Hybrid Work Will Continue to Exist Indefinitely

A study indicated that 66% of business executives consider restructuring office spaces to suit a more scattered, hybrid workforce. It seems that hybrid work will continue to exist indefinitely.

Your workflows must catch up with the times. Hopefully, COVID is going down, but hybrid work is going up and will be around for a long time.

The management of personnel in different locations worldwide generates an urgent need to replace inefficient procedures with user-friendly digital workflows so that employees can choose their working conditions differently. The change to digital workflows is being driven by several phenomena — including increased virtual collaboration.

The Chief Innovation Officer of ServiceNow, led by Nerys Mutlow, an evangelist, describes the current state of affairs as “a tremendous fight for talent.” In contrast, if your procedures are excessively tied to the office, it makes it difficult for your hybrid workers to get work done — and you’re competing against another business that allows people to work on the devices of their choosing.

Complications in Shielding from Hybrid

The employee experience can be disconnected and unclear in the absence of digital procedures that link a business. In other words, the hybrid option is missing. For example, employees in one department may be required to send an email to have a query answered or a form filled out in another. Yet another option would be to depend on a support desk or a spreadsheet. But, according to Mutlow, these compartmentalized, inefficient procedures do not adapt to a scattered workforce because they are inadequate.

Inadequate work procedures cause discrepancies and make it challenging to clearly understand possible hazards and bottlenecks. In addition, manual techniques may compel workers to devote their attention to the wrong kind of activities. For example, according to Mutlow, after a salesperson has acquired a new client, the optimal use of their time is nurturing that connection and closing another sale with that customer.

Entering data into a customer relationship management system can cause a backlog, and businesses should consider that its sales team should be doing something else. Instead, we have to make things as easy as possible for individuals, Mutlow explains.

Using New Technology in Hybrid to Navigate Your Way Around

Integration with the technology on which your company now depends should be smooth across platforms. They should be available from whatever device an employee chooses to use. Leadership should tailor messages to the specific requirements of each employee. According to Mutlow, this is how you provide workers with the tools they need to manage their workload, prioritize activities, and improve processes, regardless of where they are located or where they conduct work.

Better tech and features increase productivity and provide managers with a better understanding of their hybrid/remote staff and how they conduct their work. Guy Kurlandski, a chief evangelist officer, compares managers of post-pandemic teams to a flier of an aircraft at night in the rain when the weather is terrible.

When you have the correct equipment, it doesn’t matter the weather outside — you’ll make it to your goal in one piece. Likewise, when you provide your team with the best software, tools, and tech — you will be on the path to more outstanding excellence in your workforce.

Maintaining your relevance

The normalization of remote and hybrid work correlates with many other organizational changes taking place. For example, many companies are shifting from a project-centric strategy toward a product-centric one. The latter may provide more effective customer service and create connections with them, but it requires a change in approach.

In reality, product-centric work entails forming cross-functional teams structured around the customer and employee journeys, among other things. Therefore, you’ll need the kind of digital technologies that link people and make collaboration simple, especially in a hybrid situation.

Employees must be able to spend their time on mission-critical activities, and businesses must be able to remain relevant in more uncertain markets, according to Mutlow. As workplaces continue to develop, workflows must keep up. At this moment in time, we must be more inventive than we have ever been before.

Repeat your business processes but learn to embrace the hybrid model

During the pandemic, many businesses relied on digital strategies to lay the groundwork for future expansion, providing the ability to grow swiftly due to easily accessible methods.

Every company may use the same hybrid advantages if they know where to look, and there is a plethora of information being shared to help companies adapt to the new changes in tech and the hybrid nature of work.

Conclusion

Several businesses have indicated that they will insist that their employees come back to the office. Unfortunately, this may be a decided mistake as it seems that COVID keeps rearing its ugly head. The best business advice we’re currently giving such businesses at this time is that they will want to prepare for all eventualities.

Businesses cannot plan for every economic situation, but at this time — the economic situation includes the possibility that hybrid will not be a choice in the future. Therefore, we can prepare by being hybrid ready and allowing employees to make some choices that give them work-life balance.

It’s time to up your game, up your technology, and find workable solutions to hybrid. Indeed, hybrid work will likely continue indefinitely.

Image Credit: Anna Shvets; Pexels; Thank you!

Hybrid Work Will Continue to Exist Indefinitely was originally published on Calendar on April 18, 2022 by Howie Jones.