Is hybrid work here to stay?

The way we work and the places we work have changed throughout the pandemic. But with all those changes comes one question — when are we going back to normal? It's a question we see all the time, whether it's a discussion on back-to-workplace plans, the move to remote work and distributed teams, and whether hybrid work is here to stay.

According to a report from Vox EU, the second quarter of 2020 saw 557 million workers working from home. That's 17.4% of global workers in their makeshift offices on Zoom. It's a staggering number, but even more interesting is how much the newfound work-life balance of working from home means to those workers. In another report, 39% of workers surveyed by Bloomberg said they'd quit rather than go back to their offices full time.  

These employees are part of what many industry leaders call The Great Resignation — millions of employees quitting rather than going back to "normal." 

Many businesses are looking to the concept of hybrid work as the solution. Rather than a total return to the office or a complete move to being a distributed team, employees are offered the option of working in the office, at home, or a combination. But can it work in the long term? Here are three reasons hybrid won't work at your business and three ways you can make it works for your employees — and your business.

Three reasons hybrid won't work at your business

Hybrid has been touted as the ultimate solution to getting employees back into the office, but there's no perfect solution, as we all learned quickly. Here are three reasons why hybrid work won't work for your team.

Lack of energy

Being in an office and working with people you respect can be stimulating and inspiring. Some of our best ideas came from conversations in the lunchroom or over coffee. When your employees split their time between home and the office, those serendipitous meetings don't happen as often. 

We also are all aware of Zoom fatigue — that draining of energy after spending a few hours on back-to-back video calls. In a report from Harvard Business School, they found that the average workday had increased by 48 minutes, with much of that time in video meetings. 

Employees are coming into the office to do Zoom meetings

Hybrid work means that not everyone is in the office at the same time. If you have a team where only one person comes into the office and the rest work from home, you could have a situation where that lone employee is sitting in a meeting room on Zoom or Teams.

With various personal schedules to manage, team leads have difficulty scheduling in-person meetings or work sessions. These are valuable times that produce real, tangible results. 

Nothing makes up for face to face time

Not having that important facetime with leaders and colleagues can lead to employees feeling disengaged. For team interactions, not being in the same room as coworkers can slow down projects and lead to misunderstandings about priorities. 

This gets worse when teams have some people in the office and some on remote tools like Slack or Zoom. These poor experiences with a lack of in-person time can be a road to them searching for a new opportunity outside of your business.

Three ways to make hybrid work for your team

Knowing what can go wrong with hybrid work opens the doors to doing things differently — and making hybrid work a success in your business and for your employees.

Create a hybrid plan that works for your team (and your business)

You wouldn't launch a new product without a plan — the same thing goes for implementing hybrid work. As discussed in the section above, hybrid work falls apart when your team doesn't know when it's the right time to be in the office. 

• Core hours - consider making core hours part of your plan. These are when everyone should be in the office to work together on specified days of the week. It doesn't have to be Mondays at 8 am either. Core hours could be 10-2 on Wednesday and Thursdays if that's what works for your team.

• Office days - scheduling a day or two week for your team to be in the office is a great way to make a hybrid schedule work. 

• Meet your employees where they are - talk with your team to see what works best for them to be productive. TextNow introduced their plan called Work Best earlier this year. The philosophy allows their employees to work whenever and wherever is best for them. Tulip CEO Ali Asaria introduced three major changes to the way their team works. First, they went remote-by-default. Second, with many employees in cities like Toronto and Kitchener, they’ve created hub spaces where teams can get together. Finally, they’ve moved to a four-day work week.

One critical thing to remember is that not all roles can be hybrid — including reception, facilities, and other support roles. Finding ways to create equitable experiences can be a challenge here, so you might consider offering these employees additional time off or four-day weeks.

Update your space to make it work for hybrid

Hybrid work is more than the hours and days your team is in the workplace — it's also how you adjust your space to meet these changed schedules. If you've reduced or restructured your office space, having every employee in the office won't be possible. Shared desks are great, but we recommend implementing a sign-up system so employees know there's a space for them when they do come into the office.

Hybrid workspaces can be in coworking or flex spaces too. If you have a smaller office space that you no longer need, these alternatives can offer your team a shared space to meet and work.

Recognize your employees

We've all gone through the last 18 months together, but some have experienced more stress and are coming back with great anxiety. One way to relieve this pressure is to recognize and celebrate your employees for the work they do — no matter where they have their laptops.

This is exactly what we do. We take care of the gifting, you sit back and watch your company culture grow by recognizing employee's personal and professional milestones.