Are you contemplating the idea of adopting a hybrid workplace but are not sure how to do it? It is a possibility that your business transformed to working from home after the pandemic, but you still have some concerns.
According to research on hybrid work by ‘Great Place to Work’, 60% of Fortune 500 executives believe that one-fourth of their workforce will continue to enjoy the perks of remote work.
If this sounds familiar to you, we have got your back. All you need is a contemporary hybrid work model, 2022 edition.
In this blog, we will cover seven hybrid workplace examples along with hybrid work model best practices. But, first, let us understand what a hybrid work model is and how organizations can adopt a hybrid work model.
What is a hybrid work model?
A hybrid work model is a framework where employees share their work in-office and in remote places. The work arrangement allows some of the critical resources to work in-office, and other non-essential workers can continue working remotely. In some cases, all employees can be given the choice and flexibility to choose their working style.
A hybrid work model allows different types of individuals to work together. However, to thrive, a hybrid workplace must acknowledge the requirements of various teams and set up a win-win framework for everyone.
Types of Hybrid Work Models
Some of the most popular hybrid work models are:
Flexible Hybrid Work Model
In this model, employees have the flexibility to choose their location and time based on their preferences. For instance, if there is a requirement to spend time focusing on a critical project, they can choose to work from home. On the other hand, if they are looking for inspiration or help from others, they can decide to work from the office.
Fixed Hybrid Work Model
The company decides specific days when employees can work remotely or are required to work from the office. For instance, some teams are needed in the office on Mondays and Thursdays, while others can go on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Office-First Hybrid Work Model
Employees are required to be in the office but have the opportunity to choose a few days in a week to work remotely. It helps maintain a uniform culture in the organization, along with flexibility and individual freedom.
Remote-First Hybrid Work Model
In this model, employees work from home for the majority of the time with incidental visits to the office or a designated coworking space to work with other team members. This option allows businesses to hire a coworking space and get rid of any permanent office space.
How can organizations adopt a hybrid work model?
To adopt a hybrid work model, organizations need to follow the right approach and technology to offer employees flexibility.
Conduct a Survey
To develop a thriving hybrid work model, understanding your employees’ basic needs is essential. How to do that effectively? By conducting surveys to understand what employees feel about hybrid work. It is crucial to add questions about the work setup they want. By analyzing the results of this survey, you can customize a successful hybrid work model for your organization.
Necessary Infrastructure
Hybrid work enables you to fill the gap between remote and in-office work. Therefore, it is imperative to invest in the proper infrastructure to enhance hybrid work, like communication tools, on-site conferencing tools, and a digital platform like call center software to enable direct communication between your teams and your clients.
Develop Your Company Culture
Invest in things that help you build a thriving company culture. It is essential to attract and retain some of the brightest minds in any industry. For instance, you can use tools like Slack to facilitate virtual team meetings. It can allow you to create a rich experience for your employees around the core values of your business.
Offer an Incredible Work Experience
At times, employees might lose interest in working from the office. It can hamper your company culture when employees are not interested in showing up regularly to the office. Hence, it is crucial to offer a fantastic and collaborative work experience in-office where employees are always happy to participate.
Timely Feedback
Once you develop a successful hybrid work model for your business, you must take timely feedback from all your employees. For example, you can send quarterly surveys to employees and offer a platform to share their grievances, if any. This feedback will allow you to enhance your hybrid work model and take it to the next level.
Hybrid Workplace Examples
From startups to enterprises, organizations are creating their hybrid work model. The core management at these companies has shared insights into how they have leveraged the hybrid model to meet their organizational goals and offer a work-life balance to their employees. It is a valuable guide for choosing the best hybrid work model for your team.
Let us try to understand and decode the hybrid work models followed by some of the leading organizations.
Meta (Facebook)
Meta has worked hard on adopting an on-site policy to offer better flexibility to their employees. A few important things to know about their hybrid work policy:
- In 2021, the company informed their employees that they are expected to be back in the office at least 2-3 days a week. It is an ideal example of a top-down, centralized approach by Meta management.
- At the moment, Meta has an Office deferral program for employees who want to extend their remote work by three months.
- Meta has successfully formulated a policy that allows employees to work from the office at least three days per week.
Microsoft’s Policy
Microsoft has implemented a data-driven approach for their hybrid work by identifying how to make remote work productive for the organization. For instance, they have understood that frequent meetings take a toll on their employees, and it is crucial for them to take sufficient breaks to mitigate this issue.
With the help of this approach, the organization can make sure that the employees are not attending regular meetings and are facilitated with frequent breaks. Moreover, they are leveraging technology to improve the overall remote work experience for teams across the organization.
Amazon’s Balanced Approach
If you want to implement hybrid work at scale, there is no need to look further than Amazon. During the pandemic, Amazon went on a mass-hiring spree and became one of the largest employers in the US.
Amazon has adopted the hybrid work model for 2022, where there is no benchmark for all the employees to come to the office. Instead, they have left this decision to the team leaders. By delegating this responsibility to team leaders, Amazon has offered a great way to customize hybrid work for all the employees by having a one-on-one meeting with their managers.
Salesforce’s Employee First Model
Salesforce is one of the best organizations to work for. It is evident in their hybrid work policy, which offers greater flexibility and freedom to their employees. A Salesforce employee can choose one of the three options mentioned below:
- Flexible – One to three days on-site for team meetings and collaborative tasks.
- Remote – This option is for employees whose presence is not required in the office.
- On-site – This option can be taken by employees whose physical presence is required at all times.
HubSpot
HubSpot is another organization that offers its employees choose from 3 options for hybrid work.
- In-office – Employees choosing this option will have a designated workspace and be required in the office for three days a week.
- Flexible – In this option, employees are required to be in the office for two days or less in a week. They will be provided with a temporary workspace in this option.
- Work from Home – It is an option for employees who are working from home and will be given the required infrastructure to set up a remote workspace.
Slack
Slack is a prominent organization that encourages employees to work from remote locations permanently. So, when the offices were reopened, employees were given a preference in choosing their site based on their commitments. Moreover, they have designed their hiring to include more remote employees.
Slack also offered a return to office option to the employees who did not wish to work remotely. The organization has worked on its remote-work infrastructure and planned excessively to reduce the inter-dependency of its teams.
Gravity Payments’ Flexible Model
Gravity Payments is an incredible credit card processing organization that shot to fame after the CEO reduced his payment to offer better employee pay. They have managed to replicate an employee-first approach in their work policy too.
Gravity Payments is one of the most progressive organizations on the list, which doesn’t believe in a top-down approach. They have a team of around 200 employees, and everyone has been given the freedom to choose how they want to work as long as it doesn’t affect the business outcome.
Hybrid work model best practices
Nurture a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Hybrid work model best practices that fail to focus on a healthy work-life balance will fall in the long run. These models were designed to make life easier for the employees, which helps boost productivity and improve output. It is best to check your policies regularly and update them according to your team’s requirements.
Target Employee Upskilling
Recently, businesses have found it hard to attract and retain new talent due to the abundance of employment opportunities. Hence, it is best to invest in upskilling your current employees before starting a hybrid work model at scale.
Upskilling is one of the best employee retention strategies that helps everyone in the organization and will ensure that your employees are always ready to handle any changes in the evolving market. It is one of the best ways to retain talent and increase the organization’s overall productivity.
Offer a Consistent Remote/On-Site Experience
More often than not, remote employees don’t feel a sense of belonging due to various reasons. Therefore, businesses must constantly ensure that all employees are treated equally, whether working from the office or remotely. An excellent way to start is by encouraging digital communication over face-to-face meetings.
Team meetings, Town-Halls, conferences, etc. must be planned by taking into account both the remote workers and on-site workers. This allows remote employees to have a say and contribute equally. Focusing on online communication is one of the best ways to ensure a consistent experience for all employees.
Conclusion
If there is one thing that you can learn from this post, let it be that hybrid work models are here to stay. Before the pandemic, many companies, including Facebook, HubSpot, etc., tried adopting a hybrid work model. However, after the pandemic, more businesses have chosen the hybrid work model as offices are allowed to open and operate at full capacity.
If your business is not sure how to adopt a feasible hybrid work model, try and go back to the hybrid workplace examples and hybrid work model best practices and think about the benefits it will provide to your employees. For example, offering the freedom and flexibility to allow employees to work from anywhere will help improve their productivity and foster a healthy work-life balance.
