How to Improve Employee Productivity in a Hybrid Workplace

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February 20, 2024 Business

A survey conducted by Accenture revealed that 83% of workers around the globe prefer the hybrid work model, in which they can work from home at least 25% of the total time. 

The recent transition from remote to hybrid work setup has led to drastic changes in the working paradigm for employees. Due to this, employers are reassessing the best practices to maintain employees’ productivity, whether they’re working from home or in the office.

So, this blog will walk you through the best tips for boosting employee productivity in a hybrid work setup after a mini introduction to hybrid work culture.

What Is a Hybrid Workplace?

A hybrid workplace is a setup that supports a blend of in-office and remote work cultures, providing employees with some flexibility to move between two work paradigms. In a hybrid model, employees are mostly mandated to work at least one or two days a week from the office, while on other days, they’re permitted to work from home.

The hybrid work setup provides employees with several benefits, such as:

Work when they feel productive
Work under conditions that stimulate more creativity
Spend more time with their family
Get more time to pursue hobbies or interests
Increased flexibility at work
Less or no commuting

Such flexibility and work-life balance result in more engaged, satisfied, and productive employees and help retain talented employees.

A hybrid workforce has gained popularity for showing flexibility at work. Still, employers should ensure that employee productivity doesn’t get hampered because of team members’ different work locations and must take necessary measures to revamp their productivity.

Here are a few ways employers can embrace while implementing a hybrid work culture in their organization and improve the productivity of their hybrid workforce.

Define Communication Guidelines

When half of the workforce is working from home while the rest works from the office, there’s a high probability that collaboration and communication can become hampered. Thus, establish clear guidelines for your hybrid workforce to facilitate effective communication and collaboration.

In the guidelines, you can include:

communication channels to use
expected response time
time to communicate with stakeholders/clients
core hours (time frame during which they have to be available irrespective of where they work)
frequency of meetings/stand-up calls, etc.

Also, managers are advised to schedule regular meetings with their team members, irrespective of where they’re working, to do the following:

Keep a tab on work status and project progress
Help resolve roadblocks and address bottlenecks
Help employees with their challenges
Share any major work-related update

The better the communication protocol, the better the collaboration and communication. Having a set of guidelines will ensure that team members can connect seamlessly, stay on the same page, and avoid the likelihood of confusion and conflict.

Pay Heed to Work Set up and Environment

Whether employees work from home or the office, it’s essential that their work setup is up-to-date and organized.

So ensure they have access to adequate lighting, ventilation, and other amenities in the office setup.

Also, when working from home, ensure employees have all the setups in place, such as tables, chairs, tools and equipment, strong internet connectivity, UPS, and other necessary setups to work efficiently. Not having a proper work environment and setup can inhibit employees from concentrating and working comfortably.

Encourage Having a Distraction-Free Environment at Home

Employers should request employees to work from a separate room or any quieter part of their homes.

When working from home, any form of distraction or background noise can hinder concentration and disrupt team or client meetings.

That’s why it’s recommended that employees set up their workstations at home with the necessary tools and equipment. This way, they can work productively without any disturbances.

Set Goals and Objectives for Employees

As an employer, it’s recommended that you set clear goals and objectives for your employees so they’re aware of their work responsibilities and associated deadlines/timelines.

You can also set a few milestones for the projects so that employees can work at the right pace to reach the milestones within the stipulated time frame.

A clear understanding of goals helps in various ways:

It keeps employees on track
It ensures that everyone is working in the right direction
It helps accomplish projects on time, irrespective of their work location

In this way, it improves overall productivity in a hybrid work setup.

Provide Access to Equipments and Technology

Technology helps integrate all employees with the company and is a key factor in improving efficiency and productivity at work. Technology makes collaboration and communication seamless and helps employees do their jobs quickly.

For example, redundant and taxing tasks can be automated with the help of some tools so employees can focus on their core work.

Employers can consider implementing an efficient time tracking software for their employees that can automatically capture their time and work data across different work apps, whether they work from the office or home, and fill the timesheet automatically without any human intervention. Thus, this solution will eliminate the hassle of filling out timesheets manually so employees can focus on their core tasks while employers can still have visibility into work time data, thus improving overall productivity.

Similarly, with the help of chat and video conferencing tools and project management software, employees can easily collaborate with their teammates regardless of where they work.

Make sure the tools and technologies your employees use are up-to-date and user-friendly. Do provide some initial training to help employees get acquainted with the usage of tools or provide some user manual that can work as a handy guide for them.

Give Ownership of Work

Employees become more productive and perform better when you transfer the ownership of tasks, give them more autonomy over their work, and hold them accountable for their deliverables.

Thus, start transferring the ownership of work gradually, as it indicates that you have confidence in them. But, also ensure that you provide adequate resources to employees, make your expectations clear to them, and make stakeholders accessible so that employees can get buy-in and approval promptly.

Have a Reward and Recognition Policy

It has been observed that reward and recognition policies motivate employees to further perform better and excel in their respective jobs.

Consider acknowledging employees’ hard work publicly and rewarding the best performers with some incentive, travel tickets, bonuses, or other form of compensation. However, the reward need not be monetary. You can also opt to offer additional time off, opportunities for professional development, flexible work timings, etc. This type of recognition will boost employee morale and will foster hybrid workers to become more productive.

Establish Feedback Loop

Employers can use surveys to understand what roadblocks employees are facing, the key factors in decreasing productivity, and how they can further improve productivity in a hybrid model.

In surveys, you can ask employees and managers specific questions that can help you collect data on employee productivity and find areas of improvement for a hybrid work setup.

Bottom Line

A hybrid work setup has several advantages, including better work-life balance, reduced commuting, opportunities to spend more time with family and attend to personal matters, lower operating costs, etc. However, when some team members work from the office and the rest from home, this can hamper communication and collaboration and impact productivity.

But that shouldn’t stop employers as they can mitigate these issues by empowering employees with appropriate tools to collaborate, having regular stand-up meetings, creating guidelines for communication, and optimizing workplace conditions to foster productivity.

About the author:

Sonika Malviya is a content writer at Replicon, specializing in covering topics related to time tracking and workforce management software. With her in-depth knowledge of these topics, she translates technical details into understandable and relatable content to empower businesses to optimize their productivity, improve their workflows, and achieve greater success in managing their time. Beyond her professional role, Sonika finds solace and inspiration in her travels.