In the narrative depicting the employers’ perspective on the hybrid work and the business transformation, it is easy (yet harmful) to overlook the employee’s view on the hybrid work and the potential challenges that the company may face due to it.
Remote work is one of the key trends regarding the modern workplace. Calamari’s hybrid job transformation guide delivers clear data regarding the state of the remote workforce. According to it, up to one in four professional jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022. Also, the availability of job opportunities for remote professionals increased. Only 4% of the highest-paying jobs were available in the remote model before the pandemic. Now, the share reaches 15%.
Remote work is one of the key job aspects sought by the employees, with 48% of people who were working remotely during the pandemic expecting to work remotely after it is over. Otherwise, they are going to look for another job.
Yet it would be foolish to see only the bright sides of remote work and the employee perspective can be far from that.
Hybrid work is considered a perk for a reason. There are significant benefits of working from home regularly and employees can see them clearly:
Depending on the number of remote days, the savings vary from nice to game-changing. According to the Eurostat data, an average commuting time reaches 25 minutes in the EU, which sums to 50 minutes daily. Nearly an hour.
Reclaiming an hour a day enables one to sleep longer, find the time to work out or engage in some hobby – you name it. Basically, anything is a better option than having to commute. When done by car, one needs to pay for gas. If done with mass transit, the challenge is in the uncomfortable process – the challenge highlighted by Financial Times among others.
Working remotely enables the employees to search for job opportunities not only in their city but also in the more distant parts of the world. With the remote work openings and the ability to connect via the internet, the key challenges are in the time zones and cultural differences.
According to the stats collected by Tonerbuzz, 85% of companies that offer work-life balance programs report an increase in productivity, and 24% of people who work from home at least one day a month report they are happier and more productive.
Working from home enables one to have a more seamless connection between work and home – it is easier to manage to transport children to and from school, eat healthier, or do some little cleaning in the meantime.
While the advantages listed above suggest that working from home is a clear bliss, it is far from that. From the employees’ point of view, there are several challenges that need to be noted and managed.
The greener grass effect is the cognitive bias seen among the employees who tend to overestimate the benefits and underestimate the challenges of the way they don’t work. Office-based staff tend to think about the free time and flexibility of home-based workers while ones in the home are dreaming about office-based social life.
The key to managing the challenge of cognitive bias is to provide the team with a clear remote working policy. The key goal of the company should be to build a culture where whether one is in the office or not has no influence on the work at all. In a hybrid office remote workers are considered equal to non-remote ones no matter what.
Another cognitive bias is a prevalent one in society. It is easier to be seen as “working one” while being at the office and a “slacker” when one is at his or her home.
Efficient management of the work in the distributed team is a broad topic, where multiple guides and editorials were written all across the web. Yet the key element of building the culture of efficient hybrid work is the right policy combined with the tech stack designed to support its principles.
Calamari, with its time tracking and leave management capabilities, is one of the most important elements of the tech stack to be built. Without that, the company can build up the culture of overworking instead of leveraging the benefits of a more flexible approach to work – according to SHRM 70% of people transferred to remote work due to the pandemic are working during weekends while they didn’t do so before. Also, 45% say they work more hours a week than before.
Last but not least, working in a hybrid way can lead to the exclusion of some people in the team. The challenge of building the distributed and remote-first team is another matter that has been tackled by multiple texts and analyses around the web.
There is no easy answer to this challenge – again, the key is the hybrid work policy that supports the team building and the tech stack to support this endeavour.
From the employee's perspective, remote work is extremely attractive. On the other hand, though, it can lead to an unexpected dose of loneliness, feeling of exclusion, and overworking. That’s why it is crucial to engage the company in improving the employee experience regarding this type of work.
If you wish to discuss this matter further, don’t hesitate to contact us now!
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