pretty structured with a minimum requirement of three days a week in a London office,” she says. “And candidates are totally turned off by that.”

Gregory says that travel consultants who moved to home-based roles during the pandemic are now reluctant to return to the office, especially those who have since relocated.

“If they’ve moved further away, the commute becomes ridiculous… They don’t want to spend an hour, or an hour and a half each way on the train,” she says.

“It’s fine if a company wants to be structured and [impose a return-to-office policy] but they’ve also got to understand that they’re making the pool of candidates smaller.”

Similarly, Barbara Kolosinska, director at specialist agency C&M Travel Recruitment, says the majority of job seekers – particularly business travel consultants – want to work remotely.

“If companies consider fully home-based candidates, they will find their talent pool suddenly becomes much greater.” This remains the case, according to Kolosinska, even if salaries offered for remote roles are £3,000 to £4,000 less than office-based roles.

“People aren’t stupid – they’ve realised that once you factor in transport costs, that extra few thousand pounds a year doesn’t equal a great deal.”

Who’s ‘working from home’ in Europe?

As well as generational factors, Daniel Tallos, founder of Amsterdam-based business travel recruitment agency Find Your Best, says attitudes towards workplace flexibility are often nuanced by the cultural differences across countries.

According to Tallos, who references Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory, companies in Southern and Central Europe tend to have a high power/distance index, meaning they have “a more controlling type of approach” to organisational culture, while Northern Europe “tends to be more relaxed,” he says.

This tracks with data from EU agency Eurostat, which found the Netherlands had the highest rate of home-based workers across the bloc in 2023, with 51.9 per cent of its working population (aged between 15 and 64) reporting they usually or occasionally work from home.

This was closely followed by Sweden (45.3 per cent), Iceland (42.6 per cent), Norway and Finland (around 42 per cent). Less than 15 per cent of workers in Italy and Spain were offered such flexibility.

Tallos, who is also EMEA consulting director at Odyssey by Axys, says government initiatives in “more mature markets” can also lead to greater acceptance of hybrid and remote work. He points specifically to a recently introduced climate law in the Netherlands that mandates reporting on CO2 emissions from ‘work-related mobility’ (business travel and commuting) and encourages companies to embrace remote working to help reduce emissions.

“When there’s legislation facilitating remote work, then it becomes much harder for employers to disregard it,” he says. “If the government also speaks about the virtues of remote working, then companies will play into it on a different level.”

When WFH becomes WFA

Companies like BCD Travel are taking a modern
approach to workplace management, offering not just hybrid or remote-working, but going one step further. The global TMC introduced a ‘work from
anywhere’ (WFA) policy last June and, according to its director talent
acquisition in Europe, Suzanne Miechels, “there are a lot of people who
do”.

The policy allows staff to work from anywhere for up
to 60 days per year. Miechels says the company has received 488 WFA
requests from employees to date.

“We had a lot of virtual workers in place [prior to the
pandemic], but that number has grown in recent years… our business was
already built on virtual working so the transition may have been
slightly easier [for us] than for companies without experience,” she says. In
total, 58 per cent of BCD employees currently work remotely, while 37
per cent are office-based, and five per cent utilise coworking spaces.

With headquarters in both the Netherlands and the US and offices
in more than 60 countries, Miechels says the TMC’s WFA policy is
especially popular among Gen Z workers “as they expect more flexibility
around working hours”.

“Gen Z are even more focused on wellbeing, mental health and
work-life balance [compared to their Millennial and Gen X counterparts]
and the biggest difference is that they dare to ask for it,” she adds.

Recruitment strategies

Giovanni Bernardi, head of sales at Bizaway, says the tech-led TMC offers workplace flexibility as “standard” with staff typically working from home two days per week.

“We’re not a company that tracks the number of hours employees are clocking in… We want people to reach their targets and to easily measure their performance,” he says.

Even so, Bernardi, who is looking to double his team by adding 60 new hires in the next six months, says recruitment isn’t easy.

The company provides in-office ‘perks’ like fruit, coffee and beers on Friday, says Bernardi, but these don’t play into its recruitment strategies.

“We don’t like companies offering above-market salaries or ‘benefits’ like fruit in the office – that’s not relevant. To attract talent, you need to provide a growth path, the ability to drive positive change or to make an impact,” he says.

“At Bizaway, every single employee owns stock in the company. We have a phantom stock plan so, when the company has a liquidity event in the future, such as an IPO or an M&A, employees will get their part of the pie… [and] we plan to have an IPO.”

BCD Travel’s Miechels says that while the company has “built back to normal staffing levels” since the pandemic, it now has a “stronger focus” on inclusive hiring practices. This includes consulting with its internal D&I council on recruitment practices and posting roles to specific job boards to target groups such as ‘women in tech’ or ‘women in travel’.

“We’re also developing strategies to reach refugee talent and neurodiverse talent,” says Miechels. “And we’re in the initial stages of working with organisations to gain advice on hiring and onboarding practices for refugee talent.”

But does that mean service levels are also “back to normal”? A knowledge exchange session hosted by the UK’s Institute of Travel Management earlier this year saw buyers report “broadly positive feedback” regarding satisfaction with their current TMC.

Travel managers highlighted implementation and communication processes, account management team engagement and educating bookers on best practice booking methods as examples of what their TMC is doing well, according to an ITM report.

Other travel buyers speaking to BTN Europe also reported seeing an overall “improvement” in service levels compared to the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, “even if occasionally there are still high waiting times on the phone and email responses,” says Elisabetta Gibertoni, global travel and events manager at Italy-based LivaNova.

Interestingly, a recent BCD survey of 187 travel buyers from around the world revealed more than half (53 per cent) dedicate most of their time to managing relationships with their TMCs.

Investing in young talent

C&M Travel Recruitment’s Kolosinska says some corporates are also willing to “look at the bigger picture” and invest time in training entry-level recruits and university graduates.

German travel buyer association VDR works closely with the Worms University of Applied Sciences to engage students, participating in open days to introduce students to the business travel sector and even tapping its member network to help facilitate internship placements.

The association also runs a Travel-to-Future programme, which provides students with a passive membership. Meanwhile, mentorship opportunities are also available for young professionals.

Richard Thompson III, mobility manager at retail chemist dm-drogerie markt and VDR board member, is one of the association’s mentors and is pushing to further develop its mentoring programme.

“For me, [being a mentor] is important because it allows me to reflect on how we set up travel management at dm and what can I do to attract young professionals,” he says.

Thompson says the travel programme at dm-drogerie markt “has the benefit” of a young team that is “hungry to learn”, but when extra help is needed, it’s “always difficult to find talent”.

To appeal to young professionals, Thompson says the company is piloting ‘workation’ travel – aka working remotely while travelling for either a long or short period.

Similar to BCD’s Miechels, he believes “young people want the freedom to decide where they work, so we’re assessing it on a case-by-case basis”.

And dm isn’t the only company doing so. According to a June survey of VDR members, almost 90 per cent said they already permit blended travel, or plan to do so, and an additional 76 per cent support remote work and ‘workation’ – combining work and vacation – from abroad.

In dm’s case, the company has a presence in 14 countries and, according to Thompson, embraces a hybrid approach where “international collaboration is one of the major benefits, especially in business travel”.

“I highly promote mobile work and giving people the opportunity to decide where they would like to work, but the focus should be on what makes sense,” he says. “Teams need to agree on what works for them… Coming to the office shouldn’t be a tick-box exercise.”