Is your company moving towards hybrid work? There is no doubt that the majority of businesses shifted to working remotely during the pandemic and to hybrid remote work afterward. According to a recent Salesforce study, there is very little room for organizations to return to the 9 to 5 routine five days a week. However, as with anything new, the hybrid model of work has its own set of challenges.
Most businesses saw this shift in work models as an opportunity to re-evaluate their work culture. However, unless your company understands the challenges of a hybrid work model and eliminates the risks, it may struggle to keep up with its employees and excel in this new landscape. In this blog, we’ll look at the top five challenges of hybrid remote work and how to prepare for them.
To get you up to speed, we’ve listed the top five challenges of the hybrid model, as well as solutions to them. These 5 C’s will assist you in determining where you are and where you want to go from there.
#1 C: Communication
Challenges: Not every employee in an organization is technologically savvy. Moving from on-site to hybrid creates numerous technological challenges. While organizations struggle to separate on-site and remote employees, determining the best communication channels for teams is the most difficult.
Solution: In these revolutionary times, the best way to move forward is to deploy simple and user-friendly tools that can seamlessly connect onsite and offsite employees. To improve employee relationships and engagement, leaders must ensure that employees with less technical knowledge have constant and extensive IT support. Aside from that, leaders must develop special social agendas for teams to maintain high levels of interaction.
#2 C: Coordination
Challenges: Collaborative work in an organization necessitates strong coordination. Employees in a remote team may feel excluded from larger conversations and important decisions due to less coordination and contact than those working together in the office. This can put a strain on teams because remote employees may begin to feel disconnected.
Solution: Schedule at least one day per week for the entire team to physically meet to intensify in-person conversations. Encourage transparency and give employees autonomy and flexibility in project coordination and collaboration. This will provide solid opportunities for knowledge sharing and the development of important professional relationships.
#3 C: Connection
Challenges: The difficulties in connecting hybrid work models are not limited to technological limitations or logistical coordination. Social connections are an even bigger issue in hybrid remote working. There is a worry that they will completely lose themselves in remote work, which can result in less content and committed workers who are more likely to contribute to employee attrition.
Solution: Don’t treat employees WFH (work from home) as “extras”. Mix some old-school techniques with modern-day tools to host fun virtual spaces regularly and encourage employees to reconnect with one another. To make that human connection, try starting conversations about your coworkers’ families or pets. Adopt new engagement strategies and find common ground for employees to bring that emotional touch.
#4 C: Creativity
Challenge: Organizations are struggling to bring innovations with collective creativity because, while alternatives such as brainstorming via zoom exist, the natural flow of ideation is disrupted. Individual creativity, on the other hand, may be jeopardized. Employees’ creativity levels can be hampered by distance and loneliness, which becomes problematic when solving problems.
Solution: Encourage your employees to write and scribble down their ideas whenever they come to them, as this will help them organize and refine the idea further. It also allows team members to evaluate, reflect on, and provide feedback when their minds are at their sharpest. To avoid employee burnout, leaders must embrace distributed collaboration.
#5 C: Culture
Challenge: Senior management has begun to believe that the pandemic has weakened corporate culture. Leaders are struggling to familiarize new employees with the company’s culture, especially as they join. Maintaining a strong culture is even more important now that employees are beginning to re-evaluate their purpose at work. Companies with weaker cultures will eventually lose the war for talent due to a lack of clarity in their future vision.
Solution: In recent months, creating cultures where businesses prioritize their “employees first” has gained popularity. Leaders must constantly listen to their employees through pulse surveys and connect their work to the organization’s shared purpose to accomplish this. Strong employee sentiment analysis will allow you to glean insights from employee feedback, assisting you in shaping a goal-oriented culture.
Concluding it with
Keeping employees happy and engaged has always been important, and with hybrid transformations, it is even more critical. Form inclusive teams using the appropriate technology to make individual employees feel appreciated and valued.
Create a dynamic future work experience that allows employees, regardless of location, to feel a strong sense of belonging and connection to the organization’s vision, mission, and purpose while keeping their personal goals at the forefront.
