Hybrid working – is this the way of the future in a post pandemic world?
There has been lots of dialogue in the past 18 months around remote working, the future of offices, back to the office (aka back to ‘normal’) and flexible working. We have seen major businesses announce that their workers may go full time remote working in future. However, some of those same businesses have reversed their thinking already and are now moving to the emerging hybrid model.
So, what is Hybrid working?
Hybrid will come in many guises but at its base level is a working model where some of your people return to the workplace whilst others remain at home. It is also seeing a mix of rules with different roles in a company requiring different levels of personal contact and thereby different levels of time actually spent in the office. All sounds very simple, yes?
Why the changing work landscape and not just ‘back to normal’?
Dependent on your own personal view, after over 18 months of working in a very different way, we either want to spend more time face to face or are happy and feel just as, or even more, productive working remotely.If you as a business leader conducted an employee survey on the subject of ‘returning to work’ you are likely to find a real mix of reactions to future needs. This is best demonstrated by Microsoft in their 2021 Work Trend Index, a study of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries. This discovered that employees want the best of both worlds with 70% of workers wanting flexible remote work options to continue and 65% craving more in-person time with their teams.This is just one example but it is becoming abundantly clear that extreme flexibility and hybrid work is going to define the post-pandemic working culture. What is more we are seeing record numbers of advertised jobs, so the stance and approach to hybrid working within an organization is going to determine how attractive a business is as an employer. This will be just as important for retaining your people as it will be to attract new talent to join you. Our article ‘With UK vacancies at an all-time high, does recruitment need a rethink’ gives w whole host of suggestions on how to make your business stand out as an employer of choice.All these factors mean that the hybrid working model is not going to go away. Workers and employers alike have had remote and flexible working thrust upon them since the advent of the pandemic and, while many are resistant to any long-term change, it’s evident that hybrid work is going to become the preferred way of working in the future – offering a real work/life blend.So how can you embrace this latest change within your business, what concerns as a business leader do you have and what are the concerns of your people too?