According to hybrid work statistics, 83% of employees in the US prefer hybrid work, and 74% of companies in the US have either already adopted hybrid work or are planning to adopt it in the future. You might be wondering why? Because it offers a host of advantages to both employees and employers.
With more than half (54%) of employees willing to switch their jobs for a job that offers more flexible working options, embracing hybrid work can reduce your employee turnover rate by 12%. It can not only boost employee productivity, save them from long commutes but also increase job satisfaction. The more satisfied and content your employees are, the less likely they are to switch jobs, which brings your employee turnover rate down.
Just like every other work model, it also has its downsides. Some of the disadvantages of hybrid work are as follows:
- Lack of physical interaction and face to face communication
- Technology infrastructure might vary from office to home
- Difficult to adapt
- Employee isolation
All these shortcomings of hybrid work can negatively impact the employee experience. As a business owner, you don’t want to ruin the employee experience at the expense of implementing a hybrid work model. You should prioritize uplifting the employee experience in a hybrid work environment. Don’t know how to do that? This article will teach you how.
In this article, you will learn about five ways you can use to prioritize employee experience in a hybrid work environment.
Role of IT In Improving Employee Experience
Before we start discussing ways to improve employee experience, businesses need to understand the role the IT department can play. The role of the IT department would be to improve the service quality and keep the technology infrastructure such as the VPS server up and running at all times. This can go a long way in elevating the employee experience.
Additionally, the IT department should also contribute towards removing employee friction. They will have to eliminate redundancies, automate manual processes, and make the system more seamless. They should focus on removing the hurdles hybrid workers are facing when interacting with the system and accessing the data they need to complete their tasks.
Conduct employee interviews or surveys about the ticketing system and it will give you a better idea about how effective or ineffective it is. It can also give you useful insights regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the system. This makes it easier for you to improve on the weaknesses and build upon the strengths to deliver a delightful employee experience.
5 Ways To Prirotize Employee Experience In a Hybrid Work Environment
Here are five ways you can use to enhance the employee experience in a hybrid work ecosystem/
Put Your Meeting Space To Test
The first thing you need to do before scheduling any meetings is to test the meeting space. Put yourself in the shoes of employees who are attending a virtual meeting and see whether they could see, hear and understand what you are telling them. You should even continue this practice for clients and stakeholders and ensure the technologies you are using to communicate with clients and other stakeholders works flawlessly. If there is something wrong, you need to fix it before moving forward. You don’t want to be figuring out these issues during the meeting as it could interrupt your meetings and could even create misunderstandings.
Conduct Meetings Remotely
Just like workdays, you should also conduct some of the meetings remotely and some physically inside office premises. Just because your employees are working remotely 2 days a week does not mean you should not communicate with them during that time. Conducting virtual meetings can help you keep your employees on the right track and focused on the goal.
Some meetings yield much better results when conducted remotely. Some of them include status meetings and operations reviews. Additionally, you can also conduct coaching sessions virtually so every team member can get equal attention from your side.
Have Some Fun
Let’s say, your remote team has achieved a milestone. You should celebrate their achievement. This will give them a sense of accomplishment but also keep them motivated towards achieving the end goal. Plan your team-building activities to strengthen the bond and relationship between team members. The higher your team cohesion, the easier it will be for you to achieve your goals. You can schedule virtual happy hours or meet and greet sessions for your hybrid workers, which they can use to recharge their batteries. This will make them feel refreshed and they will approach the future goals with extra energy.
Transparency Is Critical
Whether you are hiring a new employee or promoting an existing employee to a higher position, the process should be transparent. All the candidates in contention for an open position or promotion should know the process. More importantly, the process should not have any kind of bias as you will lose the trust of your employees immediately. In addition to this, it will leave a bad taste in their mouth when they know that one candidate was given undue favor over others.
Prioritize Wellness
When asked about their top priorities in their hybrid work plans, 84% of companies said that employee health and wellbeing was the top priority followed by employee productivity (72%), aligning employees with company mission (58%), and access to talent (58%). This indicates the shift towards wellness. As a manager overseeing a remote team, your goal should be to ensure that all your remote workers are healthy and happy. If they are not, you should find out why and do something to resolve the issue. The more satisfied your remote workers are, the more they will engage and the more productive they would be in the long run. Give them some time off from work and ask them to turn off all the devices when their work shift is over.
That was it for this article. If you found it helpful, consider checking out our blog STORIFYGO!
