The hybrid workforce was always sure to be realized one day, pandemic or not. The best of talent calls the shots in the job market. The employers who extend the offers of employment – replete with suitable pay, perks, and suitably challenging roles to play – are often not deterred by an employee working from various different locations. In the past two decades especially, countless consultants and specialists have donned the mantle of a “hybrid workforce”. This arrangement is particularly well-suited to individual contributors who juggle several projects with élan.
The nuts and bolts of the hybrid workforce arrangement
Alongside the happy medium between long office hours and slacking off completely that the hybrid workforce arrangement makes possible, it also brings some backing for much-needed flexibility in other areas: 8-hour workdays or 5-day work weeks are no longer the holy grail. Rather, an outcome-led approach to work where progress in projects reigns supreme means hybrid employees can work shorter weeks or portions of the day when they are most productive. This is coupled with IT and HR firms affirming that the hybrid workforce seems to enjoy better health and a cosmopolitan approach to work. This makes the workforce truly borderless. Cross-cultural training and acclimatization to digital collaboration are already well on their way to making the hybrid workforce feel empowered. They no longer feel at a loss for not being in the same room.
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Factors to further the success of hybrid workforce
The definition of a hybrid workforce is similarly fluid. The workforce might choose a variety of locations to be the setting of their effort so that they might stimulate creativity, productivity, and out-of-the-box outcomes. These could be home, office, clients’ offices, workstations on the go, or work-sharing spaces where similar minds congregate freely. This means the hybrid workforce gets to choose exactly the amount of face-to-face interaction and in-person collaboration that they will take on. What’s more, they even get to experiment with varying levels of these ephemeral elements of the workplace dynamic which were once thought to be set in stone.
The key to getting the most out of the hybrid workforce, for both the workforce themselves and for their employers, is to get a balance right. Interestingly, it is the smallest business ventures like startups and the most towering bigwigs in the country to embrace the hybrid workforce model. They saw it as the natural progression after the staffing confusion that reigned during the worst of the pandemic. Once thought to be resistant to change, the manufacturing sector in India was found to take a leaf out of hybrid-friendly IT work cultures to promote remote working models in India. The reason? A Times of India survey finds 42% of India’s manufacturing companies note that hybrid workforce models are sustainable as they promote work-life balance and productivity. They are only too ready to own up that this model helps along the unprecedented vaccination drive that India is currently endeavoring to complete.
Judging the criticality of an in-person presence for a job is the key to making the hybrid workforce model work. Employees attending offices closer to home or trying to handle jobs online is not only time-saving, but it is also more environment-friendly than an enforced commute.
The benefits at the personal level are too valuable to ignore. The wins starting from the individual to the industry are getting the traction they deserve in modern work cultures across the globe.
References:
- Planning For The World Of Hybrid Work|Forbes.com|Jason Girzadas|JUN 30, 2021
- Hybrid Work Model to be the New Norm for IT|Livemint|Ayushman Baruah| AUG 01,2021
- In-Depth | Hybrid work model, four-day week: COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we toil |moneycontrol.com|Shubhangi Mishra| JUL 08, 2021
- Hybrid work model here to stay in the Indian IT sector|The Week| Abhinav Singh| JUL 22, 2021
- Future workplace will be work from home-office hybrid|ToI|Namrata Singh| JUN 29, 2021
- ‘Hybrid work model to be the new normal in 2021’|ToI|Niyati Parikh| JAN 3, 2021
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