For a company to successfully weather the often turbulent waters of the modern business world, introducing and adapting to hybrid working is quickly becoming mandatory rather than just optional.
Due to this, it is far better for business owners and managers to introduce hybrid working into their own core company model sooner rather than later. With this in mind, continue reading this guide to embracing hybrid working throughout your business.
What Exactly is Hybrid Working?
Essentially, hybrid working is the most flexible and equally most sensible working model for any size company and is based within any industry to adopt.
Just as hybrid cars function to their maximum potential and the highest efficiency level by combining traditional and electric engines, hybrid working gives both the employee and their employer the best of both worlds.
Hybrid working allows the employee to work in various locations and not have to be proverbially chained to their desk.
Benefits of Hybrid Working for Your Employees
First and foremost, hybrid working will revolutionize the professional working life of every single one of your employees, even if they only rarely choose to work from home or, indeed, from another location.
The prime benefits of hybrid working, which will directly and wholly positively affect your employees, include:
- A healthier work-to-life balance
- Substantially improved levels of communication
- Higher levels of employee satisfaction
- Increased amounts of productivity
- Higher levels of efficiency
- A better quality of emotional health and wellbeing
Once you have introduced a hybrid working model, you should also consider hiring an expert Office 365 consultant who can help guide you through the installation process, help you with any unexpected issues and questions and ensure your employees can always connect to the company’s private intranet, wherever they are.
Benefits of Hybrid Working for Employers
Not only will starting a hybrid working program greatly benefit every single one of your employees, not to mention yourself and other senior managers and heads of departments, but it will also vastly improve your company in general.
The fundamental advantages of choosing a more hybrid working model for your business in terms of how it will benefit the company itself include the following:
- You will immediately have access to a wider pool of talented new recruits
- Substantial financial savings
- A way to support your employees and feed into the goals of your business
- An ‘agile’ workforce
- A reduction in your company’s carbon footprint
The Challenges of Hybrid Working
Even though a hybrid working model is certainly how businesses across the United Kingdom and beyond are quickly heading, it is also important to highlight the potential pitfalls so that you are more than prepared should they occur.
A Loss of Company Culture
Back in the ‘80s, whereby going to work in an office setting meant turning up at nine in the morning Monday to Friday and working through, with a lunch break, until five in the afternoon, and if a member of the team was not there, they simply could not possibly be still working.
However, fast-forwarding to the present time, employees could not only be working from home, but they could also even be working abroad and on another continent entirely. This potentially large distance between employees can sometimes negatively impact the company culture, so it is absolutely essential to be as communicative and inclusive at all times.
Unsuitability for All Businesses
Although an effective hybrid working model will be revolutionary for the vast majority of businesses, it is also important to point out that there are just a few industries for which hybrid working is unsuitable.
For example, an entirely on-site working environment is obviously essential for industries that are entirely based on working directly with the public, such as doctors and nurses in the healthcare industry, or teachers and assistants in schools.
Employees’ Schedule Management
The third potential challenge when it comes to the first few months of getting used to a hybrid working model, both for the employer and the employee, is that the flexibility which automatically comes along with hybrid working can sometimes be an issue.
Specifically, this comes down to the simple fact that it becomes slightly harder to keep track of every individual’s working schedule, and if you are not careful, this could lead to one or two resourcing issues.
This is why the final piece of advice to remember when it comes to hybrid working is that you should create new guidelines and policies to counteract this.
