Let’s face it: office culture isn’t what it used to be. Maybe you went remote during the COVID-19 pandemic and have since brought your workers back into the office. But you’ve noticed a shift. People aren’t quite as enthusiastic about being in the office as they used to be. Employees are coming up to you asking if they can work from home a few days out of the week, but you’re not sure you see the need. If we can all be in the office, why shouldn’t we?
Well, there might be a few good reasons not to completely come back to the office. At Payday HCM, we’ve seen lots of companies battle this same question. It’s a tricky one, especially considering that remote work really only became popular in response to a global pandemic. This doesn’t mean it still doesn’t have its pros, however.
In this article, we’ll look at what it takes to transition from fully in-person into a hybrid workplace. We’ll go over three tips for creating the most efficient and productive hybrid workplace possible. Because, well, let’s face it: remote work is here to stay.
The three tips covered in this article include:
- Maintain Proper Lines of Communication
- Consider Each Role and How It Can Be Hybrid
- Listen to your Employees’ Needs
Maintain Proper Lines of Communication with Employees
Ensuring proper communication is maintained throughout your organization in a hybrid environment is probably the most important aspect of ensuring its productivity. It’s also probably the main reason why you’ve put off offering remote work options for so long. After all, how can you beat straight person-to-person communication?
Make the Most of Your Time In the Office
For the most part, this is true: communicating face-to-face is, largely, still better than communicating via email or even over the phone. That being said, these other forms of communication still have their place, and if you’re able to maximize your time in the office, you’ll be able to take full advantage of email or text communications.
The office is best for communicating as a team, ensuring everyone knows what everyone else is working on and that the team is on the same page. Get your most important meetings out of the way while everyone is in the office. Then, once the work becomes more individual, let those who want to work from work work from home.
Communication Across Departments
You’ll want to make sure everyone knows everyone. Depending on how large your organization is, this may be tricky. Luckily, hybrid environments can actually help to reduce these perceived (or, in the case of the office, sometimes literal) walls.
Taking away the perceived divisions between departments and putting them all into the digital space can help to encourage intradepartmental communication. When someone is just an email away instead of an entire walk through the office where you risk interrupting them doing something, it makes it much easier to reach out to them about something.
Trust in Technology
Technology can be scary, but in a hybrid environment, it’s the most essential tool in your arsenal. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working tools have improved dramatically, making it significantly easier to create a productive work environment from home.
Programs like Slack, Google Chat, Microsoft Teams—these are all great tools for ensuring your team stays connected while working from home. Don’t be afraid to hop into a Zoom meeting for those more lengthy conversations.
Consider Each Role and How It Can Be Hybrid in the Workplace
Most jobs can be done from home. But what does this actually mean? It is important to consider the different roles within your organization and what their hybrid work model might look like.
Everything Has a Time and Place
You’ll want to think about each role and how those in these roles can do their job in relation to time and space. The Harvard Business Review outlines a four-quadrant matrix for assessing how a specific role exists within its relation to a traditional in-office 9-5 model and a fully at-home at any time model.
Assessing each role and what the best model for that role is can also be as simple as asking those in said role what they would prefer. After all, your employees know how they can do their job sometimes better than you do.
To Hybrid or Not To Hybrid—That is the Question
As a manager, the question remains whether you decide to transition to a hybrid working model or remain fully in-person. With hybrid, you may run the risk of seeming like the manager who’s never there. At the same time, though, what’s the point in you being at the office if no one else is?
Ultimately, it's the same for each employee—including supervisors. So long as you maintain communication and, well, do your job, there’s no reason a supervisor can’t work a hybrid model like the other employees.
Listen to Your Employees’ Needs
A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that hybrid work lowers an organization’s attrition rate and can lead to increased productivity and job satisfaction. To achieve this, though, you first need to hear out your employees and what they want or need.
Not All Hybrid Workers Are the Same
The most effective hybrid workplaces are the ones that offer flexibility and choice for their employees. It isn’t more efficient to force your employees either to work in the office or hybrid. Instead, the best thing to do is to give them the choice to work the way they want to work.
According to a study by Gallup, three in ten hybrid workers are extremely likely to quit if they aren’t offered some sort of remote flexibility. Ultimately, give your employees the choice, and they’ll make the best decision for themselves.
Trust Your Employees
Ultimately, a successful hybrid environment is built on trust. Your reluctance to transition your organization to a hybrid model might be due to a lack of trust in your employees' ability to get the job done. This simply isn’t true: hybrid work allows employees to feel more productive and get work done however they want.
For this to happen, though, you’ll need to learn to let go. Your employees will appreciate the increased levels of trust that comes along with hybrid work, and you’ll be able to reap the benefits of not only higher morale but increased productivity as well.
Building Better Businesses with Remote Work
Change is hard. It's why coming into the office has remained the standard for work since forever. We’ve never been able to conceive of a different way of working. Now, though, times have changed. We don’t have to be confined to our offices. A hybrid work environment opens up a whole world of possibilities, one that organizations need to start taking advantage of.
Not only is a hybrid work environment great for the employees currently working for your organization, it can also be great for attracting new employees as well. Learn more about what benefits employees look for most.
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