Hybrid Working - Pros and Cons
We are entering quite a new situation as far as careers and working lives are concerned. Largely thanks to the covid-19 pandemic, many people tasted remote working for the first time and it was proven to be a success across numerous different industries. Now those industries are trying to work out how they can best re-assert what was the status quo prior to Covid-19 and it may not be as simple as that. Many employees want to keep remote working and some employers are looking at the possibility of a hybrid working as an alternative.
Hybrid working tends to be when employees can spend some of their work week working from home and some from the office. It is middle ground between the two positions. There are many different types of hybrid work and it is up to the company which format works best for them. One of the options is “hybrid at-will”, where employees can decide that day they will work from home and there are other variations that afford more control to management.
Hybrid Working - Pros
It is undoubtedly true that hybrid work has many advantages for a lot of workers and a poll of employees by Gallup recently ranked the perceived pros of hybrid working as follows:
Better Work-Life Balance
Most of the respondents to the survey said that they thought they had a better work-life balance when they were able to make use of a hybrid working model. On the days when they worked from home, they avoided having a lengthy commute and had more time to spend with their families and friends.
Hybrid working also allows them to free up time to deal with things that happen in their daily lives, they can take time to arrange an appointment with the doctor, they can get their eyes tested, they can do the kind of things that a regular 9-5 office job makes it difficult to schedule.
More Freedom in Choosing Working Hours
Different people will function better at different times of the day but many who are better later in the day feel that they have been forced by society to fit into a 9-5 mould. Being able to work at the times that are optimal for them has allowed them to flourish and get through a lot more work than they otherwise would have been able to, because this fits how their body and mind are wired.
The technical term describing this phenomenon is “circadian rhythm”. Some people’s rhythms are better attuned to different times of the day. There is speculation amongst scientists and historians that this may be some kind of evolutionary throwback to some people needing to be alert at night to guard the others from predators in the days when humans were first developing into homo sapiens.
Less Work Burnout and Fatigue
Work burnout and fatigue can happen very easily when employees have been working really hard without a break. Although hybrid working isn’t a break, it feels like a welcome slowing of the pace and allows employee stress levels to reduce to more manageable levels so that they can keep going more easily.
It is too early to state this conclusively but we are sure there will be studies conducted into whether hybrid working may be better for the mental health of some office workers and whether it could help to reduce absenteeism due to poor mental health in the future.
Hybrid Working - Cons
There are some obvious cons from the perspective of employers and employees alike and we will give a quick rundown of these for the sake of balance.
Lack of Access to Work Resources
Employees can find hybrid work frustrating sometimes as they may not be able to access all of the work resources that they would otherwise be able to make use of in the office environment. This can include access to printers and some of the files that may not be available to users who are off-site by default.
Less Connection to Organisation's Culture
It is pretty unsurprising to hear that there is a disconnect from the company culture when remote workers and hybrid staff don’t go into the office as often. They may begin to feel a little “out of the loop” as they are less connected to the office gossip about their colleagues and the jostling for position within the company.
It is possible that people who work a hybrid model may be passed over for promotion as they are just not as dialled in to the everyday business of the company as those who are permanently on-site.
Decreased Team Collaboration
Employees can find it harder to work together when they are not physically in the same space. They will tend to prioritise taking any projects forward when they are in the office at the same time and this can obviously mean that it can take longer to make substantive progress on many of the important tasks that are needing to be done.
Remote communication software is excellent these days but for some reason when collaborating on projects, people seem to want to actually be physically in the same space.
Difficulty in Coordnating Schedules
When everyone can choose their own working schedule, it can become very difficult to coordinate schedules so that many people can make it to a meeting on the same day. This is where it is sometimes a good thing to have a manager set the meeting and decide when the meeting will be. It is entirely possible that some people will be able to join the meeting remotely, if they are unable to make it to the office that day.
Sometimes too much choice can prove to be difficult and it needs one person to make a decision, rather than all the potential attendees negotiating.
On the other hand, it may make it possible to look again at how many meetings are required and who is needed at them. There are too many needless meetings in most workplaces and if the difficulty in coordinating can highlight this and help to address it, then it is a good thing.
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