Establishing Your Hybrid Work Culture

Introduction

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What does contemporary organizational culture entail? Has its meaning changed as a result of the pandemic? Should leaders be concerned or even discuss it? According to recent research, they should. McKinsey says that companies with healthy work cultures returned three times more to shareholders during the pandemic. On the other hand, problems related to culture and people account for 70% of transformation failures.

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Strengthening and maintaining an organization's work culture has always been difficult, but with hybrid work models, the difficulty has skyrocketed. However, we only get such an opportunity occasionally. Leaders need to rethink how they run their workplaces as new working models emerge. The current situation gives us a chance to rethink the way work will be done in the future after the widespread migration to home offices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Hybrid work supports a healthy work-life balance. Over the past couple of years, adapting to ever-evolving industry changes is now more crucial than ever. Here are a few ways to inject hybrid culture into your organization.

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Adjusting To A Work-Life Balance

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At the beginning of 2020, traditional offices were primarily characterized by assigned seating and 9-to-5 work hours. However, we witnessed a once-in-a-generation shift toward remote work at the beginning of the pandemic.

Some businesses saw the changes in the workplace as a threat to their culture, productivity, and innovation, while others saw them as an opportunity for cost savings, reduced real estate footprint, and unrestricted talent access. The future of the workplace is currently hybrid: a mix of working from home and in an office.

A recent Microsoft survey of 30,000 employees worldwide found that 66% of decision-makers are considering redesigning physical spaces to successfully accommodate hybrid work, and 70% of workers want flexible working options to continue. However, the transition to a hybrid workforce brings with it new difficulties and complexities that numerous businesses have yet to reconcile.

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Challenge:

• It will be difficult for leaders to gauge employee wellness, engagement, and work satisfaction without the appropriate policies and digital tools.

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Opportunity:

• Utilizing employee sentiment analysis tools to comprehend employees' stress levels and motivations can help you keep employees engaged and get the most out of them.
• Identifying problem areas and providing data for more strategic decisions and policies that offer greater flexibility will assist businesses in improving their retention strategies.
  

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Staying Productive

It can be challenging for employers to manage and evaluate the productivity of their remote employees because the pandemic is blurring the lines between when the workday begins and ends. Some remote workers may work longer hours and work less efficiently, while others may become digitally distracted or burnt out.

On the other hand, if remote workers are able to access the relevant information while their work is in progress, productivity can rise as a result of the absence of typical office distractions like traveling and commuting.

Opportunities to share knowledge, collaborate, monitor performance, and make decisions can be easily lost without a seamless connection to team members in the office. This is a significant challenge in the hybrid work environment.

Challenge:

• When employees are split 60/40 or 70/30 between working from home or in an office, how can businesses restore the lost collaboration?

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Opportunity:

• Utilize technology to keep employees connected and closer to one another in order to increase collaboration and productivity.
• Utilizing tools such as the Litespace recommendation system can boost creativity in meetings. Litespace’s platform makes use of artificial intelligence to make scheduling and booking easier. This makes it easier for teams to work together, work remotely, and share information with everyone, allowing employees to work effectively and efficiently anywhere.
• Prioritize relationships and collaborative work, such as whiteboard brainstorming, when in the office.

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Digital Exhaustion

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Digital overload is a real and ongoing threat in the hybrid workplace. Employees now spend an ever-increasing portion of their workdays using digital platforms and tools that allow them to collaborate with one another as the availability of these platforms continues to rise.

Employees struggle to maintain a work-life balance as a result; They struggle to unplug at the end of their workday because they use too many tools, apps, and virtual meetings.

One in five respondents to Microsoft's global survey claim that their employer does not care about their work-life balance and that 54% of those polled felt overworked.

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Challenge:

• In a hybrid workplace, how can you provide opportunities for employee well-being and enhanced performance?

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Opportunity:

• Try to find a balance between synchronous and asynchronous collaboration when working with people in other time zones.
• Make it a part of your company's culture to encourage employees to take five-minute breaks between remote meetings to help them think clearly and reduce stress.
• Employees should be encouraged to plan their days around other priorities like family, exercise, and hobbies, or plan on-site working days around the same days as your work friends using Litespace’s AI recommendation system (launching soon, keep an eye out!) - Litespace’s recommendation system allows you to be notified of when your favorite coworker is coming into the office.
• Evaluate ways to reduce exposure to digital distractions and prevent virtual overload on a regular basis.

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Digital Adoption

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The future workplace is hybrid, and the future office environment needs to be connected and cohesive, with a blend of digital and physical environments

A shift in employees' perceptions of what it means to be at work has necessitated a shift in how businesses structure their systems to better accommodate this new normal. Accelerating their digital processes, accepting the necessity of migrating to a digital work environment, and developing user-friendly, more effective systems are essential to achieving that goal.

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The entire focus is on digitally transforming how businesses operate, including learning about software and programs that can help businesses construct robust remote and hybrid working models. In turn, this necessitates hiring tech-savvy workers who can work on the back end and set up systems. either that or expand the range of knowledge and abilities of their current workforce. An organization that goes hybrid in order to stay ahead of the competition and adapt to a changing world will naturally develop the drive to innovate in search of technologies.

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Despite this, it is essential to take into account the human factor when rushing to go digital. Technology and the human factor play a significant role in how businesses develop productive, happy, and efficient employees. It's not enough to just build a cutting-edge digital system that makes it easy to work from anywhere and has a flawless communication network. Mutual trust is essential for the hybrid work model of a business to be successful. If you cultivate that, as well as a culture of dependability and accountability, it will be simpler to reap the benefits of a hybrid work model.

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Challenge:

• How can you make sure users feel supported and know what each digital tool is for?

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Opportunity:

• Choose digitally savvy leaders and advocates to gradually implement digital training and change management for all employees.
• Make full use of a wide range of tools and applications, including information management and employee experience platforms.

A hybrid work culture is important for the same reason any work culture is important — culture is the foundation of an organization.  Employees should feel valued, heard, and seen in company culture. Consequently, morale remains high, productivity rises, and the business continues to expand.

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If a positive company culture is not established, employees will feel disengaged, retention issues will arise, morale will decline, and your chances of achieving your objectives will be low.