Fostering a thriving Hybrid Work Culture

There is a lot of buzz of moving to a new working model called the Hybrid Workplace. While on the face of it, this looks like a very doable & easy option, in reality organisations have to reinvent to make this a reality.

A recent Microsoft survey revealed, that 74% of Indian employees  want flexible work options &  73% of them also want to spend time with their teams in-person. In the pre pandemic world this would have sounded very paradoxical but in  the post pandemic world the  emerging hybrid work culture as a way of working, could be the magic solution to strike the right balance.

Hybrid is a more flexible format, and can be interpreted in many ways like  include some staff members working in the office full-time while others work from home for a certain number of days a week OR schedule certain days for in-person collaboration and meetings, then allocate remote workdays OR some employees working in the office while others work remotely and the two groups switching locations at a set time and so on.

There is no one-size-fits-all hybrid workplace strategy, each organisation will need to create their own version to suit their  needs.

The obvious benefits of hybrid are

1. lower operating costs largely due to expensive real estate investments
2. Global Talent Acquisition
3. Work life integration

Switching to a hybrid model would need preparation- mindset changes – comfort with flexibility – & display of high accountability by ALL.

Organisations will need to prepare to manage the following possible challenges: