6 Steps to ease transition to a hybrid workspace

Today’s hybrid workplace is evolutional. We are still at an experimental space world over by testing out different strategies & policies to find out which works best. Transitioning from work-from-home to a hybrid office is much more complicated than simply returning employees to the office; it requires a rapid shift in organizational culture, processes, human resource policies, and other areas. Let’s discuss some pointers that will help roadmap such a change.

1. Seek input from all stakeholders:

Discussing with all-parties involved- (i.e. management & employees) about their thoughts on a future all-in-office, all-virtual, or hybrid environment has three major benefits. For starters, it will give you insight into how your team is feeling. Second, it may reveal previously unconsidered innovative ideas. Third, because the whole organization was a part of the decision-making process in some way, the transition will take place more smoothly than anticipated.

2. Create a vision of your hybrid office and its culture:

Its in the hands of the management team to ideate and develop their ideal workplace of the future. This single vision becomes the guiding light for the future culture and workplace design for internal teams to follow through. Defining clear and concise workplace guidelines through a playbook will help assure that the work from home or office decision for each employee is evenly and fairly administered.

3. Record the rationale of your workplace policies:

Creating a FAQ that detail your reasoning behind the amended workplace policies will serve two benefits: It sends a unified and consistent message to all employees. It also assists your supervisors, managers, and executives in consistently implementing and enforcing your hybrid office requirements.

4. Work with individual contributors to understand, accept & execute a successful hybrid workspace:

The transition from work-from-home to a hybrid workspace is most likely the most significant organizational change and challenge that many of your employees have ever faced. Formal training in change management, decision making, and conversations can assist your team leads and other executives in properly implementing your hybrid vision going forward. This should be accomplished through a combination of your messaging and one-on-one meetings with all employees and their managers.

5. Be understanding & empathetic towards employees:

The whole pandemic situation has completely overturned everyone’s lives. Each individual underwent a fair share of personal struggles to come out of it. Families developed new routines over the last eighteen months of working from home. Pushing them to unwind these arrangements too quickly may cause undue stress for them and their families, leading them to look for work elsewhere.

6. Monitor, assess & implement changes to tackle employee productivity:

Hybrid workplace policies, both organizational and technical in nature, require ongoing measurement to assess their success and provide insight into where changes are needed. To help boost productivity & morale create distinct incentives for both home and office work environments. For ex: investing in technology tools for employees working from home or benefits like commute support and free lunches for the ones coming to office.

The more powerful and well-organized your leadership team, the more successful your it is for your transition from work-at-home to hybrid. As with any other major initiative, investing your time and company funds in proper leadership/ team training, mentoring, and support will surely yield positive results.

 Agiledge NeOffice is complete hybrid workplace automation solutions that enables organization to manage their Desk inventory. Employees can be rostered to seat or allowed to hot desk or hotel their seats. They could also book their parking slots, cafeteria seats and meeting room booking. The solution is cloud hosted and available as a mobile app (iOS & android) and web app.

 To know more about the solution, do drop a mail to hello@neofficesoftware.com