Implementation of the Hybrid Module to a Workplace

From the pre-pandamic to post-pandamic era and from the post-pandamic to economical crisis times, working environments went through huge changes rapidly. Office working to Remote working and back to office working, then going again to remote work and now the new hybrid working, workforce had to go through massive adjustments in their work and lives. Managing the human resource in these times were harder than ever before. Not only that, these adapting procedures must be smoother and employee-friendly as well. For a proper switching of the workplace to a hybrid working environment, there are few steps that had been used and will be helpful in the future. Identified common steps of proper implementation procedures of hybrid module are described under this topic.

The effective implementation of a hybrid working model will be greatly influenced by how you communicate inside your organization and between teams. The best option is to adopt a form of asynchronous communication, which will allow your team to communicate without the need to respond immediately. You will brief your employees with everything they need to get the job done and let them run the task in the allotted time. (Stewart, 2021). It is vital to properly clarify the communication channel among the team members in a hybrid workplace (Rahaman et al., 2020). Clarifying the communication channel would ensure that every piece of information is passed at the right time and through the right channel. Besides, the team leader has to ensure that whatever information is passed across is over-communicated. This is to see to it that every team member gets to the core of the matter and remains up to date about the company’s affairs. In creating a less bumpy communication process, it may be helpful to keep smaller team members in the hybrid work model. (Iqbal et al., 2021)

Building up the awareness with the employee group is a very important step in implementing the hybrid work model inside the workplace. Staying concerned about what the other person on the team is going through will grant the team a clear picture of the areas of strengths against everyone’s weakness. A good grasp of the team’s strengths leads the team to best utilize the unique strengths in the best way to get the best out of the team. However, a good grasp of each person’s weakness will give an insight into how best to leverage the individual weaknesses in a way that the team does not suffer for it, and the weaknesses are not made obvious (Frey et al., 2018). The future of work is inclusive of empathy regardless of the diversity of the team members. Being aware of the individual’s story helps in being sensitive to where they are coming from; that way, intolerance and hate actions can be avoided. Everyone feels like they belong on the team the way they should, and they are assured of a safe space where they would not be prejudiced upon no matter what. (Iqbal et al., 2021)

Understanding strengths and weaknesses will give a clear understanding about what to train and develop into the hybrid work model inside the workplace. Training and developing is the next step. One area to pay particular attention to is developing skills to ensure that effective communication, performance management, and team building are in place. There are many useful tools you can use to help upskill your workforce, a good example of this is LinkedIn Learning. (Stewart, 2021)

Technology is tightly bonded with the hybrid workplace. Because of that, the next concern should be developing the technological skills to match the evolving environment. 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). Meanwhile, the company stakeholders need to make provisions for in-house training to ensure their team members’ constant personal development. Not only that, workers also need to bear personal responsibility for their growth (Thorpe & Gordon, 2012).

To improve the implementation of the new work model, employees need to contribute with their creativity and the critical thinking to the environment. Creativity is helpful in an autonomous situation where the supervisor is not physically present. In complex situations, critical thinking helps to come up with a way out. For instance, if there is so much happening at the same Hybrid Workplace time and there’s the need to prioritize while not physically present, critical thinking comes in. Besides, critical thinking also helps in executing the ideas derived through creativity (Wijngaarden et al., 2020).

Time Management is the important final step of the implementation process. A skill required of the hybrid workplace is the ability to manage time properly. The system application is a different kind and the measure of time needs to be dynamic. In solving the challenge of time management, a suitable style of time tracking should be developed. There is the need to be real even at assigning tasks because working remotely does not equate to working like a machine (Boss, 2020).

Above mentioned steps can be identified as the foundation for a successful implementation of the hybrid work model at a workplace. There can be situations and company environments that would differ those steps but with the proper adjustments, implementation process will be smooth and effective.

List of References

·   Boss, S. (2020). The future of workplace with focus on user demand and value delivery. doi:10.34726/HSS.2020.85803

·      Frey, J. J., Pompe, J., Sharar, D., Imboden, R., & Bloom, L. (2018). Experiences of internal and hybrid employee assistance program managers: Factors associated with successful, at-risk, and eliminated programs. Https://Doi.Org/10.1080/15555240.2017.1416293 doi:10.1080/15555240.2017.1416293

·       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.

·       Rahaman, M. S., Kudo, S., Rawling, T., Ren, Y., & Salim, F. D. (2020). Seating preference analysis for hybrid workplaces. Academic Press

·       Stewert, A (2021) How to successfully implement a hybrid working model - Breathe, Viewed on 1st December 2022   <https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/blog/topic/remote-working/how-to-successfully-implement-a-hybrid-working-model>

·      Thorpe, M., & Gordon, J. (2012). Online learning in the workplace: A hybrid model of participation in networked, professional learning. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 28(8), 1267–1282. doi:10.14742/ajet.763

·    Wijngaarden, Y., Hitters, E., & Bhansing, P. V. (2020). Cultivating fertile learning grounds: Collegiality, tacit knowledge and innovation in creative co-working spaces. Geoforum, 109, 86–94.  doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.01.005