The way we work at REA: a hybrid approach

At REA Group, keeping people at the heart of everything we do – and creating an environment where innovation thrives – are two crucial elements of our secret sauce.

Having a deep understanding of the needs of our people, business, customers and consumers to shape the actions that drive the way we work is paramount.

Listening, testing, learning and re-iterating formed the basis of our pragmatic approach to designing our new hybrid model. The project included a comprehensive all-employee survey, design sprints, cross business working groups, team tests and people leader feedback.

We landed on a globally relevant approach and philosophy to our hybrid ways of working, with some subtle variances to support every market and culture in our REA family.

Hybrid working balances flexibility with meaningful connection

At REA we strive to create a culture that balances working together with working flexibly. Given the importance of connection, belonging and effective collaboration, all our decisions consider the needs of REA, our teams and our people.

A strong finding from our organisation-wide review is there are times working from home to do focussed tasks are invaluable for our people and others where being in our office built for connecting and collaborating helps form ideas together that change the game.

How hybrid working looks at REA

While no two hybrid working experiences will be the same, our values and principles are universal.

To support our people, our The way we work guide to hybrid working outlines the key “moments” we have at REA and provides guidance on how and where these moments are best experienced to create value for our people, business, customers and consumers.

Our leaders have access to tools that support conversations within their teams to develop ways of working agreements. The purpose of these agreements is to ensure a shared understanding of everyone’s expectations of where and how they will work together in a hybrid environment.

Our hybrid model will continue to evolve and be people-led

Because there’s no one-size fits all approach, we know that hybrid working is something we will have to navigate together and that it may require some experimenting in our teams and across our business to find what works best.

Having a continuous feedback loop as part of a test and learn approach is how we’ll continue to shape how our ways of working to stay relevant and impactful for REA.

Cover image: From source

This article first appeared on REA Group blog on 3 Feb 2021.