Let's talk for a moment about a hybrid work environment. More and more companies are starting to adopt this new model and having employees going back to the office some days and working from home some days.
And there's a lot of confusion about what that means. There are a lot of mixed opinions about how that changes day-to-day work. So let's talk about it for a moment.
On one hand, people look at returning to the office in a hybrid environment as a loss of the privilege of working from home. A benefit that they had for the past few years and is now lost. And others look at it as a benefit for the opportunity of going back to the office and interacting with people and returning to the way things used to be before COVID, when everything shut down.
Well, it's really neither of those. Hybrid work is a whole new way of working. And when you approach it in that way, it changes the paradigm of what a hybrid work environment is really all about.
If there's one thing COVID taught us, it's that going into an office every single day to do work is not always necessary. Of course, there are some jobs that require you to be there. Doctors, nurses, first responders, they likely need to be on the job. However, most office workers found that they can get their jobs done just fine working from home.
In a digital world where there are no papers and filing cabinets to deal with, everything is done digitally anyway, working from home really became an easy transtion. And people started to embrace that. And in some cases became somewhat spoiled in realizing they don't have to deal with the expense and time to commute an hour or so. Working from home was indeed a great privilege.
On the other hand, many corporations realized that they were paying rent on office space that was not being used. And that was not really a productive use of those dollars.
There are some people that really didn't like working from home and missed the connectivity with people and the interaction and just the camaraderie of working with your coworkers. Some people viewed that as a loss and really itched to get back to an office.
A hybrid environment is not simply a return to the way things used to be, only part of the time, and it's not really a loss of privilege of working from home, where now you have to commute again. It's really, in fact, a whole new way of thinking.
It's a whole new paradigm. It gives employees and managers the opportunity to decide which is the best way of working in a given scenario. It's the best of both worlds.
So when you combine that and realize that we’re living in a whole new world where hybrid work is going to be the standard, and it's becoming the standard very quickly. One in which you can decide as an employee what kind of work needs to be in an office where you have to collaborate and work together and whiteboard and share things and have those ad hoc conversations with your coworkers. Let’s face it, there's a value to that. But there's also a value in times when you have heads down work where you just need to get tasks done and you don't want to have those ad hoc conversations. You don't want to be disturbed. You just need to get stuff done. And that's where working from home really becomes the benefit.
So in a hybrid environment, you have the flexibility of deciding which is the best time to go into an office and which is the best time to not. It really provides a great deal of flexibility that maybe you didn't have before.
Think of it like this. Prior to COVID, when everybody just went to an office every day, sat in a cubicle and did their job, there may have been times when you just didn't feel the need to do that. You went in, you sat there, you did your work, you went home. In those cases the commute is not a very productive use of your time.
However, during COVID, when everybody was working from home and nobody met, there was a loss of that camaraderie, getting to know your fellow workers. There are some people that started jobs that never even met their coworkers. That's not a good thing either.
So a hybrid environment is really a combination of the two that gives you the best of both. It offers the flexibility to get into an office with your coworkers, get to know them as people, have them get to know you, and really build that sense of community. At the same time, having the flexibility of working from home where that heads down work can get done without being disturbed.
It starts with taking an assessment of all of the various tasks that are involved in a typical workday. The heads down work, the tasks that have to just get done, the strict deadlines, those are the opportunities where working from home is probably the best option. Sit there and be undisturbed. As opposed to other types of work, such as planning, strategizing, project management, things that involve collaborating with people, having those conversations, bringing people in as you need them. Those are the opportunities where going into an office really becomes a valuable asset. You can't do that working remotely and be as effective as if you were actually there in a room with people working together.
After taking an assessment of all of the various tasks that have to get done, and then determine what opportunities you have to work from home and what's a best fit for working remotely.
Second, just like people who have summer and winter homes, they have to balance their lifestyle around two different locations. They have to have kitchenware, they have to have clothing, they have to have different things in each location. So when they're in one home and then they move to another home, they don't want to pack the whole house up and move to the other home and reset up everything back and forth. Well, it's the same thing with a work environment.
That means maybe having a keyboard and a mouse in both locations, so you don't have to pack them up and bring them. You want to set up a home base in both locations.
Nobody wants a bare desk when you go into an office. Bring all those conveniences. That could mean having a dual setup so that when you go into an office, everything you need is there. Your pictures of the family, your plant, your keyboard and mouse, everything you need is present, and you don't have to pack it all up when you go home.
And lastly, make sure everybody is fully trained on this whole new paradigm of working. Hybrid work is a different way of working. It's not just the old ways changed a little bit. Think of it that way. So have everybody trained. Have managers and directors and everybody trained in what options are available. What's the best time to come into the office? What's the best time to not come into the office? So that there's no confusion later on with people not meeting their obligations. We're in a new world now, folks.
People don't want to return to the old ways, but they also realize that things have to be a little different than the COVID days where everybody worked from home. This is a great opportunity to redefine work, to redefine those paradigms of how people get jobs done. And if planned properly, everybody could be happy, productivity can be increased, managers can manage people effectively, and workers can realize that there is a balance between working from home, working in an office, and getting the best value out of your day.
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