The Covid-19 pandemic has caused rapid changes that affect the very performance of work. Thanks to the hybrid way of working, we realize not only WHEN, WHERE and HOW we work, but also WHY we work (for the company, for the boss, for the leader, for the team, for ourselves). We are looking for the real MEANING of work!

A degree of FLEXIBILITY is associated with the hybrid model. It is said on the one hand that we should let individuals and teams decide how, where and when they want to work. On the other hand, there are concerns about fully autonomous flexibility, because by nature people are supposed to meet and collaborate physically in the first place. We require physical contact, we are social beings, we cannot do without social interaction, we are communicative creatures, we need to see and hear each other more than just through a camera. So how to balance these two different opinions?

The flexibility of hybrid work has advantages for companies, for employees, for teams and for the whole society. From a business perspective, you can increase productivity and recruit talents from anywhere. You will become a more sustainable company by reducing the number of commutes and costs associated with doing business. From an employee’s point of view, there is a great opportunity to better manage work-life balance. People can take better care of their children when they need it. From the community’s point of view, there is a clear reduction of carbon emissions. You will contribute to making the streets less crowded with cars and public transport. Hybrid working has a number of positive impacts in different areas. However, we need to understand on what occasions, how often and from where we need to do activities in the offline or online worlds. These insights are essential to rethinking the ways we organize our work.

The future of hybrid work can be divided into 2x2 quadrants. REMOTE WORK from anywhere vs. OFFICE WORK X ASYNCHRONOUS vs. SYNCHRONOUS communication. It is necessary to find the best solution in all four quadrants. How to do it best? How to help people? How to strengthen their communication skills? How to use the tools you buy for your company?

In the beginning, pay enough attention to make sure people have their preferred WORKING ENVIRONMENT, favourite COMMUNICATION TOOLS, and desired DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY. Subsequently, evaluate newly formed habits, expectations, wishes, needs… Thanks to this knowledge, you can better design other rules for PERSONAL/VIRTUAL/HYBRID work/collaboration. It is actually about mutual understanding at the level of the company, group, individual and society.

If you understand the connections, you can approach the question of how much you want to be flexible and what attitude you will choose as a company. For example, whether you decide to work one, two or three days a week from anywhere or how best to set up a common day spent in the office. Give people CHOICE, OPENNESS AND TRUST. If you think about the results from various surveys, you will find that on the one hand people want to work in the office, but equally they demand to work outside the office, for example in a home office environment or from anywhere else. Simply from a place that suits them best = EMOTIONALLY AGILE WORKPLACE.

THINK about the demand for FLEXIBILITY. Why do people demand working FLEXIBILITY? Why are they willing to change jobs if they lose the possibility of flexibility or if it does not suit them completely? The question is not focused only on the requirement to work from home office or from anywhere else. People want to work/collaborate in the same, but slightly different, office environment. This is the paradox of hybrid working/collaboration. Let’s keep in mind that we are at a point where we still do not have enough information and specific opinions. Now we must focus on proactive EVANGELIZATION, INSPIRATION AND EMPOWERMENT of each leader and individual to define for themselves what works in the given context, what they want to achieve as individuals or teams.

EXAMPLE: If you are developing a team of five people, you need to understand their needs and wants, their skill strengths and weaknesses, and set the learning path needed to do the job itself. Each of these five people has their own life and work story. Each of them is completely individual, but at the same time completely different, and therefore you need to get to know each one separately. Someone has to take care of small children, someone commutes to work from a greater distance, someone concentrates better in an environment where they are completely alone, and someone needs to hear their colleagues and be close to them for individual work.

In order to correctly identify needs and wants, you need to improve the most humane trait you are born with: being able to empathize with someone else and see the world as others see it, which is EMPATHY. Empathy captures at least three ways we connect with the emotions of others. One of them is EMOTIONAL EMPATHY, which indirectly captures the feelings of someone else. COGNITIVE EMPATHY is the ability to understand the perspective of what others are feeling. And then your motivation is to improve the well-being of others, EMPATHIC CONCERN, or compassion with others. 

We need to think deeply about what is important to whom in relation to the mission of the company and the mission of the individual, both in terms of strong and weak ties. What do STRONG and WEAK ties mean?

Communication platforms for meetings in Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, sharing digital content in Office 365, but also email or any formal or informal application within the team became a strong tie overnight at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Weak ties are the physical social interactions we stumble upon in the kitchen, outside the lift, in the informal zone, while walking around the office, at the bus stop, or when meeting people who are interesting, inspiring, and with whom we need to create long-term relationships.

SOURCE: NEUROLEADERSHIP

Are you afraid of a hybrid way of working? The hybrid way of working is not a threat, but an OPPORTUNITY to achieve sufficient engagement of people in the team. You achieve great things when you can bring together people who are using their full potential and their abilities to make a difference. If you do not gain people’s trust, you will also limit your own possibilities for change. Life is full of great opportunities, but that is only true if you have your eyes fully open, ears to listen, and an inner strength to drive you forward toward your goal. The future of work will not go back to 2019 because we understand that we can be productive remotely.

At AV MEDIA SYSTEMS we create and design workspaces that define the “WHY, HOW, WHAT, WHERE, WITH WHOM AND WHEN” according to the latest trends and requirements of work supporting SECURITY, FREEDOM, FLEXIBILITY AND EXPERIENCE. In the design, we follow the requirements and needs with behavioural, technological and physical solutions, with a contribution of cultural, spatial and technological changes.

Article author: Jiří Plátek, Workplace Design Specialist, AV MEDIA SYSTEMS