What a Successful Hybrid Work Model Looks Like

While the at-will and remote-first models can boost productivity, they can also be unpredictable in an operational sense. Workers may visit the office together at a time, compromising physical distancing protocols. If your organization has downsized your physical offices, you’ll experience difficulties managing the number of people.

• They need to have their voices heard, to hear from others, and to know that the changes being made are not just the result of individual managers’ whims and sensibilities.
• To prevent your team from getting burnt out, consider giving them more paid time off to tend to their personal needs and pursuits.
• Gallup uses probability-based, random sampling methods to recruit its Panel members.
• According to our research, employees do their best skilled work at home but still prefer the office for most interpersonal work.
• Remote work has skyrocketed during the pandemic, with 70% of the U.S. workforce working remotely in mid-2020, as compared to only 2% pre-pandemic.
• And repeat everything, on multiple channels if need be, so no team member misses anything.

Jonas works as an inspection engineer in the Kollsnes plant, which processes gas from fields in the North Sea. After the pandemic hit, the plant’s managers made it possible for Jonas and his team to carry out some inspection tasks from home, by hybrid work from home supplying them with state-of-the-art video and digital tools. These include, for example, robotic devices that move around the plant recording detailed in-the-moment visual data, which is then streamed back to all the team members for analysis.

🏢🏠 What is a hybrid work model?

To focus, she prefers to be in the office, which is not far from where she lives. If leaders and managers can successfully make the transition to an anywhere, anytime model, the result will be work lives that are more purposeful and productive. The reality is that hybrid work will involve employees working in a variety of environments and transporting equipment to multiple locations. Again, avoiding this pitfall will require clear rules around connectivity, equipment use, and working in public places. There are also socio-economic factors to consider — remote work is not comfortable for people who live in smaller homes or larger households. There is also a suggestion that a hybrid working environment could magnify the gender gap . Though the extra time commuting on public transport seems to provide some benefits to workers, the average American who drives to work spends 54 hours a year stuck in traffic.

Meeting spaces that can accommodate both workers on site and remote workers. And public spaces for collaborating, such as meeting rooms, conference halls etc.

How much does a remote workforce save you?

By May, according to a follow-up survey, only 15% of Fujitsu employees considered the office to be the best place to work. Some 30% said the best place was their homes, and the remaining 55% favored a mix of home and office—a hybrid model. For years, flexible work arrangements had been on the agenda at Fujitsu, but little had actually changed. But the pandemic, Hiramatsu foresaw, was about to turn everything upside down. After a year of remote work, a survey of 30,000 people by Microsoft found 70% expect flexible work from home options to continue post-pandemic. A similar survey by LeadershipIQ suggests that most workers will want to work from home either 3-4 days (39%) or 1-2 days a week (29%). But when you need everyone together for a brainstorming or pivot meeting, you’ll need to schedule these in advance so everyone can be on the call together.

On-site and remote workers may also develop a disconnect from each other. For one, it may create a rift between the assigned on-site employees and remote workers.

What does remote work mean?

Alternatively, you can offer the first and third week of the month versus the second and fourth. WFH employees can feel left out if they join a meeting solo only to see all their in-house counterparts gathered around a conference table together. If everyone meets from their own screens, it will unite the team and feel like everyone’s on the same page despite working in different locations. Keep your meetings on-track so employees don’t feel like their time was wasted. Send out an agenda ahead of time so WFH and in-house employees can prepare thoughtful responses and questions to bring up.

Of course, occasional work in the company office is still possible. The work, however, does not necessarily take place in the home office, but for example in a workspace, on the train, in the park, on the beach or anywhere else in the world. This disconnect between coworkers can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, if unaddressed. However, as companies try to navigate their ways out of lockdown, they experiment with different combos of on-premises and remote work, which brings us to the next question. The changes above are a starting point to help us do our very best work and have fun doing it. « Campfire » is another experiment being tested to help ensure equal participation among those in person and remote.