While the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, it has disrupted everything, the way we live and work. The pandemic enacted widespread social distancing that forced businesses to shift to remote work or work from home. The proliferation of technology has already changed how we used to work earlier. The onslaught of COVID-19 has changed the traditional workplace overnight and shifted to employees’ homes. Almost all companies now practice virtual meetings to collaborate with employees and keep businesses going. While many businesses struggle to become fully functional during COVID-19, the concept of “hybrid workplace” has emerged to cope with the growing adverse situation.
A hybrid workplace model refers to a work arrangement where employees come to the office occasionally while doing the rest of the task from outside the office or working from home. It is comparatively a new working concept that organizations must adopt to implement a smoother workflow while dealing with the pandemic.
Even in the pre-pandemic world, organizations in both private and public sectors had begun practicing remote work models for enhanced work-life balance. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made this model urgent and accelerated businesses to adapt to the change. Many researchers and surveys show most employees want to continue to work, at least partially, from home. However, many want to do some work inside the traditional workplace. Gen-Z workforce indicates far greater interest in working from home and a workplace.
According to a survey, 55% of U.S employees want a blend of home and office working. However, many companies have allowed their employees to continue working remotely until at least 2021, in order to tackle the pandemic. Additionally, a recent Salesforce survey revealed that 64% of workers want to work from outside the office and another type of workplace, as opposed to working entirely remotely. It also found that the Gen-Z workforce is more interested in the hybrid work model as 74% of this workforce segment are likely to prefer either working from home or splitting time at home and work. Moreover, 64% of the workers like to spend some time working from an office or location outside of their homes.
Hybrid work can define a future of work that is more flexible, digital, and purposeful while bolstering employee productivity and satisfaction. This working model will significantly enable organizations to better acquire a talent pool, attain innovation, and create value for stakeholders. It will also allow companies to potentially shift workloads to diverse directions, remote and in-office working. Infosys has recently announced that it will prefer a flexible hybrid work model considering the uncertainty around the pandemic situation and permit employees to work from home or office depending on the condition. According to Infosys CEO and Managing Director Salil Parekh, the company has built a flexible model to facilitate work from home but it is now time to start working on building social capital.
A hybrid workplace promises a wide array of benefits to an ever-growing remote workforce. These include reduced operation costs, enhanced productivity, enables distributed teams, helps employees financially, etc.
