Steve Evison was worried he was starting to lose touch with staff with the introduction of hybrid working since Covid – especially the younger and more junior members. The majority of his meetings had moved online and usually only involved other senior leaders at Essex County Council, where he works as director of sustainable growth. The opportunity to mix informally with more junior employees and find out what makes them tick had disappeared.
While recognising that hybrid working offers many benefits, he was anxious that younger staff might be feeling forgotten about and isolated by working from home and would find it harder to join up with colleagues in other teams. “The way we work today has hugely changed since Covid,” says Evison. “When everybody was in the office you could make connections with other employees in a much more informal way and get to know different people and how they linked into your job.”
