Shift to Hybrid work

Post covid, employees are looking for a flexible work model that supports a blend of in-office and work from home or remote options. The concept of Hybrid work was introduced by many companies where employees have the autonomy to choose to work wherever and how ever they are most productive. This allows employees the flexible approach to spilt time between working in the office and working from home. A majority of executives have seen notable improvements in individual productivity, and diversity and inclusion, according to McKinsey. Hybrid work emerged as a work arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic when companies transitioned to remote work and used virtual collaboration tools to remain productive like zoom, Webex and many others. Although many IT companies had work from home policy prior to the pandemic but soon this policy was adopted by other industries.

Remote work vs Hybrid work

Remote work is an approach where an employee can work at a location away from their office and Hybrid work is a combination of remote work and working in office which gives employees an opportunity for an employee to meet other colleagues and attend face to face meetings whenever required.

How does Hybrid work look like

An employee can actually have a structured Hybrid work schedule where it could be some days work from home or some days work from office. The approach by an employee could also be unstructured where he can choose his schedule based on his own work commitments and requirements.

Many companies like Webex has a 4- model hybrid work approach:

1. Flexible hybrid work model

Employees can choose their work location and working hours based on their priorities for the day. The work location can be at their home, coffee shop or any other location. Cisco is leveraging this model and offering its employees the option to choose where they work on any given day. Many companies create employee engagement events to enhance a sense of belonginess like a training session or join a town hall, they can choose to go into the office.

2. Fixed hybrid work model

In this model the organization sets the days and time schedule employees are allowed to work remotely or to go to office. Either the department head prepares a roster for his team members or it can scheduled department wise on alternative days.

3. Office-first hybrid work model

Google plans to adopt this type of model where employees work in the office three days a week but have the option to choose two days for working remotely.

4. Remote-first hybrid work model

Employees work from home or another location of choice most of the time with occasional visits to coworking spaces or the office for training, townhalls or meetings requiring physical presence.

Advantages of Hybrid work

• Flexibility to employees as they can choose the location of work
• Increases employee engagement
• Cost efficiency of less office space requirement, pantry, canteen facility requirement will be much lesser than a traditional office operating at full capacity.
• Better employee retention especially working mothers.

Drawbacks of Hybrid work

• Collaboration among colleagues: As each employee may choose their own hybrid work schedule. Thus, it may be difficult for team members to meet in person regularly.
• Overworked employees: Sometimes a hybrid work schedule leads to burnout as employees lose track of time and may work beyond working hours.
• Building an organization culture has proven to be more difficult. How do you create bonds and relationships.
• Does not work for all departments or industries which have a work from office requirement like production units, healthcare etc.

If your organization is contemplating the hybrid work model then you would have to ask the following questions:

• Does my company have this requirement?
• Can work be managed?
• Does the employee have all the resources to do their tasks?