What is hybrid working? Make your policy future-proof

Most people agree: after a period of (largely) working from home, hybrid working is permanent. Many employees no longer want to go to the office five days a week, but without it is not everything. That is why you need to get started now with a strong, future-proof hybrid work policy, to guarantee the balance between working at home and at the office for a long time. Then what should you think about? And what does the data say about hybrid working?

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What is hybrid working?

Hybrid working is a new form of working in which employees can perform their work at different locations. This can be at home and at the office, but also from abroad or other places. 'Hybrid' here indicates that there is a combination of the way in which work is done. And this is becoming more and more popular: many people no longer want to work in the office full-time. As an employer, it is important that you make a future-proof hybrid working policy that suits your organization and employees.

And many organizations are already working on that. For example, Spotify recently introduced a policy whereby employees have the choice to work remotely or from the office. They can also opt for a combination, hybrid working, as long as they communicate this in time. Dropbox also developed a policy plan, in which working remotely remains the norm. Current workplaces in the office will be converted into co-working spaces, called "Dropbox Studios", so that employees can still work together in the office when it is safe again.

How is hybrid working going in your organization?

Are you already developing a future-proof hybrid working policy? And how do you go about this? 2DAYSMOOD believes that everything starts with creating the right foundation. By collecting (frequent) feedback from your employees, you gain insight into where you stand as an organization. From there, you can start looking at what is already going well, and where action is required. To measure how hybrid working is experienced in your organization, we have developed a specific survey: Future of Work. Do you want to test how your employees are doing under hybrid working? You can!

Here you can read which 5 themes are essential for the design of your future-proof organization. What do you have to take into account when designing a hybrid work policy?

Data hybrid working: this is how the Dutch think about it

From this survey, Future of Work, 2DAYSMOOD has already collected a lot of data about the current state of the hybrid working experience in the Netherlands. Below you can see the score on different statements (scale from 1-5).

This data shows that many people can generally maintain a better work-life balance when working from home, but that connection with colleagues is more difficult. Many employees also have more focus at home and are more productive, but there is still much room for improvement in terms of motivation. And when employees work in the office, the vast majority like it when the entire team is present.

Judging by this data, it is important that working from home and at the office can be combined: both ways of working have their advantages.

Here you can read which 5 themes are essential for the design of your future-proof organization. What do you have to consider when making a hybrid working policy?

Five themes for a strong policy

When designing your hybrid work policy, you cannot just rely on your gut feeling. By collecting employee feedback you can set up the policy based on real-time data. That is why we have listed the five most important themes for you.

Tip: If you ask for feedback in advance and then continue to monitor whether your actions have the desired effect, you can make adjustments if necessary and keep employees satisfied in the longer run. This is possible with 2DAYSMOOD's real-time measuring method.

1. Wellbeing

The theme "Wellbeing" is about maintaining good physical and mental health of employees in the long run. If you often see your employees or team in the office, you will sooner notice how they are doing. But with hybrid work you don't see each other as much, which quickly makes it more difficult. Ask your team, employees and of course the HR department the following questions:

How do we ensure that we organize our future-proof (online) hybrid culture in such a way that we can guarantee good employee well-being? Do employees feel safe enough to come to the office?

2. Organization

The theme "Organization" refers to the core of the organization and how you strive to communicate the same message to all internal and external stakeholders (including all your employees). Coherence, credibility and ethics are very important to radiate as an organization.

Hybrid working is not a goal in itself. The challenge lies in how you continue to communicate with employees who work partly at home and partly in the office. Not everyone reads that flyer at the office, and people who do spend a lot of time in the office may find themselves less in the online communication channels. For this theme, you can ask the following question when creating your hybrid working policy:

How do you ensure that everyone is kept informed of important matters and that employees continue to feel connected to the mission and vision of your organization?

3. Connection

The theme "Connection" refers to the mutual (experienced) connection between employees, managers and the organization. In the case of hybrid working, this connection is anything but self-evident. It may differ per personality type who works from home a lot and who doesn't. How do you ensure that those employees still remain in contact with each other, and that no groups are formed? How do you ensure that as a manager you pay just as much attention (if necessary) to employees working from home as those in the office? To prepare your hybrid work policy for this, you can ask yourself the following questions:

How do we ensure that we organize our future-proof (online) hybrid culture in such a way that we also guarantee a good interconnection from a distance?

4. Leadership

The theme "Leadership" refers to all supervisors who lead the organization and who are responsible for effectively managing the resources within the organization, inspiring employees to do their best work, and cultivating a successful organizational culture. The design of a future-proof (online) hybrid working policy has a major influence on leadership. Therefore, consider the following questions:

What will the role of managers be? How do we also guarantee good leadership from a distance? And what is needed for this?

5. Design hybrid workplace

The theme "Design hybrid workplace" is about the sustainable design of the future-proof (online) hybrid workplace. Whether they work at home, at the office or a combination thereof, employees must be able to do their job well and have the resources to do so. If this falls short, it will mean that people come into the office more often to look up those resources - and then your hybrid work policy has failed. Therefore, consider these questions:

If we permanently want to work partly at home, and partly at the office, what do we need for that? What will the function of the office be? And how do we together ensure that the IT infrastructure also allows us to (partly) work from home?

Start your hybrid working policy!

Is your policy ready for hybrid working? You can already get started with these five themes. But this is just the beginning: to optimally set up the hybrid working experience, you need feedback from your employees. To this end, 2DAYSMOOD has developed the targeted questionnaire "Future of Work": so that you do not organize your hybrid working policy on a gut feeling, but on actual real-time data. Do you want to get started quickly and easily?

Request a demo or quickscan!