8 Things You Can’t Forget When Planning a Hybrid Workplace

As this shift has occurred, it’s required companies to rethink how their workplaces are built. Whereas the areas for improvement used to mostly revolve around kitchen cleaning and hot desk vs. set space conversation, now employees have different requirements.

In this guide, we explore 8 key principles that shouldn’t be forgotten when planning a successful hybrid workplace.

1. Build a culture of trust and support

The past two years have involved a great deal of change for employees. The move from in-person office work to fully remote impacted every aspect of our professional lives, with new tools and technology suddenly needed to get our work done. 

Developing a supportive culture where employees are offered responsibility alongside accountability is key in building a successful hybrid team. To do this, you can create open channels of communication on a safe, secure platform, such as forums where employees can offer ideas and feedback which is important in developing trust and support. 

It’s key not to forget that everyone’s requirements for a hybrid working environment will be different, depending on factors including available workspace at home, office commute, commitments outside of work and the type of work being undertaken. Learning what these requirements are will put you in good stead to design a working environment to suit.

2. Keep flexibility front and center

Due to its nature, hybrid working should offer a flexible option for employees. This could be split time between the office and home, but also how you use the space in a physical office. Consider where people would feel most comfortable in an office. Is it hot-desking or set team areas? If teams are moving around, what equipment will they need and on what device? 

According to a Microsoft report published last year, 73% of employees expressed a desire for flexible remote work options post-pandemic, this is a clear sign that the flexible and hybrid model is here to stay. 

In a hybrid environment, flexibility offers employees choice; they can have the best of both worlds, the social and collaborative benefits often seen in an office and the flexibility of remote work. With choice comes responsibility and trust. Employees can shape their working environment whichever way will most benefit their engagement, workload and productivity, which often results in a better quality of work. 

3. Start from scratch on company culture 

With remote working still being a relatively new model, tools and technology were the immediate requirements to get things off the ground, however now these aspects are established, company culture should be next in line for an upgrade. Much of the culture forged for an office won’t work online, but that doesn’t mean creating culture is impossible. Asking employees what they’d like to see is the first step. 

From online socials and instant messaging to peer-to-peer recognition, it’s often our connections that form the backbone of culture. Making time and space for this, and disconnecting from work to build relationships with colleagues, is key in a hybrid world. 

4. Become an expert on employee requirements

Learning what employees want and need from their working environments is the only place to start when planning a workspace. You can do this by sending out surveys and collecting feedback, or you could host an ideas session to allow everyone to contribute. When you know what the varying ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ are of your teams, you can develop a bespoke solution. When employees are listened to and involved in the process, they’re more likely to engage with the end product and feel the benefits of a hybrid arrangement. 

If teams need to be able to communicate across time zones, for example, a targeted communications feature can make sure the right information reaches employees at the right time. Similarly, social features enable employees to share personal and professional updates building important relationships when colleagues don’t often interact in real-time.

5. Give employees the tools to stay connected

We all perhaps took for granted being able to drop by a colleague’s desk and check-in, be that from a social or professional perspective. In an office, physical tools can include thoughtful desk layout, spaces for collaborative work and quiet work, and a stable internet connection. These will help employees to stay connected. The immediacy of face-to-face interaction isn’t easy to replicate in the hybrid world, but communications solutions offer a way for both remote and in-person teams to stay connected in real-time, avoiding some of the frustrating distractions of the office. 

In both a physical and digital workplace, a company intranet can be the beating heart of an organization, offering a platform for all the tools a team needs to succeed in a hybrid environment. From a newsfeed feature to an employee directory and feedback survey capabilities, the right intranet will step up communications channels and keep everything in one place, making life easier for both businesses and their employees.

6. Establish an accessible platform for news and updates

Don’t forget that company-wide news and updates can be harder to share in a hybrid workplace. With employees in the office on different days and potentially working flexible hours, sharing important updates can be challenging. Making sure you have a central platform where news can be shared with everyone is important in ensuring employees feel included no matter how and where they work. 

Considering how employees access information is also important in the onboarding process for new hires, which again will change in a hybrid model. New employees will need to be able to access company and staff directories to get to know who’s who, so a platform that can offer this, with headshots and profiles for all team members is incredibly useful. 

Secure storage for company documents online is also key to allowing employees the tools to work from anywhere, in any time zone.

7. Embrace learning and development

Sometimes it seems that professional development takes a backseat with hybrid working, as there may be fewer opportunities to share approaches and insights between co-workers. Making use of the hybrid model to share both online and in-person opportunities for CPD is an opportunity to increase employee knowledge-sharing and boost engagement. A perfect way to embrace a culture of learning and development is through integrating immersive video content into your digital workplace or intranet to drive employee engagement.

8. Effectively measure engagement and employee experience

Finding ways to measure the employee experience is the only surefire way to make sure you’re offering employees what they need. When planning a hybrid workplace, measuring engagement has to be creative, with a multi-pronged approach between in-person and online often the most effective. The analytics functions of an intranet will offer real-time insights into engagement as you can take a snapshot of how the platform is being used, and see what employees are engaging with most. 

Strong foundations form the basis of impactful workplaces

A hybrid workspace requires a multitude of considerations to ensure it’s fit for purpose, driving employee satisfaction and experience. As long as initiatives are built upon the solid footing of genuine employee requirements, you’re in the best position to create a workspace that can have a huge impact company-wide, reducing staff turnover and building a workforce that is engaged, driven by the prospect of company success.