When it comes to hybrid working, flexibility is key. Your employees can work whenever and wherever they want. With this also comes responsibility. Hybrid working can create ambiguities and a lack of clarity. Remote employees have become more and more accustomed to it. Likewise, we have adjusted to it as well. Yet, we should take care of them too.
According to eLearinigIndustry, most companies use employee onboarding tools to get started. As the name suggests, these tools facilitate the process of onboarding. There are various advantages of onboarding tools that make things easier for all. This includes handling and storing data, task management, learning, and various other things easily.
It is obvious that selecting the right onboarding tool is the most important step, but as an employer, you need to also consider other factors. With hybrid working, we tend to neglect the personal lives of our employees, and that needs to change. They are constantly on the go and have little time for learning, upskilling, building relationships, or casual conversations. Due to the lack of commute breaks, meeting breaks, and talks at water coolers, work has taken over their lives.
If we do not change the way we work, our teams will do poorly when they work remotely. This can also adversely affect our younger team members. As a consequence, your company will suffer. So, let’s take a look at some tips that can help you and your employees for an easy transition to hybrid working.
1. Understand employee needs and act accordingly
Remote working might have reduced fixed costs for companies, and given employees more time with their families, but it also comes with its share of disadvantages. To begin with, there is often a glitch in employee collaboration or reduced employee productivity. So while introducing hybrid work policies at your company, you need to understand your employees’ preferences when they choose to go to the office. More than often, it depends on what they need to do before getting to work and which of their colleagues are going to work that day. When you understand your employees’ preferences, you will be able to formulate a successful hybrid work strategy.
2. Effective communication
Managing hybrid teams requires managers and leaders to communicate with their teams and departments more than before. This could be as simple as holding online meetings with the employees where they can talk to their superiors, send greetings once in a while which can lead to conversation, or having phone call discussions with each employee. By hearing them out you can understand them and build a good relationship. While it may seem insignificant, it helps your employees reduce stress. This way they can trust you, and feel better. Many times, employers have no idea what their employees are going through. They will not be able to perform at their best if you don’t know what your employees are experiencing. The more you communicate with them, you will get to know about their problems.
3. Keep experimenting
Hybrid working doesn’t mean making a single set of permanent rules for the entire organization. A hybrid environment requires that teams decide between themselves what kind of collaboration is best. To do this, they have to have the freedom to experiment and explore new approaches until they come up with a successful strategy. They might need to change how they work again upon joining a new team or when beginning a new project. Consider ways to improve their performance.
4. Value time
Face-to-face meetings are important, so do all you can to make that meeting a priority by making sure everyone has a good reason to be there. It is not a good idea to waste your time by having one presenter show slides for a long time. You can conduct this type of activity online or via pre-recorded videos. This time where you are face to face with your employees needs to be spent wisely. You should make the best use of it by having discussions, creative ideas, or simply motivating them to make them feel valued.
5. Schedule casual breaks
People can only work in a hybrid environment when they trust one another. Take the time to build relationships with your co-workers outside of the workplace while you are working together. You must schedule casual breaks. For instance, meet once a week in person or online without any work objective, talk about common interests, or plan short trips once a month. The building of relationships is particularly important for remote or online workers. This is something that should be done during regular work hours and not just on weekends.
6. Time for L&D for new employees
Younger or newer team members find it difficult to learn from their colleagues by observation when working in hybrid teams. Make sure new team members have training and development time scheduled. Pair them with more experienced leaders, enabling them to observe meetings and gain insight from others with more experience.
7. Foster a healthy culture
If we are working remotely, misunderstandings are common. People should be encouraged to provide and receive feedback quickly. When a person appears upset, or they weren’t given what they expected, encourage them to call and get clarification, constructively and positively. Team members should not let anything accumulate or worry them. Keep in mind not to only rely on email for communication. Be sure to grant permission to your teams to regularly communicate when there is an apparent difference.
8. Ask for employee feedback frequently
Feedback is an important step to perfection and success for everything. An effective hybrid strategy is no different. Since your employees will be the ones working under your formulated hybrid strategy, it is essential that you take surveys. Surveys will help you understand how thy hybrid policy is impacting the productivity, wellbeing, collaboration, and work-life balance of your employees. While it’s easier to get feedback from your desk-jib employees, it is equally important to learn the feedback from your frontline employees also. Implementing technologies that are accessible on mobile devices, can help you resolve this problem.
Conclusion
A hybrid work definition will not be permanent, and it cannot be applied to the whole company at one time. Now that we know people can work from home without compromising quality, let’s leave it up to them to determine the best work schedule for themselves. Teams are better able to experiment with hybrid working when they’re given the tools and permission, as well as the ability to continuously strengthen their collaboration.
