What’s wrong with a hybrid workplace?

There is one clear thing about the future of work future. Hybrid working will become the norm for lots of companies. If you have difficulty managing your hybrid human resources, why not start questioning, “what is wrong with a hybrid workplace?” and find a way out.

What is hybrid working?

Hybrid working refers to a model of working that prioritizes flexibility. Here, staff can work partly in the office and partly away from it, for example, at home. According to a report, over 57% of respondents worked in a hybrid during the coronavirus pandemic. Their work relationships and psychology improved compared to those spending entire working hours working remotely or in the physical workplace. 

What is wrong with a hybrid workplace?

Communication

Communication among employees in the hybrid work setting can be not smooth because a few people feel more comfortable communicating over screens while others prefer in-person communication. Not to mention the fact that the status and language differences have for long been known to build barriers to workplace communication.

Coordination

Coordination is important in any task that entails collaboration. Hybrid working poses more challenges to coordination than working on-site. Due to the additional effort needed to get along with remote coworkers, some companies fail to include them in small exchanges and insignificant decisions reached by people working face to face. As time goes by, since people become familiar with who is kept informed and who is not, they may neglect to notice remote colleagues about important conversations and big decisions.

Creativity in hybrid working

Coming up with ideas over screens is probably not as constructive as the conversations and discussions between people sitting together in the workspace. In the physical workplace, you can think up ideas with others or exact a great deal of effort to tackle an issue together.

How to respond to these challenges

Evaluate

When it comes to each challenge, you give it a grade on how it is doing. For example, follow the rating system from 1 to 10 or a typical letter-grading plan. The objective is that based on the grades, you sum up if your hybrid work operation is smooth or needs improving.

Analyze

Define the challenge with the weakest grade. After that, determine the root cause. Why is the score for that challenge low? For instance, assuming you get the lowest grade on communication, do you notice that a few employees are expressing their opinions and ideas more than enough whilst others are not?

Make and execute a plan 

Begin with the challenge with the lowest score. Think about what you should do to improve on this aspect. For instance, let’s say coordination is your most serious challenge. Then, you can consider and decide how to ensure everybody is up-to-date about every key decision. One of the best ways is usually holding information-sharing sessions with remote teammates.In conclusion, you should be aware of what is wrong with a hybrid workplace and how to handle them. Contact us for more information about hybrid working.