Scott McInnes

**Hybrid working isn’t the problem. The problem is introducing it without deciding what our time together is actually for.** When people commute into the office only to spend the day on Teams calls, something has been missed. Being in the same place doesn’t automatically create connection. So what should our time together actually be for? And how can organisations design hybrid working to create more meaningful connection, collaboration and belonging?

We were promised that AI would give us more time. Ask people what they've done with that time and the honest answer is often more work. One of the senior people leaders we spoke to during our latest research put it particularly well. Nearly everyone we interviewed identified busyness as a barrier to connection. But their responses revealed something deeper than full calendars and overloaded teams. We haven't just run out of time to connect. We've started to lose the habit of making time...

Last year we published Mind the Gap, a research report in which we asked Chief People Officers what the three biggest challenges were in building a strong and aligned cultures in their organisations. Five themes came through those conversations: leadership skill and will, the manager factor, skills for today and tomorrow, accountability for values, and disconnection. At the time, it was tempting to see these as five separate challenges, each requiring its own solution. But as we continued...