What is Hybrid Working?

The middle ground between traditional in-person work and remote work, hybrid working is a flexible work arrangement where employees split their time between working remotely from a location of their choice and working from a physical office. The hybrid model gives the best of both worlds when companies and employees do it well, as hybrid allows employees to enjoy the coveted benefits of remote work, such as reduced commute time and increased flexibility, while also keeping that face-to-face interaction that comes with in-person office work. Whether your company is best suited to hybrid, remote, or office only will depend on your goals and personnel, but for those of you who are thinking of a shift to hybrid, let's look at how best to do this.

What is a Hybrid Work Model?

Your hybrid work model is the way that you structure your approach to hybrid working. This model should outline how and when your employees will work remotely and when you want them to come into the office. It sounds simple when we put it like that, but this model should be extensive, including policies and guidelines to make sure that work is always done to the best standard regardless of where people are located. How you choose to ensure this efficiency and effectivity is up to you, but we have a few nuggets of insight coming up that might help. One quick tip is to allow flexibility and allow employees to choose the environment best suited to their needs for any given task.

Importance of Hybrid Work Models

So, why bother? Well, hybrid work models have become increasingly popular due to their ability to hit two birds with one stone. You can provide flexibility, improve work-life balance, and maintain productivity if implemented in the right way. Also, if you are a firm believer in the need for at least some in-person work, then you keep this element present.

Allowing some remote work will go a long way to improving output and morale in your team. According to a study by FlexJobs, 65% of employees still want to work remotely full-time post-pandemic, and 31% want a hybrid work environment at the very least. These stats highlight the need for organizations to adopt hybrid models to attract and retain talent, but also, findings of poor output and productivity in remote work mean we need to know how to set up our hybrid work models well.

Innovative Tips for Improving Your Hybrid Working & Work Model

1. Use Technology to Keep Communication Strong

One of the biggest challenges in a hybrid work environment is maintaining communication between employees who are scattered around the country. However, this is where technology can be your best friend. Leveraging the right technology will bridge the gap between remote workers and those in the office, as well as just generally between everyone working remotely. Tools like Bubbles Notetaker can significantly enhance virtual meetings and ensure everyone stays aligned when apart. Bubbles automatically joins meetings, transcribes conversations, records the session, and sends a tailored follow-up email after the meeting, which will contain everything important from the meeting. The power of tech like this is that it ensures no one misses out on important discussions, making it easier to keep workflows moving smoothly without having to help people get back up to speed.

Using the best communication tools will change your remote collaborative game, and therefore, we have to be committed to finding the right tech for our teams. According to a report by McKinsey & Company, businesses that use advanced communication tools and are dedicated to the importance of adopting new tech see a 20-25% increase in productivity. You can start simply too - for our recommendation of Bubbles, you can sign up for free and test it out in your next virtual meeting. Find out more below.

2. Build and Maintain a Strong Company Culture

You need your company to be fully aligned on the ins and outs of your hybrid work model for it to work as planned. Employees have to feel connected to their organization and colleagues, even when working remotely most of the time. This can definitely be tricky, but seeing as I am apart of a fully remote team, I feel qualified to offer some advice. Here are my strategies for keeping a strong company culture when dialing in from your home office:

• Regular Virtual Meetings: Hold regular virtual meetups and team-building activities to keep everyone engaged and connected. When remote, it's important to give some energy to non-work conversations, so these should form part of your virtual meeting etiquette.
• In-Person Gatherings: Hold some off-site gatherings to strengthen relationships between everyone away from the desk.
• Recognition Programs: Think of some programs for recognizing and celebrating employees' achievements and contributions. This can be particularly useful for things like training and sales, where we look at numerical outputs.

Organizations with strong cultures have a 72% higher employee engagement rate than those with weak cultures, according to Forbes, so this is definitely worth your effort! Specifically for remote work environments, a report by LinkedIn found that many companies are concerned about maintaining company culture in a remote work environment. Therefore, make sure you are intentionally coming together to build this culture in your hybrid model if you want it to succeed.

3. Implement Flexible Work Policies

Flexibility comes naturally with hybrid work models due to the balance of working locations, but we are talking about deeper flexibility here. More specifically, flexible work and allowing employees to take control of their own workflows, enhancing employee satisfaction and productivity. Here are some tips:

• Flexible Work Hours: Let employees choose their work hours within a certain range (or maybe not at all). By doing so, you let early birds and night owls work better, but also let people accommodate personal commitments and different time zones. Being flexible in this way allows you to recruit people from all over the world
• Asynchronous Work: Encourage asynchronous communication, where employees do not need to be online simultaneously, to reduce the pressure of constant availability. This can reduce the feeling of being 'always on', which comes with remote work. Quick tip here - use Bubbles to share quick videos and screen recordings so that you communicate asynchronously without losing context or detail.

4. Optimize Your Office Space for Collaboration

In a hybrid work model, the role of the physical office changes, as it will be used less often but is still equally as important. It becomes a space for collaboration, brainstorming, and team-building activities rather than daily individual work, because this will largely be done from the comfort of our homes. Here are some tips to optimize office space:

• Create Collaborative Spaces: Designate areas for group work, such as rooms for team meetings and open-plan spaces where people can meet and chat.
• Equip with Technology: Technology crops up again here - make sure that offices are equipped with the latest tech so that employee efficiency stays the same in comparison to their remote setups.
• Flexible Seating: Keep the desks and seats flexible to accommodate varying numbers of in-office employees on different days.

A report by CBRE found that 73% of companies plan to offer hybrid, but that these companies also plan on using their office space differently when doing so, focusing more on collaborative areas. The reason being is to encourage flexibility and boost collaboration by letting people place themselves around the office depending on what they are working on and who they are collaborating with..

5. Encourage Continuous Learning and Development

Continuous learning and development should be something that is encouraged from the very first onboarding session right through to those employees who are basically part of the company furniture. So, how to we encourage this in a hybrid work environment so that our employees stay motivated and productive? This can largely come down to intrapersonal skills and the way we communicate expectations and foster development, but here are some strategies:

• Online Training Programs: Offer online courses and webinars held through online employee training platforms that let your workforce attend at their own pace and develop their skills.
• Mentorship Programs: A mentorship program where experienced employees guide and support their less experienced peers can be great for learning on the job and gaining some more targeted skills.
• Regular Feedback: All of this is useless without regular feedback and performance reviews to help employees understand what they are doing right, and what might need some improvement. When you next give feedback, consider doing so via a bubble - this way, the recipient of the feedback will always have access to your insights.

Conclusion

Hybrid work models are a fantastic way to offer flexibility to employees, while retaining elements of in-person working that may be essential to your company. Creating an effective hybrid work environment is a mixture of many things, but if you are on your hybrid journey, make sure you keep our tips in mind. Keep pushing boundaries, and keep being open-minded to new tech such as Bubbles that can aid you on your way to becoming the best possible team in your hybrid environment.