The world is changing fast, and the transition to hybrid working with remote work calls for some crucial adjustments. Here are a few best practices to make your hybrid workplace a success.
1. Inform and communicate internally with your teams
Effective communication is fundamental when moving to hybrid working and remote work. Here is how to ensure a successful transition:
Encourage transparent and regular communication
Transparent communication builds a climate of trust in which employees feel comfortable sharing their concerns and ideas about the new hybrid organisation that is on its way. Using communication channels that everyone can access, such as email, virtual meetings, instant messaging platforms or the company intranet, to share news regularly is essential in a hybrid and remote working organisation.
Hold regular meetings to maintain social ties
Regular meetings, whether virtual or in person, are vital for maintaining social ties and strengthening the sense of belonging to the team and the company. As well as in-person meetings to discuss how remote work will be organised, it is also important to arrange informal, friendly get-togethers with team-building activities to encourage social interaction and conversations on non-work topics.
2. Consult staff on remote working days
Before introducing a remote working policy, it is advisable to consult staff and their representatives (the works council) on the hybrid organisation and the remote working framework, in order to understand their collective preferences and needs.
Set flexible working hours and days
Flexibility over days and hours is one of the benefits of the hybrid model. Once you have gathered employees’ views, manage remote working days in a dedicated remote working management application.
Encourage collaboration to build effective remote working schedules
Collaboration between team members is essential to draw up remote working schedules that work for everyone. It is a virtuous circle: if office days and remote working days are well coordinated, collaboration is productive. The aim is to strike a balance, because the benefits of being in the office will not replace those of remote work, and vice versa. That is what hybrid working is all about.
3. Adapt performance management policies to the hybrid model
Choosing a hybrid model means adapting, by introducing a number of rules and HR policies suited to hybrid working. This framework makes effective evaluation possible. Here is how to develop this practice:
Measure the impact of your hybrid policy and optimise workspaces
You can set up indicators to measure how well the hybrid model is working, for example by regularly analysing satisfaction with workspaces or with remote communication tools. To achieve this, space optimisation is more effective with a desk booking application, which guarantees a reserved place for every employee, calculates the occupancy rate of spaces and identifies the teams’ favourite remote working days.
Adapt objectives for managing hybrid and remote work
Once the analysis is done and the IT applications are in place, it is easier to set clear, measurable objectives for employees. For hybrid roles, you can measure remote productivity and virtual collaboration, for example. If some employees are not eligible for remote work, choose a different way of monitoring.
4. Provide technical support and assistance for remote work
Remote work can present technical challenges for employees. One solution is to set up a dedicated service providing technical support to remote staff, or to offer comprehensive training on the applications and platforms needed for remote work, such as video conferencing and online collaboration tools, as well as IT security practices.
5. Foster an inclusive and fair hybrid environment
Prioritise awareness and training sessions on the importance of including people with disabilities in the hybrid workplace. These sessions could include workshops on raising awareness of the specific needs of disabled people and on creating an environment that is accessible to all, which should not be overlooked in the project.
6. Make the resources and information needed remotely easy to access
To be effective, it is important to provide applications that all teams can access, whether on site or working remotely. These may include cloud storage for shared documents and files, instant messaging platforms for chatting and project management applications for tracking progress and collaborating on tasks when working remotely.
7. Set objectives, deadlines and meetings to keep up the pace of work
One of the key tips for achieving this is to set clear SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound), precise and realistic project deadlines to maintain effective momentum, and regular meetings. These elements provide a structured framework that helps people stay focused. A hybrid and remote work management application makes it easy to track useful statistics.
8. Create rest areas and social spaces
Well-designed rest areas give employees the chance to recharge their batteries during breaks. These spaces offer a haven of peace where employees can relax, meditate or simply step away from their desk for a while, supporting the physical and mental recovery needed to maintain a high level of performance.
9. Set a common office day for the whole team
Setting a specific day when all team members meet in person at the office offers a valuable opportunity to strengthen social and professional ties.
10. Adopt a simple workspace booking tool
A booking tool is an application that takes account of new ways of organising work in a hybrid and remote setting. Features such as remote booking and real-time visibility of available desks make it easy to plan your presence around that of your colleagues, for example, or around the desk locations chosen by other members of the same project team.
Discover Hamilton Deskbooking, the desk booking app that helps you get the most from hybrid working and remote work
Hamilton Deskbooking is an application offering a complete solution designed to meet companies’ changing needs for booking flexible office desks and workspaces in general. Simplify the organisation of your hybrid and flexible office set-up.