In this post-COVID world, the workplace playbook has gone for a toss. Structures and systems that were meticulously curated by business leaders have crumbled, and how! Entrepreneurs have now realised that personal meetings could be done via a video conference and those Video Conferences could have been taken care of by mail!
Reimagining workplaces is the need of the hour as this post-COVID world would never be a reinflation of the pre-COVID days. People are pondering on work-life balance as the pandemic rages on. A massive shift is happening in the psyche of the people and also among the business leaders as the pandemic helped them break free of the erstwhile notions about a workplace.
Work From Home, Office or Hybrid: How to Choose?
Let’s look at the various options that employers have:
Work From Home
This has been a saviour for employers and employees alike. This gives unprecedented freedom to the professionals to work from the comfort of their home setup while delivering on the projects they are assigned to. And it is also quite economical for the employers as they have to spend fewer resources on their staff.
Employees have a better rate of attendance but it often leads to excessive work pressure and severe mental burnout. Coordination and technical support sometimes go for a toss as it is just not possible to visit someone’s cubicle to sort things out.
Work from Office
There is not much to say about work from physical office space as that was the norm before the lockdown. There are many positives of this like social interaction, improved coordination, team building, and most importantly, establishing good contacts. The real problem though lies in the very fact that one has to physically give time to an office to carry out day-to-day work. It becomes stressful, particularly when faced with a deadline.
Hybrid Workspace
In today’s scenario, it’s just not worthy enough to stick to only Work from Home or Work from Office. Employers need to find a middle ground; adapting to the newer demands of the workforce and employing the best of both worlds.
This Hybrid culture may sound great but can be a difficult one to implement as they need to be tailor-made for each and every office. The main USP of this model is that it focuses on productivity along with mental health. By employing the best of both the remote work and physical workspace, striking an optimum balance can lead to greater outcomes.
Also read: Devyani Ginnare and Her Success With CodeQuotient!
What Does The Future Hold?
According to a study conducted by PwC, 60% of people think few people will have stable, long-term employment in the future. An overwhelming 74% of respondents are ready to upskill or retrain to remain employable in the future. In other words, professionals now know that to survive in the future job scenario they need to adapt real quick.
Similarly, business leaders are also acknowledging the rising challenges of retaining quality professionals.
This bout of pandemic largely popularised the concept of Work From Home, with professionals loving and sometimes loathing the idea. In this new normal, a newer concept of a Hybrid workplace is arising. Businesses are deeply studying the present trends to be ready for the future.
While this may be an uphill task, businesses should keep certain things in mind:
1. Listen to the Workforce
However repetitive it may sound, listening to the needs of the workforce is integral to any successful business plan. One must resist the urge to take uninformed decisions out of intuitions and beliefs. A study by Gartner suggests 55% of employees and 65% of IT employees say that whether or not they can work flexibly will impact if they will stay in their jobs. It further states if required to work fully on-site, 43% of employees and 47% of knowledge workers say they would seek other jobs. That indicates one in two people consider flexibility as an important factor.
Similarly, a study by Accenture states that 83% of people prefer the hybrid work model and 63% of high-growth companies have already adopted the “productivity anywhere” workforce model while 69% of negative or no growth companies focus on where people work physically. If one has to deduce anything from this data, a quality workforce needs better work freedom and improved mental peace to continue giving service to any company.
2. Stay Humble
Whatever one thinks will work, whether it works or not depends on a feedback loop that moves continuously between employer and employees. It may sometimes not work perfectly, ideas may not give desired outcomes and personal bias may creep into the decision-making process. Employers must rise above them and have a birds-eye view of any problem and come to a logical solution however uncomfortable it may be. Staying humble when faced with failure is very much essential for any business to survive in the future.
3. The Mental Health of the Workforce
A positive side of all this is that the employers, as well as the employees, are looking positively at the mental health of the future workplace. Mental peace is something that employees are not going to compromise on anymore. The study by Gartner says that 82%of employees want their companies to see them as a person and not just as an employee and 96% of HR leaders are more concerned about their employees’ well being today than they were before the pandemic. There is a positive meeting of interests and this will lead to a more productive work environment.
4. Adopt Future Technologies
According to McKinsey and Company research, 9 out of 10 companies envision a hybrid work culture for the future. But coordinating work both from home and office needs huge technical support; right from systems, connectivity to online networking, to make it seamless.
Cloud-based setups are being adopted faster than anticipated and companies are more than happy to invest in them on a long-term basis.
The pandemic showed that if the intent is right and there is support from the top echelons of management, the digital shift can be done effectively.
But the picture is not all rosy. With increased digital intervention there is an increased worry about security challenges arising from cyber-attacks. A report by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that they received 3000 to 4000 complaints related to cyber-attacks daily compared to around 1000 cyberattacks before the pandemic. Businesses need to look into this aspect and plan accordingly as the challenges will only grow with time.
5. Rethink the Hiring Policy
A finer aspect that is bound to have an impact is the prospect of hiring. Businesses must rethink their entire hiring policy. Should they hire from their traditional hiring grounds or should they open up geographically and explore more talents outside?
The report from McKinsey and Company states that nearly two-thirds of companies polled have already shifted from in-person recruitment to remote settings but only one in three have reimagined hiring from the ground up. Whereas 40% of productivity leaders have holistically redesigned the entire hiring process.
The early birds will reap the benefits while the late adopters will learn it the hard way.
Also read: How Remote Work Has Transformed the Tech Industry
Conclusion
While the future remains uncertain, one thing we can bet on is that the workspace isn’t going to be the same as it was before. Both employers and employees need to be given certain freedom to operate as the situation will always remain fluid and people need to improvise, adapt and overcome to give their best, every time.
However complex it may sound, the only way to do it is with the best talent by your side and it is absolutely necessary to realise that. We, at CodeQuotient, are here for you, with our unique programs that guarantee the best talent, always.
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