The Future of Work: Whenever and Wherever You Want

An interview with Alex Hirst and Lizzie Penny

“The real challenge is understanding that your presence does not determine your value. You should be held accountable for… output and quality, rather than the amount of time you are seen to be working.”

COVID-19 marked a pivotal moment in the world of work. The introduction of nationwide lockdowns forced schools, hospitals and businesses to adapt how they functioned. Now, 3 years on, remote and hybrid working have become commonplace for many organisations.

For some people, however, this new era dawned a few years earlier. Entrepreneurs Alex Hirst and Lizzie Penny brought their ‘workstyle’ concept to life in 2014, going on to found Hoxby the following year. Hoxby is a social enterprise that helps people around the world design and implement a style of working that suits their lifestyle. As joint-CEOs, Alex and Lizzie have worked with major corporate clients like Unilever, Deloitte and Amazon to promote their ‘Workstyle Revolution’.

Alex and Lizzie’s work is backed by research, including their own longitudinal study into the relationship between autonomy, wellbeing and productivity. Using Hoxby as a case study, the results over the last 3 years demonstrate a positive correlation between these factors: greater autonomy improves wellbeing, which in turn boosts productivity.

As advocates for a more autonomous future of work, they have recently published their first book, Workstyle: A revolution for wellbeing, productivity and society.

What are the main problems with traditional ways of working? Can you share your own experiences of having a 9-to-5 job?

ALEX: We should probably start with our own experiences, as a real-life example of the main challenges of traditional work. ‘Workstyle’ is a word that Lizzie and I came up with in the pub — like all good ideas from the UK! It’s a word that we desperately need now that the majority of work can be done anywhere and anytime, rather than having to be in an office or fixed place of work between the hours of 9 and 5, from Monday to Friday.

When Lizzie and I first had this conversation over 2-for-1 cocktails, I’d already reached the point of burnout and realised that I needed to make some big changes in my life. Prior to that, I would usually wake up at 5:30am, leave the house at 6:30 to get to the office at half 7, and then return home 12 hours later. I did that 5 days a week, on the basis that I couldn’t possibly give any more. I kept it up for years, until I eventually became ambivalent to the highs and numb to the lows.

Hearing my wife say that I’d become a shadow of myself was what it took for me to acknowledge that I’d reached burnout and needed to change the way I thought about my job. We took some time off and went on holiday, but it didn’t help. I then realised that I needed a new psychological relationship with work, based on output and the value of what I was doing, rather than input or the amount of time I spent working. This overarching change that I wanted to bring about for myself was what I took to the table that night to discuss with Lizzie.

LIZZIE: My context is slightly different. It was only when I had my first child that my eyes were truly opened to inequalities in the workplace. I’m embarrassed to say that, until then, I hadn’t really been aware of the factors that were excluding people from work. I suddenly realised that I didn’t want to be at work during Finn’s every waking hour; I preferred to work during his nap time and after he was asleep in the evening. As Alex said, I wanted to be judged on my output rather than when and where I worked.

I value this way of working for several reasons. 2 years after we created the idea of workstyle and started Hoxby, I had serious complications while pregnant with my twin daughters. I needed surgery and 9 weeks of bed rest, so being able to work from my bedroom during that time was amazing; it was a distraction from long, anxiety-ridden days on my own. Against the odds, both Zoe and Megan survived. But the day we brought them home from hospital and couldn’t fit the double pram through the front door of our London flat, we decided it was time to move to Bristol. I was able to do this with no disruption to my career.

Fast forward to 2020 and I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which turned my world upside down. Once again, workstyle was my outlet: a digital world that I could escape into, as much or as little as I felt able to. It helped to pass time in the chemotherapy chair. It stopped the cancer diagnosis from defining me or completely taking over my thoughts. Since then, my husband has also been diagnosed with cancer. I now fit my work around supporting him through treatment, trying to stay healthy myself, managing the side effects of my medication and looking after 3 small children. These experiences have impressed on me the importance of workstyle for each and every one of us. I’ve realised how much it can actually change lives.

ALEX: To go back to your original question, the fundamental issue with traditional work is that life is forced to fit around it. This is a hangover from the Industrial Age that we no longer require. In reality, life doesn’t conform to 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday blocks. Life changes and everyone is different, so we should redesign work to fit around the unique nature of every individual. This is what workstyle was created to do.

It’s clear from your experiences that workstyle is a very personal concept. It’s about embracing the unpredictability of life and realising that productivity doesn’t depend on the hours you put in. In fact, several companies testing a 4-day week have noticed a positive impact on output and employee engagement.

LIZZIE: Although I agree with that, we make a distinction between workstyle and hybrid or flexible working. These supposedly progressive approaches to work are really just adaptations of the industrial 9-to-5 mindset, which has been around for over 200 years and isn’t fit for our digital world.

But, as you said, it’s about working with autonomy and individuality. Even if people have things in common, we all live unique lives. We’re also productive in different ways, so our approach to work should align with our individual circumstances and preferences.

That’s a really good point. You briefly mentioned the differences between workstyle and flexible/hybrid/remote working — methods we became accustomed to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Did the events of the past 3 years accelerate the ‘Workstyle Revolution’?

LIZZIE: Yes and no. When we started doing this 8 years ago, people used to think we were a bit strange. COVID helped by making people more open to new ways of working. The naysayers insisted that autonomous working wasn’t possible in their job but, during the pandemic, the vast majority of these people realised it could work.

That said, it was tested under extreme circumstances, so most people haven’t truly experienced autonomous working. For instance, autonomy is about being able to work from wherever you want, which is not necessarily a remote location. You might be an extrovert who wants to be surrounded by people in a coworking space or coffee shop, but during the pandemic you were forced to work from home.

ALEX: Remote working was a crisis response, born out of necessity. Organisations introduced a reactive strategy to survive the pandemic and several nationwide lockdowns. That’s not the same as a proactive decision to change the way you work for competitive advantage. So, in this post-pandemic transition period, organisations need to figure out how to go from being reactive to proactive, while meeting employees’ demands for greater autonomy and freedom.

This is the challenge that today’s leaders face. We’re at a critical point in history, with the pandemic as a catalyst for defining our future. Humanity will look back on this period as an inflection point, from which we need to realise that a significant change can — and should — happen. We want our generation to be remembered as the people who made it happen, rather than defaulting back to how things were before because we were too intimidated by the prospect of doing something different. We’ve been in the digital age for some time now, but we haven’t evolved our ways of working to meet new needs. Now is the time to do that.

This all sounds really positive, but what are the limitations or drawbacks of individual workstyles? It would be difficult for managers and Human Resources to keep up with so many different schedules and contracts. How would it work in practice?

LIZZIE: Alex and I set up Hoxby as the prototype of workstyle to prove that it could work. We’ve been learning ever since. I don’t think anyone has nailed autonomous working yet, but I would argue that it’s a lot better than traditional working structures. By taking an experimental approach, we quickly learnt 3 important lessons that underpin this way of working:

1. Your company needs to be digital-first. This is an enormous mindset shift for anyone who has worked in a traditional business that operates on the basis of being together in person (usually in meetings). At Hoxby, our meeting room is Google Meet and the water cooler is a digital channel full of chat about cats, dogs and babies. Getting into the mindset of working digital-first requires a significant transition for some businesses.
2. We must learn to work asynchronously — at a time that suits us, as individuals, and not necessarily when everyone else is working. This approach is not only more inclusive, but also more productive. It can be really fun and collaborative as well, as long as you set the right parameters and have suitable technology.
3. You need to invest in a trust-based culture. Workstyle won’t be effective unless it’s underpinned by trust. Employees should be judged on their output. I don’t want people to care whether I’m working from bed or the hair salon; I just want them to know that I’m dedicated to my career. This trust needs to be modelled by leaders, recognised and rewarded.

Alex and I consult for organisations on a 3-year or 5-year journey towards having a more autonomous culture. Elements like leadership, culture and attitude are really important, but there are also logistical aspects to consider. Companies need to think about the technologies they use and how to reward output rather than paying traditional salaries. Leaders need to demonstrate that autonomy only works if it goes hand-in-hand with individual accountability for delivering what is expected before a deadline.

I agree that trust is the foundation of autonomy. Without accountability, people won’t be motivated to demonstrate what they can achieve in their own time. My contracted hours are 9am — 6pm, but I know that I struggle to concentrate around 5pm. So, I go to the gym at 5 and finish my work when I get home in the evening. I’m more productive if I don’t sit at my desk all day long. I guess it’s about embracing the flow of your own productivity.

ALEX: The real challenge is understanding that your presence does not determine your value. You should be held accountable for delivering work on time, contributing to team goals and focusing on output and quality, rather than the amount of time you are seen to be working.

It’s a challenge for both individuals and organisations to transition from the 200-year-old way of working into a new method, proven to be better for productivity, wellbeing and society. It feels like a brave leap because it’s still fresh, even after 8 years of trying it ourselves. But if more people adopt workstyle today, it will advance into something far more sophisticated over the next two centuries.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to introduce workstyle at their conpany, but needs to convince the leadership team of its benefits. Is there anything that you would recommend to help them change the tide, especially if they face resistance?

LIZZIE: The first thing to do is read the book, which lays out the case for workstyle. With 600 references, we’ve built a substantive case around the fact that this is how we should be working. But it’s also really accessible and fun to read.

The second step is to start using the word ‘workstyle’. Drop it into a conversation and get used to the vernacular, as well as the mindset. The third point is that it only takes one really inspired person within an organisation to create change. Some of the companies we speak to are initially resistant, but you just need to find one changemaker who can inspire someone else with the power to enact that change.

Our team at Hoxby have developed a proven approach for organisations to follow, even if they appear traditional. We lay out the business case behind workstyle and help them envisage the journey ahead, which doesn’t need to be a radical change. They can take small steps, run pilots and gradually learn how autonomous working could be applied to their organisation — whether it’s for competitive advantage, to delight clients, or to improve diversity and inclusion.

ALEX: As an individual, you need to set your workstyle, then project it and respect it. Start by determining what you want or need to achieve in life that isn’t related to your job; your workstyle will fit around this. Even if it’s just a theoretical exercise to help you understand the difference between your current style of working and your ideal workstyle, it will still be useful.

The point of setting your workstyle is to start working in accordance with it and communicating with others, which is where projection comes in. It’s all very well having your own workstyle, but if no one is aware of it then they’ll struggle to work with you in a way that helps you uphold it. Projecting your workstyle can be as simple as updating your email signature or your status on whatever messaging app your company uses.

Finally, respecting your workstyle is about setting boundaries and trying to stick to the approach that you set. It might be difficult to prioritise going for a swim in the middle of the day, but if that helps you concentrate then it’s important for you to do it. We generally find that people are better at respecting others’ workstyles than their own. It might help to have a workstyle buddy who is on this journey at the same time, so that you can support and motivate each other. It’s also important to recognise that workstyles evolve as life evolves.

Apart from finding an accountability partner, is there anything that people can do to ensure they actually stick to the changes they intend to make? I have all these grand ideas about how to achieve a better work-life balance, but I just procrastinate — maybe because I’m a perfectionist. How can I get over that hurdle?

ALEX: I’m probably going to give a more cerebral answer to this question than Lizzie. I think we need to start placing more value on our lives outside work, because it’s far too easy to neglect our personal lives in favour of our jobs. We need to unlearn a lot of the pressures and behaviours we’ve developed over time and recognise that it’s okay to start prioritising life over work. We have to trust that we’re still delivering value, just at a time that works for us.

LIZZIE: Alex is laughing because he knows I’ve got a more detailed answer. In the book, we talk about taking control of technology so that it doesn’t control you. If you’re a perfectionist, there are methods for controlling your behaviour. It’s important to become self-aware and put boundaries in place. For example, I don’t receive work messages or emails on my phone. My Slack status clearly says that I don’t work Wednesdays, so everyone can see that. I don’t have notifications at all, so I can always focus on the task at hand.

There’s a section at the end of each chapter with practical tips like these. It all starts with setting, projecting and respecting your workstyle. After you’ve done some self-reflection and put barriers in place, everything else flows from there.

Speaking of the chapters in your book, Chapter 4 is called ‘Why 2014 was a magical year’. Can you elaborate on that?

LIZZIE: We love 2014! Everyone talks about the pandemic’s impact on work, but we think that 2014 was the year everything actually changed. 3 major things happened to create the conditions to fundamentally change how we work:

1. Technology. We already benefitted from the portability of hardware and the prevalence of WiFi, but 2014 was the first time you could tether to your mobile phone as a personal hotspot. This transformed work from a place we went to something we did, whenever and wherever we could find space for our laptops. The invention of online collaboration and communication tools meant that we could begin to work in a way that best suited us as individuals, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach.
2. The increasing awareness of a changing (and ageing) demographic. By the year 2050, 21% of the worldwide population will be over 60. As our life expectancy increases and states can no longer fund pensions and social care, and families and communities can’t provide the necessary support, older people will simply need to continue working in order to remain financially independent. As this issue became more prominent in 2014, organisations were forced to adapt to retain enough staff to meet their needs. This remains an impending crisis because there’s a labour market shortage in the UK to which businesses haven’t adjusted.
3. Attitudes to work, especially in terms of choosing how to earn a living. In 2014, a lot of people started trading the antiquated idea of a ‘job for life’ for self-employment or portfolio careers. The freelance workforce is the fastest growing labour market in Europe. The evolving structure of work affords us greater independence and a newfound responsibility for self-management, which relates to our earlier discussion about accountability and autonomy.

So, it was the combination of digital technologies, an ageing population and a more independent mindset that created the perfect conditions for workstyle in 2014.

As you said, COVID was a catalyst — especially for leaders who refused to accept that people could work in a different way. How does it feel to work for a cause you believe in? How has your work-life balance improved as a result of workstyle?

ALEX: Working for a cause you believe in is transformational for both mental and physical health. I put my workstyle into practice almost immediately after my conversation with Lizzie at the pub, and my mental health has improved dramatically — from burnout to complete control. My physical health has improved equally as much. What I didn’t realise until recently is that some of the physical issues I was experiencing were related to my mental health. I haven’t had any of those physical symptoms for 8 years, which is mostly due to having the autonomy to decide when and where I work, free from the pressure of presenteeism and conformity to the 9-to-5 system.

The improvement in my health is also partly due to working on something meaningful with Lizzie, which has been incredibly rewarding. One of the benefits of workstyle is being able to turn your hand to something that inspires and motivates you, whatever that may be. The insistence on developing a single skill and doing the same thing for decades in order to climb up the hierarchy is not how careers work anymore. Freelancing and portfolio careers offer people an opportunity to explore the different facets of their personality and skill set. Workstyle makes that possible.

It’s a good idea to have a blend of different incomes and a sense of purpose. Our book explains that writing your own eulogy could help you make some of these choices. Think forward to the end of your life: how do you want to be remembered? Is what you are doing now taking you towards that ultimate outcome? If not, then use that as a guiding light to steer your work in the direction of your goals.

One of the main challenges of workstyle is having the power to define and shape these things. Taking ownership of our career is something that we haven’t traditionally thought of as within our control. At the heart of this lies an opportunity to work with purpose and have a fulfilling life.

That’s really empowering. Lizzie, I can imagine that your work-life balance is a lot better.

LIZZIE: The turn my life has taken over the past few years means that it’s no longer an option to have a bad work-life balance. Life has had to come first — literally for the sake of my life. Self-management is something that everyone needs to get their head around, especially because people who feel profoundly connected to their work can justify breaking the boundaries they’ve set. This is the dark side of autonomy. Our longitudinal study on Hoxby revealed this potential pitfall, so we can actively try to prevent work encroaching on our team’s lives because of their passion.

I think a lot of people can relate to that. So, what it comes down to is trusting your ability to create enough value, no matter when or where you work. I suppose the key word here is ‘enough’; setting boundaries is about knowing when to stop.

LIZZIE: Exactly. There are many different interventions you can make. I often take time out in the middle of the day to fold the laundry. When I’m away from my computer I get clarity on what’s actually important, rather than reacting to what everyone else is asking me to do.

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