EP019 - How to make hybrid work with Graham Joyce of DuoMe
About the episode
This episode focuses on hybrid work and how to make hybrid work. One of the key challenges with hybrid is scheduling - how to make sure everyone has office time. We discuss the topic with Graham Joyce, co-founder of DuoMe, a hybrid work solution for scheduling.
About the guest
Graham’s career spans two decades of working in Commercial Director roles at large corporations in London and New York. In 2016 he changed tack and decided to enter the world of startups looking for a faster paced but flexible approach to working which allowed him to spend more time with his family. Fast forward to 2018 and discussing the lack of flexibility in many organisations with a friend of his, they decided to start exploring how technology could facilitate flexible working for companies and individuals. So DuoMe was launched!
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
We need to think about how we work. As a team member, you are probably working with others outside your team on different projects. So you are better off focusing on getting those project teams together instead of actual teams like sales, marketing, design, accounts, etc. We must put the right people together, doing the right work, in the right location, at the right time.
Trust is a thing. Just because you can see your team doesn't necessarily mean they're working. We need to start thinking about how to look at KPIs. So the location would not matter. Trust will come if managers begin to think about work that needs to be done on time, regardless of location. I want this job to be done by Friday, and I don't care if you do it on a beach in Barbados or if you will do it at 2:00 AM.
Hybrid work will be here to stay. We will see the way we use offices change. We will see offices more like hubs where we can potentially do some work if we want to. Hybrid will loosen up, as will companies. They will realize that they need to give employees the choice of getting their job done, with flexibility on the location.
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Welcome everyone yet another day to talk about the future of work and the future of leadership. Today we are going to talk about hybrid work, an ongoing and very popular trend in the future of work scene. It was always there it was always with us but became very prevalent feature of the remote work during the pandemic. It has many issues and challenges, especially when it comes to how to keep people engaged, how to keep everyone at the same time in the office, and many more. To discuss I have Graham Joyce with me, founder of Duome. Hi Graham. How are you?
I'm good. Thank you Peter. Thanks for having me.
Lovely. Appreciate for coming here. So pre-call by the way, we discussed that you, that you lived in multiple countries.
Yes.
And so tell me what was your remote journey? How did you end up founding a startup centered around hybrid work?
Sure, sure. So, yeah, as you, as you said, I've lived in lots of different countries. I'm living in England now. I'm, I'm English but have lived in Australia and New Zealand, and lived in America as well. So I'm definitely one for getting out there and traveling around. So being able to do that with my laptop is, you know, is perfect. Really. I can't think of a better way to live. Even just as I work right now, I try to get out as much as possible, whether that's just get, getting myself to a coffee shop or into a, a third space just to be around different people and have a different view and it just helps with my creativity and just keeps that productivity up as well, whilst still being able to, you know, enjoy myself as well. Yeah.
And what are you building with, with Duome? So the startup itself is is, is, is a hundred percent tailored and centered around hybrid work. And you address a really serious challenge with hybrid work. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Yeah, sure. So, so Duome has been around now for I guess five, just over five years now. We initially started out.
Wow.
Yeah. Well we started in 2018 and the focus wasn't really around hybrid working. Our focus has always been around flexible working as a whole really, and just how do we make flexible working work? So we're very much a people, we're a technology business, but it's al always been about the people. How do we make flexible working work for the individuals before we think about the company? So when we initially started out, it was actually around, our first platform was a job sharing platform. We built that actually out of the need that we got. So my co-founder and I. We've been friends for 20 odd years. We both met when we were working in New York. And then in 2018 we started to think about flexible working. It was actually to do with my co-founder's wife who was struggling to get back into the workforce after having children and so interested in you know, giving her sort part-time or reduced hours. So she really struggled to get back in, had to go back full-time. But then after the second child, they had a different experience where she met with an American company who said, we really like you. We really like someone else. Why don't you have a chat? They ended up job sharing a role, a full-time role for a few years, completely, very successfully. And then again Wow. So it, yeah, it went in incredibly well. So they, but then Eric and his wife had a third child, and again, she struggled to get back into the workforce. So this time Eric and I decided to, well, let's see if what we can do about this. So we started to do some research and we ended up developing a platform where we had almost 3000 people register onto the platform, all looking to find a jobshare partner. And then we had companies putting their jobs onto the platform, and then we were pairing the individuals, people to jobs to fill out these full-time roles. So that was going very well. And then March, 2020 came, everything changed. The world work really started to change. Our focus had to really change because the companies that we were working with basically backed off the touch because they didn't know where they were. Less people were changing roles because they were, you know, really just wanted to keep their jobs at that point, because nobody knew. We started to do some research again, and the research that we got from people around the research that we started to read was around 70% of people wanted some kind of hybrid working. I'll go back to the office. Not every day. I want to go in a couple of days a week. 20% of people were saying, no, that's it. I'm remote forever now. I love this 10% people were saying, oh, would love to get back to the office. The office is the place. So the 70% of people we started to think about, right well, what's going to be the biggest problem with hybrid working? You know, if we were to pick one or two, there's obviously gonna be. But one was, it's about if you're only going into the office, how do you choose the most effective day to go in? If I'm only going in one day a week, or two days a week, I need to make sure that I'm going to see Peter when I go in. If I need to see Peter, I need to see Graham. I need to see these. So that's gonna be the problem. We've started to find that. We're beginning to happen as pe as we started to go back to the office and companies were more open to hybrid. People were finding that they were going into the office and the people they wanted to see weren't there. So then they started to back out and say, well, I'm not gonna go back. Why should I bother spending the money the time? So we were right around what we thought was going to be the problem. And we've developed Duome now as a platform, a smart scheduling platform to help people choose the most effective day to go into the office. It gives them the information, and that's what we say to companies now is if you're going to offer hybrid working, give your employees the information they need to choose the most effective day to go in. So if I go in on a Wednesday, , I can say it was a really good day. I saw everybody I needed to see, and I did the work I needed to do and that's what our platform does.
This is hilarious. And thanks for sharing the whole journey. I actually never heard about job sharing, by the way. I don't want to during the conversation to the job sharing starts. Sure. But that's also really great.
Yeah.
Sharing part-time roles or working. During, or I immediately after the maternity leave. That's a challenge on its own. But let's talk about the scheduling part because again I guess you also, but I also worked in offices before.
Sure.
And apart from the usual issues, one of the key issues that I always had with the office is again, I was working in the advertising business, so and, but I'm not sure that's like a hundred percent applicable only to that business, but it was very meeting driven. Hmm. Right. During in the office, most of the, that we had a, a separate floor usually at the agencies. We dedicated only to meeting rooms and booking those meeting rooms was, I know that was in, that has a challenge on its own. And sometimes you had to wait in order to get a free meeting room but at that time, obviously most of the people spent time, the whole time within the office. Now in any hybrid setup. I never worked in a hybrid setup by the way. But I can see that it can be a huge challenge one of the biggest challenges is part of the scheduling.
Sure.
So I think you are, you are on the right track because if I go in on a Wednesday, but everyone else is going in on the Wednesday I need to spend a whole day there just to get a meeting room. Yeah. But if I have a smart scheduling tool or whatever solution that we. I can go in only on Thursday with my small team because obviously if you have like thousands of people not everyone need to go back in the office at the same day. So we can actually juggle around with free available meeting rooms for example. So that's a big challenge. How do you, I guess the question that I want to ask is around the size of the companies.
Sure.
So, right, because I guess for 10 people, I mean, have a Calendly or something, or just, you know, email thread and you can discuss or whatever. But if you have like more than a hundred people, that's when things get messy, right?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've got, we've got people using our platform because there is that visibility. It's just even, you know, just having that visibility if you're, you know, even if there's, I think the smallest company that's using our platform is around 20. And they use it because they, you know, they are in and outta the office. They've only got around 12 desks. So having that visibility of who's going to be in on no certain days is still very helpful to them. But you're absolutely right. When you start moving into the, we've got companies, you know, over 200, 300, 400, 500 using the platform. And then it starts to get really complicated.
Yes.
And with with that, companies start to panic a little bit and they start to say, right, well in that case we're going to get the marketing team always coming in on Tuesday. And then the sales team always come in on Wednesday and design team come in on Thursday cuz they start to do that. We personally and I personally, That that's a mistake because it's great to have people that your team in and anchor days as some companies call them to get your team in because obviously that is your team and you want them mixing together, but we need to think about how we actually work. And even when you're in a team, you're not necessarily working. With those people in the team, you're probably working with seven or eight other people from different teams working on projects.
Yes.
So you're actually better off focusing on getting those project teams in, not necessarily those actual teams, their sales and marketing design accounts get the people that are working on the projects. Now, that is more important with regards bringing people.
Yeah, sorry. Sorry. This is like super interesting because this actually not just about scheduling, it's about how you people create operations and processes. So most of the companies think around teams because the teams are working on certain projects.
Yeah.
And they need to work together, but that immediately creates silos.
Absolutely.
The teams. Right. So if, but if you don't, you, you kinda disregard the teams at all. Yeah. And focus only on the project. That means it complicates a little bit on scheduling, I guess.
Yeah. Right, right. Absolutely.
But it, smoothers out the project management side and kinda like, you know, eliminates siloing within teams.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's what the Duome platform does. We've built it with that in mind. We've built it so we're bringing, we're essentially the idea around the platform is putting the right people together, doing the right work in the right location at the right time. And so what we're doing that, and we do that by essentially asking three questions of everybody. Where do you plan to work? Who would you like to see, and what are you working on? We also integrate into outlook and into Google. So we bring across calendar information so we know, I know the platform knows that I've got a meeting with you on Tuesday, so it would essentially make the recommendation. You've got a meeting with Peter on Tuesday. He's gonna be in the office on Tuesday. So are four other people in that meeting gonna be in the office on Tuesday. Why don't you go into the office that day on Tuesday? Again, it's getting the right people in. We're trying to get people collaborating. But it's got to be the right people, you know? That's the thing. I spoke to a company recently who they they had, I think it was 60 desks in their office, and the person said, there's eight people in the office. I've got two people over in that corner, two people in that corner, one in that corner. And it's like, well, they're the wrong people. They're, you're, you're better off having eight people who are working on one project in these same models. Yeah. Because at least you're creating that vibe. You know that. And they're doing the work so, And that's what we do. We bring those people together. We think about the projects, we bring the right people together, putting them working together.
And I'm so curious what are you hearing from your prospects or clients? What are they struggling with in terms of hybrid? I guess not everything is revolving around scheduling. They have other issues, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah. Trust. Trust is, you know, you've probably heard that a thousand times. It really is. It really is. And trust. Trust is a thing. I mean, and, but then trust comes down to, you know. When I've worked in offices where people have worked there till seven or eight at night, but if you walk past their desk, they're not working. You know, they're shopping or they're playing cards. Just because you can see them doesn't necessarily mean they're working. So but then we need to start thinking about how do we start to you know, look at like KPIs, we start to set, you know, targets for people. So it doesn't matter. I don't care whether you do it in front of me, as long as you do it by this time. You know, that's, we need to start thinking that way, and I think the trust will come if managers start to think about things in that way, say, well, this is the job that needs to be done. It needs to be done by Friday. I don't care if you do it on a beach in Barbados. As long as I get the work.
Barbados...
I dunno, I'm only saying that cause it's absolutely freezing cold here in England right now. .
Well, Barbados sounds fun.
Yeah, doesn't it. But, but, but that's where it's got to be. It's got, you know, it's got to be around that. It's gotta be starting to set you know, certain KPIs really.
Sure. Sure. And one other thing that I think is really important around hybrid is that some of the so there are many ways to approach it or how companies approached it as far as I understood the reactions from the public sources. One is that they had an office. Pandemic hit and they kept the office space. So the, the space as a space, it was the same size. It stayed the same. Yeah. They had the same meeting room numbers, they had the same desk numbers and so on and so on. They might decrease the utility cost a little bit, but still the office was there. That was usually, by the way, for bigger enterprise companies. Because it was, you know, harder to cancel or modify a lease or they directly own the office anyway. But there were other companies on the other hand who were a little bit more flexible, smaller businesses or startup companies that they just simply decreased the size of their offices. And, you know, made, made that work. So what do you see, what was the most or what is the most popular trend that you see in general or within your clients as well? Because when it comes to scheduling if you have the same office space and the same number of people that you already had, but you know, they x number of days only in the office. You obviously have a problem with scheduling to make sure that those, the relevant people will show up, but if you have a smaller sized office space, you have more people than desks, shall we say. Yeah. Yeah. That means that you have a second problem with scheduling. You don't want to come everyone at the same time to the office. Right?
No, that's why it has to be the right people. That's why just by, you know, I spoke, I know of a company that's got 450 staff. They've got 450 desks, and on a Wednesday, all 450 desks are filled. And then on Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, they're running at, you know, around 30% of their office space. And for me, that just doesn't necessarily make sense really. I think we kind of need to flatten that curve a bit, bring down that Wednesday and get all the right people in. Because you know, from that point of view, you know, one of the things we offer in the platform is space management data. We've got data on how the office is being used. So we can tell you where the really busy days, the really quiet days, we can tell you the most, the best locations. There are companies that are using it really to help them reduce their real estate, you know, when they're running it, you know, 10% on a, on a Monday, 25% on a Tuesday, 90% on a Wednesday and back down to 25% Thursday and Friday, then you've really gotta start thinking about, well, what's the point of the office that we've got if we could flatten that Wednesday down, we could maybe even get rid of a floor of the office and start reducing you know, the, the outgoing that we have with regards to real estate. So that's one thing that we're, you know, that we actually do with with companies as well, is we help them with that space management to potentially get rid of some of their real estate so that their office is running at maybe at about 70% each day. But then you know, it goes back to just making sure it's the right people in. It's not all just getting everyone in on the one day. There's so many people that are working on different things, and those things are changing week to week. Monday next week might be a day that I really need to get my head down and just write something, and I don't need anybody around me, but being told I've got to come in that day and sit with all those people excited and cheering and, you know, whatever they might be doing in the office cuz they're excited to be around people.
Yes.
That's not gonna help me. You know?
Yes.
That might be better. So again, it comes down to making sure that the people are coming in for the right reason into the office, not just coming in because it's Wednesday, you know?
Yes.
Coming into the office because you've got work to do. Do the work for to the location that you need to do it. So if it's head down day, stay at home or get, you know, go somewhere where you find it super peaceful to get your head down. But then if you need to be chatting to your team or getting in collaborating or you feel that social, you need that social connection, then go in on those days and it, by getting that balance. So not having fixed days, but being open to changing. Been open to that choice, being open to the, you know, deciding to go in because it's the right day to go in, is for me, it's absolutely the key. And then by having people who are doing that, you're less likely to get those overfilled offices. Again we're working with one company that they've got the number escapes me, but basically only got about 33% of the off of desks for the amount of people that they've got in the company.
That's brave.
Yeah. No, it's very brave. But they're managing that through our platform because they're making sure that it's the right people coming in every day, that 33% of the office is full, but it's the right 33% of the business that are in.
Wow. How do they, how do they make sure that because, This is so interesting because it presents even more challenging , by the way. Because if you have like a hundred people, but only 30 can come to the office. Yeah. How do you make sure that those a hundred people at least will, you know, they meet with each other all the time, or do they need to meet each other?
We make recommendations. So it comes, it comes as a recommendation. So by answering the three questions that you have to answer in the platform on a weekly basis, it takes less than 30 seconds to answer the questions. But with that, with the answers to those questions, the algorithm goes to work. It starts looking at your colleagues, and then it will say to you, the best day for you to go in is that day. And you know, we have a desk, you know, a space zone management in there as well, so we know the number of desks within the floor or the space so people can then check into those as well. So if, I know that if I'm working, if I need to work in the HR zone, cuz I'm gonna be working on HR with somebody. I can check. I can see there's 10 desks in that area. I can see seven of them have been taken. I can see who the seven people are that have taken them, and then I can take one of them as well. So again, it's all about putting people in the right place, doing the right work.
Or Yes, or I never met with Johnny before, although both of our working here for a year now. Do you want to work with Johnny today?
Absolutely. So that's another thing that we do as well. So as well as being, because it's connected into the calendar both Outlook and Google. We do, we do both. It knows to make the recommendation. So you've gotta put meeting with Peter on Tuesday up, which I said earlier, but also if you're a senior leader and you know that you know, Bob and Jim have just joined the business, and you can then Mark say, well, I should definitely get some time with Bob and Jim because they're the two new people. You can mark them down as people that you would be interested in as being near, and it will make recommendations for the best days to be with those. But vice versa. You know, as a new person, they can also do that. Yeah. They can also do that and say, well, I really need to get time with Peter, the boss, so they can put it down and then it will say, well, Peter's gonna be in the office on Tuesday. Well, I'm definitely going in on Tuesday to get some FaceTime with Peter. Nice. So we make those recommendations, but then at the same time, You know, lots of people say, oh, well we can manage this through our calendars, but that's great. But if I'm looking at your calendar, Peter and I look Tuesday, I can see, you know, it's, it is Saturday morning. I'm checking, thinking about my week next week. I check my, I check your calendar. I can see that you've got, you know, in your Outlook calendar on your Gmail calendar. You're gonna be in the office on Tuesday. So I go, right, that's it. I'll go in Tuesday. Now if I turn up on Tuesday, you change your mind Sunday nights, your calendar's not going to let me know, so I'm gonna arrive and you're go, well, I did change it in my calendar. Well, I didn't check your calendar. Every day this week you owe will actually notify the person and say you wanted to see Peter. Peter's now changed to Wednesday, Wednesday's now a better day to see Peter.
Nice. Nice, nice.
So, so again, we're trying to avoid that. I came into the office and you weren't here, so we, we've got rid of that problem.
Sure, sure. Let's challenge you a little bit in terms of hybrid work. Let's start from the remote work experts in general, I guess. So the movement, people who are part of the movement of the whole future of work and remote work stuff, they usually frame this whole situation in very black and white, I guess. You either go back to the office a hundred percent and pretty much that's it. Or you are remote first and you can travel and whatever. You don't commute, and so on and so on. Again, the truth as always kind of like lies between the two extremes, I guess. How do you see is it hybrid work kinda like a compromise to, you know, appeal to both extremes. Is it something like a trend that that stays on? Will it evolve to, to something which we don't know yet?
Sure, sure. I think hybrid definitely here to stay. I think we'll start to see the way we use the offices changing. I think we're already starting to see that now. I speak to a lot of office designers and people like that, and they're already starting to rethink the way the office has been built. So, you know, with regards to things like hoteling and, and things like that now. So I think we're going to start seeing it transition. There'll be like hubs we can go to potentially that aren't necessarily those rigid desks. But I think hybrid is definitely here to stay I think the vast majority at least from the conversations I've. I know that Nick Bloom actually did a post. Where he, they released some data around 4,000 US firms. 50% of those firms are fully on site, but they're accommodation retail, food service businesses. But 40% of them are doing some kind of hybrid working. But then, so I think it, I think hybrid is definitely, it will stay as it is. I think we will start to see more and more people wanting remote, but I think, you know, with hybrid you get that remote. There's no reason does, hybrid doesn't necessarily have to mean you be, you're in the office for two days a week. It just means that you have somewhere to go to, to do a certain type of work when you need to do it. So there's no reason why I couldn't be hybrid working. Let's go back to Barbados, but then I could go back into the office for three days after that two weeks. It doesn't have to be two days in the office every week. It's just having that sort of hub to go to when I need to go there. So I think people caught up with was hybrid is only home and only office. It's not, there's third spaces, you know, there's so many places. I mean, as I said, I go to third spaces. I go to work in coffee shops, I go to wherever. I just want to be most comfortable. I mean, I move around my house sometimes I'll just, you know, sit in various different places in my house, you know, and so it's wherever I'm feeling most inspired on at that particular time. So I think hybrid will loosen up. Companies will start to loosen up and, and hopefully they'll start to realize that actually if you give employees the choice, but give them the information to make that choice, then they'll really make hybrid work. And if you don't see them for a week, but you know that they're getting their head down, getting the job done, that's okay. And then maybe see them the week after for one day in the office. So I think that's what we'll see. I think we'll see a, a loosening on what people believe the term hybrid means. And it'll be more distributed, I guess, will be a, a term we'll start to use. And the term hybrid will probably start. Disappear and we'll be more agile. We'll be more, you know, more relaxed about where it is as long as the work's getting done.
Music to my ears because I feel the very same this is the reason why I love the very old school term of flexible working, it's pretty much describes everything around that. I think that the location, the time, and how you work is pretty much flexible because the company allows it for you. Because it has the same flexible processes installed. And again, not everyone wants to travel. Not everyone needs to travel. Not everyone wants to be on the road. And again, the work, the majority of the workforce as of today, well, I don't know the exact numbers, but most of them are 30 plus and below 50. Which means they have kids. Yeah. They have commitments. They have Location related commitments in terms of, you know, immediate peers, friends, family, school. So for them, I guess the commute itself or the location of the office somewhere within the city. It's okay. But they don't want to spend the whole week and the whole day everywhere though. So I think that's, that's a good, good trend.
The last six years or so, I've been working remotely hybrid, working in one form or another because it, well, five and a half years because we decided to start this business and it was one, it was, you know, always we started it, as I said at the start, was to do with family and having children, but also on the flip side is my relationship with my children has improved immensely. You know, I, I felt like I had a pretty good relationship, but when I was working in the office, I was getting home, leaving the house at seven in the morning and getting home at seven in the evening. They would, they would just, you know, get grumpy daddy at the end of the day because , you know, I'd be the guy that walk, who's the guy that walks in the house at seven 30 in the evening and just tells me to go straight to bed. You know, but that will change when I started to work in remote and hybrid way. You know, I'd be taking my children to school, picking them up from school have more time for them at certain, you know, when they needed that time and still be able to do my work. There's nothing. I'll often find myself at 10 o'clock at night going, right. I had to do that thing now I've now got the head space and the time to do that. Because I'm just, we we're so much more relaxed about our hours being, rather than being so rigid about the hours. So Sure. I'm flexible working is definitely the term because. There are so many versions of it, and as long as the job's getting done, then who cares when it gets done? As long as the people that are happy doing that work and they're happy doing that work and the time that suits them, I don't care if you do it at two o'clock in the morning if that's when you are in your sweet spot.
So what can you tell to the leaders? Because most of the, I mean, this is leadership anywhere, so most of the audience are managers of teams. What do you, what can you tell to them how to approach or do or a bit more flexible but again, efficient way of doing hybrid?
Sure, sure. I think as I said earlier, you know, really setting, deciding on clear KPIs is the real key. You know whether that's around productivity outputs you know, looking at attendance just setting, you know, as a leader, if communication is key, letting the team know what it is that you expect from them. You know, and, and it's, you know, by saying, I'm absolutely cool with you know, working from home or coming into the office when you, when you think is best as long as the work's getting done. So communicate what you want to get from them, and then lead by example as well. One of my favorite terms I've ever heard is to, is leaving loudly as a boss guy, you know, bosses that slink out in the office or just disappear offline, but still expect you to be working. It's a, you know, don't be afraid to leave loudly. Say, right guys, it's the weekend I'm off. I'm gonna go do this with my kids, or I'm going away with people. I'm now finishing work. It's okay to finish work and it's okay to go have your. So the term leaving loudly is one of my favorite terms. So kind of practice that, just go, you know, we're cool. I trust you to get the job done. I'm now finishing for the day. And that's a good thing. But again, it's a communication. Don't hide, but set those clear KPIs, I think.
I love it. I love it. Graham, where, where can people find you?
So just go to my LinkedIn, Graham Joyce. But then also look at the website duome.co. And you know, I'm always happy to give people demos I love talking about, so as you can see, it's our passion when, when Eric and I started in flexible work in to so how flexible working for ourselves, for our families that's why we started doing this because it was purely to make life easier for us and our families. And then when I started speaking to people at my children's school and they were going, oh, this is great. We need this, we need, you know, somebody who's, but thinking about the people. So but yes, track me down. You know we're on Twitter, on duome.co is the website or find me on LinkedIn and I'm happy to chat as you can tell.
Yes, the passion is palpable. I love it. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming for the show. This is really, this was a really great conversation. Thank you.
Wonderful. Yeah, no, it's great. It's great to chat and I could keep going. Peter.
