Many South African companies are now questioning whether hybrid work is really working as they step back and review their progress towards the new hybrid workplace. It is not always clear that companies have arrived at the right hybrid model that promotes individual productivity, team collaboration and organizational innovation.
“A growing number of businesses have at least a portion of their employees who spend some time working in the office and some time working remotely,” said Linda Trim, director at Giant Leap.
He says companies can check if they’re on the right track by considering six warning signs:
The manager is out of sync with the team
“If the manager spends more time in the office than the team, or less, you have a problem,” says Trim. “If your boss spends a lot of time in the office, even if the official line is that you are welcome to spend two days a week at home, then it is difficult not to worry about remote work.”
However, it can be worse if the boss is in the office less than the rest of the team. When you have to be in the office four days a week, but the boss is only there for two, it feels unfair, Trim said, even when the discrepancy is directly related to the nature of work and responsibility.
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Yes, people do miss the pandemic
Employees may often ask each other if they remember when everyone is at work canceling and this is definitely an alarm bell. “When you hear employees waxing nostalgic for the days of full-time remote work, you know the return to the office is less than a clear victory.”
She says employers need to find out what employees don’t like about telecommuting and find ways to reduce workplace frustrations, whether that means creating uninterrupted hours, or adding benefits, such as tastier snacks.
Expand working hours
It’s possible that some executives still see the 12-hour workday as a badge of honor, but it only leads to burnout and resentment for many employees, Trim said. “This is one of the risks of hybrid scheduling, because days full of video calls and meetings often push other work, such as answering emails, planning and writing reports, into small hours.”
If your data shows email and messaging beyond work hours, start by looking at your manager’s habits. “Again, look at groups, not individual users, to see if this is a top-down problem. When the boss sends an email at 9 p.m., it can be difficult for rank-and-file employees to tune in and let go.
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That’s when it’s all business
Trim says many business leaders worry about what hybrid work means for company culture, because they think of culture as something that happens when people gather around conference tables or go out for drinks after work.
“Hybrid teams can actually build relationships and trust in person and at a distance, but only if there is room for play and exploration as well as for the task at hand. When days on site are too busy or if the volume of online communication is too high, then there is no room for throw out personal news, this is a sign that you leave no room for bonding.
His advice is to leave the first or last minutes of every meeting for informal chats, call distant friends on birthdays and set up an always-on webcam in the break room so off-site workers can log in for spontaneous visits with them. colleagues on site.
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When the late adopters began to relapse
One of the positive effects of Covid is that even the staunchest late adopters, those who refuse to use Google Docs, Slack, Microsoft Teams or anything other than email, will eventually have to learn to use online collaboration tools, many of which are useful. in the office as when working remotely, Trim said.
“Now that they are back in the office, at least for a while, have they relapsed by reducing the use of digital collaboration tools? If so, this is a sign that you have not found an effective approach to distributed and hybrid teams.
If part of your team goes back to the physical exchange of paper, or on the best whiteboard in the office, the hybrid team will not be as productive as it should be. “The hybrid workplace, in other words, is not a free pass to retreat, nor is it a free pass to throw away everything you did before.”
He emphasized that this is an opportunity to take what we learned during the pandemic and build something new, something better.