The Corona ghost still haunts and his vicious mutant friends don't seem intent on making a quick right turn either. The world is in the grip of these persistent viruses and there seems to be no end in sight. And that has implications for workers. More and more we realize that the old adage "east west home sweet home" must now be taken very literally. More or even whole days working at home is the advice. Work in the living room, at the kitchen table, bedroom or the luxury of your own home office. In any case, working at home is also mutating, from very sporadic to (almost) daily.
Combi home and office
Despite the fact that there are employees who are more than tired of working at home, especially when the children also have to stay at home, a majority of home workers are still satisfied. In other words, the 'new' variant of working, in which the office is invariably alternated with working from home, seems to be to the liking of the working population. Working two days at home and three days at the office, or the other way around. It can be done. Also called hybrid working. Is it here to stay?
Many people, including myself, see hybrid work as the 'new' and permanent form of office work. People experience the "freedom" of working from home as pleasant, where family time is combined with tasks for the boss. Of course, the output of the work must then be properly mapped out, otherwise hybrid work is in danger of being submerged in obscurity, freewheeling and loss of task. But if the output is clear, I think it makes little difference at what time of day the work is finished. You then spread the work out over the entire day.
This is why many employees find hybrid work refreshing and flexible. The office will then mainly be visited in order to also see your colleagues in the flesh and actually work together instead of communicating via webcam. That this also requires some adjustment for managers is obvious. In terms of costs, the employer can even achieve advantages within this hybrid model, if it turns out that 40 or 50% of the expensive office space is actually superfluous.
Communication is key
Hybrid working is possible today because today's communication tools for meetings, bilaterals and presentations are easy to use and of high quality. Where you used to need a small course to organize a meeting, now it's a piece of cake. In other words, one simple click on the invitation link and the participants stream into the secure live online environments. In addition, everyone already has the necessary hardware such as laptop, PC, tablet or smartphone and the digital highways in the home situation are usually of an excellent level.Ready to go in virtual meetings from Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google or other software. The huge increase in the use of video communication software is a logical consequence of this, both business and private. As many as 300 million Zoom participants a day appear in front of the camera or participate in one of the many webinars. The question arises as to whether hybrid working will continue to leave its mark on the way employees perform their office tasks after Corona? Will we still all be stuck in traffic jams on our way to the office? Or starting later and first logging on at home to avoid the traffic jams? Or would you prefer hybrid working? Two days at the office and the rest of the week working from home? Who knows?
Social contact
Social contact with colleagues is of course an important reason to go to the office. Especially when it comes to team building, working together and enjoying your own work environment. Or just having a nice chat at the coffee machine. Yet research indicates that people enjoy the hybrid variant. Long live flexible working.
In short, there seems to be sufficient food for thought for hybrid working and the associated use of smart video communication software. Whether this will actually happen after Corona and all its mutants belong to history, the future will have to tell. However, I estimate that hybrid working will not disappear in the coming years.
After the new word in 2020 for the half-metre society, in 2021 the word hybrid work will be at the top of the next edition of the Dikke van Dale.
