Challenges of Hybrid Working & the Ways to overcome them

Challenges and obstacles are a constant in this world. Every solution arises another problem and we keep solving the problems one by one. That is called life. Same as the normal office working and remote working, the employees who are adapted or adapting to the new norm of hybrid working are facing new challenges day by day and also they will face very different challenges within the time being. If something is there or some activities are happening for a long period, people earn lot of experience in that certain thing or the activity. Let’s take the pen as an example. It is here for a long time and lot of people know how to use it and got experience with the pen. There are lot of references to learn about the pen. But the hybrid work model is a brand new concept that everyone is still learning the concept. Because of that learn from others experience can be problematic. So in this topic, challenges around hybrid work model and the ways to overcome will be talked about.

Communication & Isolation

First and one of the most common challenge all the hybrid workplaces have faced is communication problem and eventual isolation. Because of the hybrid working’s heavy rely on technology, it is understandable that the communication can be difficult. The driving force of hybridization is the independence of the worker to afford autonomy in the creative process. However, after a prolonged period, the lack of physical interaction may lead to losing touch in the worker’s relationship with his other colleagues (Iqbal & Khalid & Barykin, 2021). Also, a hybrid workplace could face the challenge of employee interaction, especially regarding sharing ideas and solutions (Chernyak-Hai & Rabenu, 2018). To overcome these, building a productive communication culture is a good solution which can be effectively done by the authority (Broady, 2022). In my company, there are team and individual meetings frequently. This helps to keep the employees engaged and well communicated. Also, celebrating Achievements is another way to keep the employees engaged and relief them from burnout.

Technological Challenges

Overcoming the technological difficulties is another challenge in the hybrid workplace. Technology skills in this context could be using the various office productivity apps such as slack, Microsoft office, or office video meeting tools such as zoom or google meet. Also, the virtual workplace’s basic etiquette has to be learned, such as online meeting etiquette, emailing etiquette, and messaging etiquette.  Something as simple as staying unmuted in a meeting could be the distracting factor limiting the team’s productivity. Workers need to know when to mute and unmute themselves (Levy, 2017). To overcome this challenge, educating the employees at the beginning and consistently reminding the new updates and technologies. In the company I’m currently working, IT officer organize weekly training sessions of different tools like zoom, Microsoft teams, One Note and others. Those sessions were not only helpful to mitigate the technological obstacles but helps to break the communication barriers and let us be more engaged with co-employees.

Coordination

Although coordination is a necessary component of all collaborative work, hybrid teams pose significantly more coordination difficulties than face-to-face collaboration. (Haas, 2022). Haas (2022) also stated that to achieve coordination, extra effort needs to be made. But from the experience I got from the company I’m working, with better communication and engagement, coordination will come back to normal eventually. In the beginning it was different and seemed difficult to adapt but the employees kept working with putting effort to the communication and eventually workplace got well-coordinated. Coordination is not a something we can achieve suddenly but from my point of view special effort is not needed. Time is the only factor needed for better coordination.

Conclusion

After going through the material for this topic, main thing I realized is that most if not all challenges hybrid work model has are caused because of the lack of communication. In the days we work in the office, we can keep our normal communication, connection and co-ordination without any issue. When we are doing remote work, why do we use and trying to get better at new technology? To keep our communication at the best level. Softwares like Zoom, Teams and others help the employees to keep the communication and engagement at the highest level. Putting an extra effort to the communication is the way to overcome the challenges that hybrid workplaces faces eventually.

List of References

·  Broady, D. (2022), Strategies For Successful Communication In A Hybrid Work World Forbes, Viewed on 7th December 2022, <www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/01/07/strategies-for-successful-communication-in-a-hybrid-work-world/?sh=7ed1b94d428e>

·      Chernyak-Hai, L., & Rabenu, E.  (2018). the New Era Workplace Relationships: Is Social Exchange Theory Still Relevant? In Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Vol. 11, Issue 3, pp. 456–481). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/iop.2018.5

·     Haas, M. (2022), 5 Challenges of Hybrid Work and How to Overcome Them - Harvard business Review, Viewed on 7th December 2022 <hbr.org/2022/02/5-challenges-of-hybrid-work-and-how-to-overcome-them>

·       Iqbal, Kanwar Muhammad Javed & Khalid, Farooq & Barykin, Sergey. (2021). Hybrid Workplace: The Future of Work. 10.4018/978-1-7998-8327-2.ch003.

·  Levy, D. (2017). Online, Blended and Technology-Enhanced Learning: Tools to Facilitate Community College Student Success. In The Digitally-Driven Workplace. Publications and Research.