The Singapore Law Gazette

Thriving in the Hybrid Workplace: Thoughts and Tips

So, you’ve just returned from your call break, and have been called to the Bar. Congratulations! You are now an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore!

But now it’s back to work – at the firm you trained at, or at a new workplace. And on your very first day at work, you are faced with the sociopolitical issue of how to navigate the hybrid workplace.

How can young lawyers manage this landscape, in a manner that allows them to successfully reap the benefits of hybrid working while minimising the downsides? I offer some suggestions.

Can You Even Work from Outside the office?

Before we consider the dos and don’ts, the first question is: does your workplace allow hybrid work? Because if your workplace does not, but you nevertheless want to do so, consider whether you want to start off your career by picking this battle. And if this is not the hill you are prepared to die on, but hybrid work is that important to you, consider whether it makes more sense to find another workplace.

But Really, Can You Even Work from Outside the Office?

Let’s assume your workplace does have a hybrid work policy. But the policy is not the be-all and end-all. The working practices of the team leaders or seniors you work directly with are more relevant.

If your workplace has a hybrid work policy, but your team leaders or seniors prefer to interface in person five days a week, the unfortunate reality is that the team’s practice will trump the organisation’s policy. Yes, you could choose to swim against the tide, and insist on your right to work from outside the office in accordance with the policy. But doing so won’t endear you to your team. Consider whether you want to begin your work relationships on this footing.

It may well be that some of your team leaders, or even seniors, expect you to spend more time in the workplace than them. But regardless whether there is a good rationale for this, or whether this makes them a bunch of hypocrites,¹Bear in mind also that they may well spend significant amounts of time outside the office on marketing or business development, or have commitments with young children or aged parents that take up time during office hours and which they make up for after office hours. the point remains – you are not in a particularly strong position, at this nascent stage in your career, to override their expectations.

So if you find yourself in a team whose practice differs from the organisation’s policy, and this is not something you can live with … well, see the section above.

The Case for Coming into the Office

That being said, there are some benefits to coming into the office.

Some of you are probably rolling your eyes. Let me clarify. I am not saying that coming into the office is a panacea, or that the benefits unambiguously outweigh the detriments. But I do suggest that some value can be extracted from coming into the office.

First, for some, the office provides a more conducive working environment. Some require a psychological or physical distance from their beds to do good work. Others have a less-than-ideal home office setup. Yet others value being in the proximity of their firm’s library or hardcopy bundles. If increased productivity means that tasks can be completed quicker and require fewer subsequent rounds of review, this advantage may well outweigh the downsides of actually coming into the office.

Second, coming into the office helps to build interpersonal relationships. Clichéd, but true. All things being equal, a young associate who is in the office more than another associate will have more opportunities to build relationships with seniors, such as by (a) being perceived as available to assist with tasks;²And all the more so if the firm or department is structured with a pool system. I accept that in a perfect world, seniors should not take face-time into account when forming impressions of whether associates are available to assist. But alas, we do not live in a perfect world. (b) being around to join in banter; or (c) asking (or being asked) to grab coffee or lunch.

Is it possible to build good relationships remotely? Of course. But is it harder to do so? Probably.

You may now be thinking: “Well, but what’s the point of workplace relationships? I just want to turn up (whether in person or remotely), do good work and collect my salary. And surely the quality and timeliness of work product will speak for itself!”

A confession: when I first started practice, I used to think this way.

But now, with the benefit of hindsight, I suggest that the quality of your workplace relationships affects, among other things: (a) how forgiving of your mistakes your seniors will be; (b) your seniors’ willingness to mentor and guide you; (c) your chances of being put on interesting and horizon-expanding assignments; and (d) the quality of the references you will get should you choose to leave one day.

And it’s not just about your relationships with your seniors. Your relationships with compatriots and support staff will also have a direct impact on (a) whether you will be able to find cover when you are away; (b) the amount and quality of help you receive when you find yourself in a tight spot;³And believe me – there will be many, many, tight spots. and (c) whether, in the future, your colleagues and ex-colleagues are prepared to make helpful introductions or even refer matters to you.

Like it or not, building good relationships does impact your career.

Third, coming into the office creates more opportunities to learn from your surroundings. Apart from learning from books and doing the work, being in the office also allows you to learn by osmosis. How do your colleagues speak (whether in person or over the telephone) with their clients, opposing counsel, or even court staff? Can you observe good practices to be adopted, or bad practices to be avoided? Can you drop in on a colleague who doesn’t look too busy to get a quick sanity check on an unorthodox argument that you are thinking of running? Maybe your colleague has just come out of a hearing and shares excitedly about an interesting manoeuvre, which you file away in the recesses of your mind until the idea arises, unbidden, at exactly the right moment years later.

I suggest that young lawyers should be sponges who are hungry for knowledge, eager to learn and grow, and on the lookout for opportunities to convert unknown unknowns to, at the very least, known unknowns. Completely cutting out in-person interactions is akin to losing one or two of your five senses while travelling across a new country. Yes, you will still absorb and grow from the experience, but you end up missing out on so much.

That being said, I end this section with a caveat. The second and third benefits are only relevant if there actually are people in the office. But if nobody is ever in the office because your workplace is fully remote, then this article would be of limited value to you anyway. And as for how to ensure that there are actually people in the office when you come in, read on.

How to Make the Most of Your Time in the Office

Let’s assume that I’ve managed to convince you that there is value to coming into the office.⁴Or perhaps I have not, but you have resigned yourself to having to come into the office in order to comply with your firm’s policy or your team’s practice, at least for the time being. How, then, can you extract more returns from actually being in the office?

After all, there is a price to be paid for coming into the office. There’s the need to (a) wake up earlier; (b) change into at least half-decent clothes instead of just working in your pyjamas; (c) spend time, energy and money on the commute to-and-fro; (d) expend energy on social interactions;⁵Especially for the introverts amongst us. (e) spend more on coffee, lunch and perhaps dinner in the CBD … the list goes on.

So if you’re going to be paying this price anyway, why not get more value for the same price paid? I therefore make some suggestions for how to get more out of the time spent in the office.

First, choose to be sociable.⁶Yes, I can hear the cry of dismay from those who identify as introverts. But hear me out.

If you take the trouble to come into the office, but then spend the entire day plugged into your headphones, typing away furiously while staring intensely at your screen, looking up only to glower at whoever walks by as if daring them to disturb you, and lunching by yourself … you end up paying the price for coming into the office, but without reaping much of the potential benefits.

I am not saying that we have to be social butterflies, be someone that we’re not or spend all day pestering our colleagues.⁷And realistically, that’s not what our colleagues want as well. But I am saying that we should be present and connected, make lunch appointments (whether impromptu or scheduled), run ideas by our colleagues (when they don’t appear to be rushing to meet a deadline), ask our neighbours if they need coffee when we get up to recharge, ask to sit in on calls or meetings as learning opportunities … the list goes on.

My suggestion is to make a conscious effort to be, on balance, a net positive to the folks around us in the office. It may not be possible to live by this rule every single day.⁸After all, some days simply wring every drop out of us, such that we have nothing else left to give to those around us. But hopefully, you’re not in a workplace where this is every day. But it is worth a shot. And even if you’re looking at this exercise purely from a self-interested perspective, this is how relationships are seeded, nurtured and deepened. And there is a value to relationships, as discussed above.

Second, choose the right days to be in the office.

Ask your team leaders and seniors if there are any specific days of the week they expect you to be in the office. If yes, stick to that, even if that is not your personal preference.⁹Sure, you may prefer to spend Fridays out of the office. But if you are expected to be in every Friday, you don’t have much of a choice. If they have no preference, ask which days of the week they are likely to be in the office, and aim to come in on those days. After all, if part of the rationale for being in the office is to build relationships and to learn via exposure, what is the point of being in on the days when nobody else is around?¹⁰And if your team leaders and seniors are rarely in the office, but still prefer you to be in the office a certain number of days in order to comply with the firm policy, try to be in on the days that there are likely to be more colleagues around. For example, some firms serve breakfast on specific days of the week, have lunchtime talks, or organise regular evening drinks. That’s as good a reason as any to come in on those days – and chances are, there will be more colleagues around to interact with, build relationships with, and learn from.

For those doing disputes work, ask your team leaders and seniors beforehand if they want to attend a remote hearing together from the office. Don’t take it for granted that you can offer sufficient support by dialling in separately from home.¹¹And this is especially so if they are used to working with hardcopy bundles. And for those doing transactional work, ask your team leaders and seniors if they would like you to be in the office for specific milestones, negotiations or on days when key deliverables are due.

Third, choose the right tasks for the days you are in the office.

Suppose you are looking at your to-do list at the beginning of a week. You will be in the office on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. You have a particularly heavy piece of work due on Wednesday. Should you start work on it while in the office on Monday?

Trick question! The answer depends on the nature of the work. For example, if it is a piece of research for which you will need to look up textbook authorities in the firm library, of course you should start on Monday while you are in the office. And while in the office, you might as well ask if anyone has, by any chance, looked up that particular point of law before, and if so, whether they have anything useful to share.

On the other hand, if the piece of work is (for example) a set of written submissions for which the research has already been done and the evidence is all in, and accessible from outside the office, then it may make more sense to start work on Tuesday, when you have a better chance of doing a deep dive and be relatively uninterrupted while you crank out a first draft.

These are just examples, and the answer would also differ depending on whether you consider the office or home to be a more conducive environment for deep work. So while there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, when and where we start on each task is a question worth considering deliberately, and should not simply be a matter of which task happens to come up next on your to-do list.

Conclusion

Being able to work outside the office is fantastic. But please be smart about it,¹²And you are smart. You graduated from law school and passed the Bar examinations. and don’t take it for granted.¹³After all, your seniors have spent years or even decades at workplaces where there was no such thing as remote or hybrid work. They survived. Some even thrived. As such, do forgive them if they wonder whether the right to work remotely is truly a non-negotiable entitlement. Find a way to make it work for you and the people around you, and be conscious about striking the right balance.