Top Strategies for Building a Hybrid Workforce

A significant impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the transformation of our work environments. There’s no denying that remote work is the new norm, and for the past couple of years, hybrid work has become the most popular workplace trend. It shifts our focus from offices to cooperation, with some businesses gradually transitioning to a hybrid work model. A provision in which employees work from home and in the office is known as hybrid work.

Employees may visit the office for meetings, project kick-offs, orientations, team building, and interaction with co-workers. However, if their tasks require attention and concentration, individuals may choose to work from home, and their work week may be tailored to their responsibilities.

Hybrid work combines the best of both work from home and in-office work, allowing your employees to work wherever they are most comfortable. As a result, companies worldwide are implementing a hybrid work model to give their employees more autonomy and flexibility.

Read on to learn about the preeminent strategies for building a hybrid overseas workforce.

• What is a Hybrid Workforce Model?
• Best Practices to Build a Successful Hybrid Workforce
• What are the Perks of a Hybrid Workplace?
• What are the Challenges of a Hybrid Workplace?

The concept of the hybrid workplace allows employees to work from home and the office. It offers employees physical and digital workspaces to support their work environment and lifestyle. A hybrid work model can be designed according to the organization’s needs. For example, depending on the company’s culture, employees may work from home for a few days and spend two days a week in the office, or they may have to attend in-person meetings on specific days.

Employees don’t want to lose the benefits of working from home; that’s why companies are increasingly offering hybrid working options to attract and retain talent. Nearly a third of US workers say they’d like the opportunity to work remotely full time. It is possible to have the autonomy of remote working and the social and cultural benefits of in-person contact with hybrid work.

However, while offering a hybrid model is relatively easy, it requires a lot of careful planning and additional support for employees who may find it difficult to adjust to the new decentralized, multi-space working environment. Moreover, as organizations figure out how to use the hybrid work model in the long run, policies, practices, and collaboration technology will likely evolve. Still, it’s safe to assume that going into the office just for the sake of it won’t be a necessary part of working life anymore.

A well-designed hybrid work model can improve employee satisfaction, productivity, and collaboration. Businesses are adopting various approaches to make a successful hybrid workplace for their employees. Therefore, employers must prioritize employee well-being when executing a hybrid working model. Additionally, it is essential to consider several factors when designing a hybrid work model, including place, time, work, and productivity; company culture, the workflow of projects; employees’ preferences; and fairness, inclusion, and belonging.

Considering that many companies are global and their teams are often spread across continents and time zones, all this gets even more interesting. Thus, the anywhere anytime model is merely a natural evolution of the globalization movement since the place is sort-of-unconstrained, and the time is asynchronous. After the pandemic, many companies chose to work from home but still with fixed hours. At the same time, fewer adopted the completely unrestricted hybrid model, allowing employees to work from anywhere and anytime.

To foster a hybrid culture that helps employees thrive no matter where they are, here are some best practices to consider:

• Nurture your company culture with inclusivity and flexibility
• Treat and encourage remote work as the same as in-person work
• Invest in a hybrid workplace technology
• Enable your employees to connect and communicate

If the hybrid work schedule did not provide significant benefits, it would not have achieved such widespread acceptance. However, managing a business in an unconstrained hybrid world requires a substantial shift in management’s perspective. By managing tradeoffs, you can maximize the benefits the new world order brings and minimize the downsides. In the end, flexibility and choice are essential.

Employers and employees can benefit from hybrid workplaces in various ways, such as increased productivity, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility. In addition, hybrid workplaces that prioritize inclusive policies can benefit from several key advantages, which include:

• Improved employee satisfaction – Flexible workplaces can increase employee satisfaction within the organization. Employees who work in hybrid models are more satisfied with their work than those who primarily work from home or office due to their freedom, leading to higher productivity and job satisfaction.
• Increased efficiency and productivity – In a hybrid setup, the flexibility of hours and a fresh change of environment can improve an employee’s ability to focus on their tasks. Employees with more flexibility are more likely to take ownership, balance their workloads, and concentrate more.
• Minimized operations costs – As fewer employees work in the office, companies will need less physical space. The hybrid model reduces office supplies and real estate costs and saves employees money by reducing commuting costs.
• Set up distributed teams and redefine collaboration – Hybrid work requires companies to undergo a digital transformation to support and unite distributed teams. Employees can collaborate and communicate from any location with the adoption of modern technology tools, so they don’t need to be in the same room to brainstorm and work together.

Although remote working can pose challenges during a pandemic, employees may feel lonely due to social distancing or juggling distractions, including childcare and limited privacy. However, despite all that, employees have gained a taste of the independence and flexibility remote work offers and want to keep it. After the pandemic, more than half of working adults with jobs they can do remotely plan to continue working from home.

Although working from home has many advantages, all work-from-home environments are not created equal. Some jobs and employees will not be well suited to working remotely, so it may not be the best choice for everyone to work remotely. However, identifying and addressing common hybrid work challenges will make the work easier for everyone. Let’s dive in and review how to accomplish this.

• Hybrid work can be exhausting – Stress and burnout can take their toll on the employee’s mental and physical health. The evidence is not just anecdotal because hybrid work may lead to an imbalance between work and life. Multiple studies have indicated that as remote work became more prevalent, employees checked and sent more emails outside of regular working hours, eroding the crucial line between work and home and increasing average working hours.
• Disparate employee experiences – By its very nature, hybrid work lacks uniformity; one person’s remote setup differs wildly from another’s, so companies can’t guarantee experience equity. It is unlikely that new employees starting their career will have access to the same training and mentorship their in-office counterparts had, nor will they be able to connect with people similarly. Good working relationships are crucial to keeping employees engaged and happy, and this is not something to ignore.
• Communication – The other challenge of hybrid working is communication. Since employees who aren’t at the office are unable to communicate spontaneously with colleagues, and when employee relationships are primarily based on software platforms used for video communications, it is easy for things to fall through the cracks. Open communication is essential to boosting employee morale.

Despite this, hybrid working is still an emerging model; this can change with some experience and knowledge. The best thing about hybrid is that its experimental nature gives employees a lot of agency – to figure out what works for them, set up more inclusive and healthy working practices, and actively shape the work environment and culture they desire. To do this, you need to discuss the best setups with managers and understand that both employers and employees need to set boundaries.