Hybrid Working Models
We all try to leave the past two years behind us and work and run our businesses as if nothing happened, but the truth is that the pandemic turned our lives upside down.
Now, two years later, companies struggle with different problems than at the beginning of the pandemic. Employees don’t want to work 40 weekly hours at the office, they need more flexibility and freedom to choose. This need has been answered with the hybrid working model and prognoses indicate that it will stay for good. That's why new challenges are now on the agenda: Communication within and among teams is hard and insufficient, and working morale is sinking. Projects are impossible to manage and all this leads to bad performance and thus lower turnover. This can all be avoided through proper implementation of the hybrid working model.
Implemented right, the hybrid working model will offer you a wide palette of benefits: It will smooth the working process and improve communication between and among the teams. Employee satisfaction will increase and projects will be completed in less time. This all will lead to higher turnover in a shorter amount of time and decrease your fixed costs enormously.
My experience in helping companies make the transition over the last two years led me to the following conclusion on how to implement hybrid working smoothly:
CHOOSING THE RIGHT MODEL
There is no universal truth about which one of the different combinations of working from home and working onsite will be best for your company and your employees. Look at the different possibilities and decide which one you will feel comfortable with:
Home-centric: You have the flexibility to decide when you will work from home and when you will go to the office (for meetings with clients, with the team, etc.)
Split the week: You work from home on (a) specific day(s) of the week and the rest of the time you work at the office.
Switching weeks: One week you work from home, one at the office.
Switching shifts: There are two or three shifts during the company's working time, some of them for home office, some of them for working on site.
Which one will be the best option for you depends on different factors, such as the branch you are working at, the mood of the team and the size of the company. But regardless of which one you choose, experts are convinced it will bring you a lot of benefits.
Choosing the right model will:
Attract and retain talents.
Increase engagement and productivity.
Improve employment satisfaction.
Reduce costs.
Increase revenue and profit.
All of this will lead to long term consequences:
Reducing carbon footprint.
Improving work-life balance & well-being.
Creating a working space that implements “diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging” initiatives.
LONG- AND SHORT-TERM STRATEGIES
Employers will need a combination of long-term and short-term strategies to ensure a smooth process of transition from the existing working model to functional hybrid working. Implementing hybrid working doesn’t mean a restructuring of the whole business and the organization of the working operations from the bottom. Short-term strategies will help you to analyze the way you and your teams work. It will solve daily problems, like which software you have to choose for proper communication, how to organize everyone's schedules, how to manage the existing workload with remote and onsite working employees, etc.
However, long-term strategies will contribute to the big picture of your working process and the organization of your operations. This should include the definition of hybrid working, the implementing policy of the company, team building measures, onboarding strategies etc.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT TACTIC FOR YOU AND YOUR COMPANY
To implement a working hybrid model, you will have to consider some details:
Legal implementation in Austria: How a combination of working from home and working onsite can be implemented in Austria raises a lot of legal questions. Clearing up those questions in the working contract will protect employee and employer, bring clarity to the working relationship, and manage the expectations of both parties.
Internal working policy: Creating an internal working policy and making it available for all employees will facilitate the management of hybrid working. It should explain how to request hybrid working, how often this is possible, how employees can book meeting rooms for in-person meetings, clarify roles and responsibilities for hybrid workers and people managers, other policies about data protection, usage of company properties from home, expenses, etc.
Software solutions to keep communication between the members of the team: The need for an online platform and regular meetings in person for our team increased as we welcomed new members some months ago. Without personal meetings, the new members felt isolated and didn’t become part of the team dynamic. A few networking meetings at the office helped to solve the problem.
Mentoring and guidance: You will still need regular meetings in person, so newer members of the team can learn and gain experience from seniors.
The behavior of the leadership: The hybrid working model must be valid for everyone. Employees who are working mostly from home can feel isolated and underrated if managers and team leaders prefer to work at the office.
CONCLUSION
What the best model of HWM for your company will be, will depend on the employees, who work within. The new members of the team would probably need more time onsite, while employees with little children will take advantage of the possibility to schedule their own time. But since you’ve implemented the best hybrid working model for your company, the way you see your workplace will also change. It will be a place for networking and collaboration. It will be an ecosystem, which will provide flexibility, guidance, and well-being to its members. The workplace will become a tool to help a company's most valuable asset—its people—to perform and feel their best.
