How To Improve Hybrid Working For Employees

With the current ‘quiet quitting’ trend driven by Gen Z, the work is changing for all of us.

Young people are now willing to quit their jobs if their employers don’t offer flexible, ie remote or hybrid working conditions.

Setting your remote/hybrid team up for success – especially in hybrid settings – comes down to focusing on individual human concerns, not just practical ones.

If you want your company to appeal to the brightest most tech-savvy Gen Z and Millennials, consider the pointers below.

1. Implement a flexible work policy

Allow for some freedom with the work schedule. This could be setting their own hours, or having a more flexible start and end time for their work day.

Shift your mindset from “managing by seeing” to “managing by results”, so it shouldn’t really matter when and how long it takes to do the job, as long as it’s done on time.

Millennials and Gen Z don’t want their work to be a school for grown-ups, with all the unnecessary rules like set working hours.

We seek more results-oriented work, in which productivity counts for more than doggedly sticking to conventional office hours and regulations.

Just be sure to somehow track and monitor employees’ progress, and adjust the policy as needed.

2. Prioritise onboarding and training

Remote onboarding can feel daunting, and if done poorly, can impact retention.

Employee onboarding is a process of helping new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviours to become effective members of an organization.

Some strategies include:

• Introducing a buddy system or internal mentors
• Sharing clear expectations around behavioural standards and performance expectations.
• Ask for feedback on the onboarding experience, ideally within the first month.

The first impression is important because it sets the tone for the whole employment.

It is crucial to have a private one-on-one discussion between the new staff and their immediate supervisor about what really needs to be done and what skills and attitudes are required to achieve the results.

3. Improve communication between remote teams 

Better communication means swift/clear communication, that can easily be tracked and referred to.

It’s not just about juggling endless messages but creating an ecosystem where clarity and effective interactions are the norm.

There are lots of software and project management tools for that.

Slack – internal messaging tool
Zoom – for virtual meetings
Loom – for screen and video recording
Jira – project management tool

If you need to integrate different functions in your company, look for field service software – which allows you to combine operations such as scheduling, dispatching, labour tracking, invoicing and more.

Better communication also means positive human interactions. Think ‘water cooler chats’ and ‘after work activities’. These can be:

• Regular virtual trivia nights
• Virtual happy hour with a themed tipple each week
• Video coffee dates – including across teams to encourage non-work-related chat

4. Encourage positive work culture

Company culture is something that is hard to put into words.

It is a set of unwritten rules that all people of the company live by. Culture gives us an understanding of what is normal, appropriate, and expected, but also what is inappropriate and unaccepted.

Understanding the culture is what sets “us” (the insiders) apart from “them” (outsiders). When others don’t meet our expectations, it is often a cue that our cultures don’t fit.

No matter how natural your culture might seem to you, you can’t assume that anybody, who walks into your company, will immediately understand it.

This is why new employees should be briefed on internal rules, organizational structure, and work ethics within the first week of joining.

Make it clear that toxicity and bullying are not tolerated. A visit to https://www.easyllama.com/lp/bystander-intervention-training shows that companies want online courses on how to speak up against microaggressions, harassment, and discrimination in the workplace. This involves identifying scenarios where bystander intervention is appropriate and necessary.

5. Help your employees be comfortable working (at home or elsewhere)

Working from home is nice, but it’s not always nice and or always possible.

There are people who share flats and don’t have a designated working area, or people who find working from home all the time simply boring.

You may want to invest in:

• Hybrid workplaces: if many of your employees are based in big cities, consider getting a space in co-working hub for them to get together and get some social interaction.Focus on creating a comfortable, productive space with ergonomic furniture and well-positioned computer screens.

• Pay for their home office setup: If your employees are working from home 100% of the time, consider providing them with a stipend to spend on home office equipment.

6. Make regular check-ins a thing

As a remote or hybrid team, you can’t always create an inclusive atmosphere, because everyone works by themselves in their rooms.

That’s why conducting regular check-ins is extra important.

Make your staff feel supported by having regular check-ins, where you talk about work.

Make your people feel like they and their opinion matter.

These small actions can boost productivity, regardless of an employee’s location.

Miscellaneous suggestions

Here are some other fun things to consider:

• Collectively put together background music playlists for different moods/times of the day (relaxed, focused, upbeat, etc music).

• Celebrate peoples’ accomplishments with announcements/gifts

• Set up an ‘Employee of the Month’ scheme