The Three-Segment Workforce: Managing Risk and Reaping Rewards in a Workplace Combining In-Office, Remote, and Hybrid Workers

As vaccination efforts continue and the end of the pandemic appears — if faintly, for now — within view, company leaders have a lot of questions to answer about the post-COVID economy. For employees, the most prominent of all might be: office or remote?

Major players have so far been split on the matter. For every Twitter going permanently remote, there’s a JPMorgan planning an eventual full return to the office. Many companies are eyeing the middle ground, adopting hybrid models that allow employees to split their time between the office and telecommuting.

Welcome to what risk management solutions firm Aclaimant ‘s Chief Risk Architect Gary Pearce and CTO and cofounder Joel Friedman call the “three-segment workforce.”

While remote and hybrid arrangements existed before the pandemic, the office was king. Only 5 percent of office workers were primarily remote before the pandemic, but in the three-segment workforce, we’re likely to see a fairly even split between in-person, remote, and hybrid arrangements. We may even see office, remote, and hybrid workers intermingle within the same company.

“COVID-19 has been a catalyst for organizations to rethink their approaches to in-person work and allow more flexible workplaces for employees,” says Pearce.

The benefit of this three-segment workforce is that it recognizes there is no one-size-fits-all work arrangement. COVID proved that some people and roles are actually better off in a virtual environment. Rather than throw productivity and flexibility gains away by defaulting to the pre-pandemic status quo, many companies are seeking to unleash their workers’ full potential by creating more tailored work arrangements.

“Organizations have found each situation has its own considerations and issues, and to meet customer and stakeholder needs, they must adapt accordingly,” says Friedman.

That said, remote work isn’t exactly utopian, and plenty of people have struggled with isolation, burnout, lack of collaboration, and the stress of juggling personal and professional responsibilities. The three-segment workforce won’t magically solve all of those problems, but the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks, provided we manage our risks right.

The Risks of a Three-Segment Workforce

While the three-segment workforce allows more employees to work in the contexts most conducive to their best performance, it can also exacerbate existing logistical difficulties.

For example, Pearce and Friedman point to the safety precautions put in place over the last year, like masking and social distancing. It’s relatively easy to impose requirements on employees when their job contexts are identical, less so when some employees are in the office, some work from home, and others bounce between the two. Data security is similarly tricky, as cybersecurity best practices can differ drastically, depending on whether an employee is using company devices on the company network or logging in from elsewhere.

“It’s arguably more difficult to enforce certain standards in a three-segment workforce,” says Friedman. “For example, if you have a person who spends part of their workday in the office but another part working from a coffee shop near their home, what are the implications as respects data security and unknowingly bringing infections into the workplace? Will the person who is in the office part-time be as vigilant regarding workplace rules as the person who is there all the time?”

Vaccination requirements, already a can of worms, can become doubly complicated when you’re dealing with a three-segment workforce. If in-office employees are required to get vaccinated, should remote employees be as well? Would remote employees bristle at the company trying to dictate what they do in their own homes? What about employees who only come to the office for a few hours a month?

“If you have, say, 20 employees and one is not vaccinated due to a medical accommodation, what changes must be made that can affect the other 19, such as mandatory participation in certain meetings or functions?” elaborates Pearce. “How do you verify that people indeed received vaccinations, and what will you do if a critical employee stands their ground and says, ‘No, I’m not getting vaccinated’? Ensuring consistent and equitable treatment across the entire workforce can be difficult under these circumstances.”

In addition to making preexisting challenges harder, the three-segment workforce also produces brand new headaches of its own.

“Wage-hour risk is a particular example,” notes Pearce. “For the non-exempt worker, drawing the line between work time and non-work time can be much more difficult, yet treating all such workers as exempt brings about its own problems. Pay equity, administering reasonable accommodations, and even worker productivity are also things that must be considered. How about job descriptions – are they responsive to this new environment?”

Over the course of the pandemic, we’ve also seen increased investments in technology as companies search for ways to keep employees engaged and collaborating when working on distributed teams. The transition to a three-segment workforce will likely require just as much tech, if not more. Yet as companies rely heavily on technology, they also open themselves to security risks if employees don’t use the tech properly. According to a recent report from Veritas, 71 percent of employees have shared business-critical data over unsecured tools like instant messaging in the past, and 75 percent say they’ll continue to share sensitive information over these channels.

“Organizations and leaders must address these security risks head-on and ensure employees are trained properly to use these tools and avoid sharing sensitive information on these platforms,” says Friedman. “While these technology investments might require a little extra work for business leaders and HR teams to get them up and running smoothly, they are also a valuable asset and tool to manage risk for their companies, especially pertaining to the pandemic and tracking and controlling employee COVID-19 exposure.”

Mitigating the Risks While Reaping the Rewards

Of course, any major business transformation comes with its risks. The benefits of the three-segment workforce — including increased productivity, access to broader global talent pools, and reduced facilities costs — can far outweigh the dangers, as long as you have a sound risk management plan.

A balanced perspective is key, according to Pearce and Friedman. Any risk management plan should take into account the needs of every stakeholder, from the organization and its customers to employees and contractors. The plan also needs to be comprehensive, spanning liability exposure, physical and administrative controls in the workplace, data privacy and information security, wage-hour exposure, and the latest regulatory mandates and guidance from state, local, and national authorities.

“Yet none of this expertise is of much value unless it is linked to practical knowledge of the needs and expectations of the workforce, and the realities of how information is conveyed and rules are enforced,” says Friedman.

Risk managers heading up these plans will need “full command of the subject matters at hand, including the full breadth of regulatory and compliance implications for any intended course of action,” explains Pearce. “They may need to look for creative ways to meet critical needs with the least amount of disruption or risk. They need to be balanced in their approach, but never afraid to speak the truth when necessary.”

“A well-intended plan that doesn’t include input from critical stakeholders is likely to fail, yet even a great plan is probably going to be unsuccessful if it is poorly communicated,” says Pearce.