How Companies Are Making Hybrid Working A Success
22nd Apr 2022
The transition from office-based pre-pandemic, to fully-remote during the pandemic, and back to hybrid again post-pandemic has certainly created some challenges for companies.
So, what is hybrid working? Simply put, hybrid work enables employees to work some days from home, and some days in the office, usually on a weekly basis.Whilst hybrid working isn’t the most in-demand choice from individuals, it is still a very popular way of working, with an average of 25% of Flexa users choosing hybrid working as their number one preference in Q1 2022. 27.2% of searches on Flexa included the hybrid working filter during the same period.
Hybrid working is a fantastic option for companies to embrace the benefits and freedom of remote work, while still maintaining in-office interaction and culture, but how do you ensure that your hybrid working environment is setup for maximal success?Three tips for winning at hybrid working:
1. Ask, and listen to, your employees
Survey your employees to find out what they want, and make sure that you action their responses. Do they want to come into the office once, twice, three times a week? Would flexible hours help everyone to be able to do this?
While it’s impossible to solve for every individual employee, you can design a hybrid working environment that suits the majority.
Be cautious of sending out surveys and not actioning their suggestions, as this can make employees feel like they’re not being listened to.
2. Make your office space more appealing
Make your office a space that people want to visit for certain activities.
There’s no point encouraging people to come into the office to spend all day replying to emails. Try to make in-office days a time for work that is better done face to face, such as strategy sessions, team meetings, brainstorming, onboarding new members, or team-building activities.
Also make the office a nice place to be - ensure that there are enough desks for everyone, decorate it nicely, have chill out areas where people can catch up, and make sure that people enjoy being there!3. Be proud of that fact you are a hybrid company
There are millions of people out there who want to work for a hybrid company, so own it! Be sure to publicise the fact you’re hybrid, and shout about the other flexible ways of working that are on offer. You can do this through Flexa, and attract talent that is looking for hybrid working. Transparency is key to making the right hires, so bring your hybrid working environment to the forefront of the hiring process!Don’t just take our advice on how to become a brilliant hybrid workplace, though! We asked some of our Flexified companies to tell us how they’ve made hybrid working work:
"We are soon to open the doors to our Learnerbly 'Hive' in London, UK. It's a space where our people can come together and collaborate in person. At Learnerbly we put the learner in the driving seat for their own growth, so we applied the same thinking to our approach to hybrid working - our Learnerbees are in the driving seat to decide where they do their best work. People come to our Hive because they want to, not because they have to!" - Lauren Mason, Head of People Experience at Learnerbly.
"Here at Troi, we're very much a remote-first business these days, but we try to encourage the whole company to come together in our London office once a month for varying reasons, whether it be a quarterly social or some training or our quarterly workshop days. More recently we have done a D, E&I training session day as well as a company-wide workshop to gather ideas on how we can do better as a company. As well as this, we love to socialise so we are doing end of quarter wrap-up days where we can get together share our wins as well as go out and socialise as a collective.
We want our team to find it fruitful to get together, not something for the sake of it.
Equally, since we are hiring across the UK - we have set up 'co-located workgroups' so for those who are in a similar area can get together in an office and work together more frequently if they wish, this is a choice they can make. Our first started this week in Manchester! " - Amie, Talent Strategy at Troi.
"At Matchable, we organise company socials on one Thursday of every month, and have a full company day off on the Friday after. This is great because it gives us some time to breathe, and take time off without having that worry of ‘what am I missing out on’ when you’re the only one taking time off!
An added bonus to this is that we are encouraged to visit our office and work together before the social, to make sure we have some time together to catch up on Matchable stuff before we can relax and catch up more generally over a team activity or lunch!" - Sophie, Client Engagement Lead at Matchable.