Over the last couple of years hybrid working has become one of the most difficult organisational issues for companies. 

With various return to office (RTO) approaches and no clear evidence on the pros and cons of remote vs office working, organisations have looked externally to understand what their peers or ‘best practice’ should be.

Combine this with a lack of clear productivity measures, both pre- and post-pandemic, plus demand from employees for hybrid working, it’s no surprise that leaders feel trapped.

What about mandating office days?

One of the most common solutions is the ‘mandated days in the office’ style of hybrid working. Sometimes accompanied by incentives or penalties related to attendance. This form of hybrid working may also result in teams having specific anchor days across the week to distribute attendance in the office where space may be a problem.

Using an approach like this doesn’t consider the type of work performed by teams, or the level of autonomy individuals may have, to choose what work they perform on their anchor days.

Unfortunately, the simple answer is one that many companies don’t want to hear. Hybrid working solutions need to be specific to your organisation, will probably vary across teams and are dependent on your goals and strategy. There is no silver bullet or out of the box solution that will work for everyone.

The good news is, that at Inclusive Cultures, we have been helping teams adopt hybrid working solutions for the last 10 years. In short, we make hybrid working work for you.

The solutions are in themselves simple. Routed in trust-based teams, clear outcomes, educating and supporting leaders in managing distributed teams. 

inclusive Cultures

Another key aspect of hybrid working is ensuring that your workplace supports the type of work being performed in the office. This ranges from creating work settings for meetings, focused and collaborative work, along with social spaces to connect and relax. The adoption of collaboration and meeting room technology will also ensure hybrid working can support individuals, teams and your organisation’s goals.

5 things to consider before creating your hybrid working strategy

1. How did you measure productivity before the pandemic? If you didn’t, how do you know productivity has deteriorated? How will you measure productivity going forward?
2. How much agency do teams have to choose what work they do and when? If you have teams that are by nature reactive or will need to be at a laptop or phone frequently, they probably wont have flexibility to choose when they come in to an office or what type of workspace they need
3. Do you have difficulty attracting or retaining people? If so, do you know the reason for this, as hybrid and flexible working strategies may be able to help.
4. What development have your managers and leaders had? Are they ‘technical’ experts who have been promoted into a people management role without the development they need? This should include some form of ongoing mentoring and/or coaching. Have you articulated how leading a distributed team is different to managing a physically present team?
5. How do you define collaboration in your organisation? What does collaboration look like both within teams and between teams.

When creating an action plan to resolve these areas, we’d recommend creating a formal project with clear outcomes, sponsorship from the top of the organisation and allocation of dedicated resources to deliver the plan. 

If you would like a no-obligation chat or think we could help, please contact either Adam or Anne.