Hybrid Work Models Explained
With most pandemic mandates lifted, more organizations are on the threshold of creating a hybrid work model. This new business model combines remote and onsite work for a more flexible workplace and improved work/life balance. Here we provide your essential guide to hybrid work models and best practices to help your organization adapt to yet another new norm.
Identify Remote Work Challenges
The success of a hybrid workplace lies in your ability to define the most productive way employees perform their work. Reviewing past production throughout the pandemic is the best way to look for holes in the system and decide where production drops when performing certain tasks. Some examples to help you identify remote work challenges include:
- Poor remote worker time management
- Workflow bottlenecks that impact productivity
- Lagging productivity
- Employee access authorization refusal
- Increased human error
- Duplicate work due to poor communication
- Reduced employee engagement
- Individuals working in isolation creating more silos
- A lack of regular meetings to understand employee challenges
- Missed opportunities to help employees meet their career goals due to a lack of performance reviews
These are the types of issues your organization needs to correct before defining your hybrid workplace model.
Define Your Hybrid Workplace Model
Upon review of current remote work challenges, you can ensure your hybrid workplace model is designed to improve productivity. When defining your new business model, you should clearly outline the following:
- Will you have mandatory onsite meetings such as strategy meetings?
- Will you require a percentage of work hours be performed onsite?
- Are there specific tasks and/or roles that require onsite work?
- What are acceptable platforms for communication?
- What management tracking tools will be used?
- What off-site equipment requirements will you have and what equipment will be provided to remote workers (i.e. everyone is given a laptop they can use at home and when at the office)?
- Is there an opportunity to change your current workplace such as moving to a smaller space, creating shared offices/stations, etc.?
- How will you ensure fair remote opportunities are available to all employees regardless of role?
- How will you define accountability with clearly set goals to ensure each remote worker understands their roles?
- How will you help remote workers meet their career goals?
- How will you help employees avoid burnout due to 24/7 availability via mobile devices?
You also have to balance your new workplace model with employee needs. The goal is to maintain engagement and ensure you don’t lose top talent when remote hours are reduced.
Choose the Right Remote Work Platform
Remote workforce management software allows your organization to ensure employees remain productive and engaged. The key to effective management software is integration allowing your HR team, managers and employees to access the information they need when they need it. Some of the most common challenges posed by remote workforce management include:
- Scheduling and payroll inaccuracies
- Insufficient integration of current systems such as workforce management systems
- Multiple databases for inconsistent records or double entry errors
- Ill-defined operational workflows
- No formal remote worker policies or defined remote roles
- No formal platform to track performance
- No formal policy for the assigning of remote duties
- A lack of productivity measurement and/or goal setting
- Reduced HR functions such as career guidance, identifying opportunities for promotion, training, etc.
- Cybersecurity risks
- A lack of security policies to access information stored on the cloud
- Decreased work/life balance due to a lack of formal “shut down” times for remote workers
- Inconsistent remote recruitment and onboarding processes
Workforce management software should allow you to overcome these issues, improve productivity and manage HR needs from one easy platform.
Develop a Remote Training/Performance Process
This is the opportunity to leverage more self-guided tools to empower employees and new hires to meet their career goals. You can reduce the amount of help new hires and employees require, by introducing state-of-the-art HR tools that allow for self-guided training and skills development. This includes training for new remote workforce management software, but also opportunity to improve new hire success. For example, onboarding systems can help ensure new hires receive the right self-guided training using a portal they can access when required. You can also use performance review software to evaluate performance, provide feedback, set goals for improvement, and identify opportunities for promotion or career shifts to keep employees engaged.
Your hybrid work model provides the opportunity to improve employee life/work balance, while also streamlining workflow and introducing policies to increase productivity. Using hybrid work model best practices and remote workforce management software helps integrate remote and office work while empowering employees to succeed.
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About the Author
Kayla is the Marketing Manager at Paypro Corporation overseeing all inbound and outbound marketing and sales efforts. She has 7+ years of experience working within the B2B and SaaS based solutions space and thrives on creating messaging and campaigns that introduce products and services to those who need them most.