What is hybrid working and how to make it work
There’s been a lot of talk in the media in recent months about hybrid working. But what exactly is it? Hybrid working is where you have a balance of working in an office and working from home.
As a result of the permanent home working that many had to do during the pandemic and the various lockdowns, many organisations have had to consider the safety of their working environments mitigating the spread of Covid-19. Now that restrictions are all lifted, and we’re learning what it means to live with the virus, a lot of workplaces are paying attention to patterns of working in a post-Covid world.
The common approach seems to be that organisations are saying people should come into the office between 2-3 days a week, and the other days can be worked from home. This approach accommodates those with health needs, caring and parenting needs and responsibilities. Also, many people want to save costs on commuting, so hybrid offers an improved balance for being with your colleagues and working from home.
There are other approaches, where some companies have decided to let their teams work from home or work remotely 100% of the time. That’s because they’ve decided that an office space isn’t needed for a company to succeed, and the productivity of the team isn’t reliant on them being in a physical space. And some central London companies have expectation for their teams to return to the office 100% of the time, as it used to be pre-Covid.
The key factors in allowing hybrid working to work effectively are around:
Trusting your team to fulfil their job role without needing them in a physical space together
Bringing the team together for important social bonding e.g. team training or project working
Listening to the needs of team members and providing accommodation where possible
Giving an allowance for people to have the right home kit needed – most people don’t have an office at home available to them. E.g. a good headset, a desk and ergonomic char.
Don’t fill up the diary with meetings – people need time to do work
Make sure to check in with individuals about their wellbeing – it’s harder to know how people are doing when they are working remotely
And of course, there is a third option to hybrid working and that is to use a coworking space like The Epping Connection. We offer a great option for people to be productive without worrying about the distractions that come with working from home. We have hot desks, which means we have availability for people to come and work from your space flexibly. We have meeting rooms for those team meetings to take place, and especially for when you have appraisal conversations. And we have private spaces to take video calls if that’s what you need.
