As the world resumes its pre-COVID fervour, employees and employers are embracing new norms in the workplace. Flexible work cultures are the need of the hour, with an onus on business leaders to showcase their employee-centric mindsets without the pandemic looming over them.
After remote working, came the trend of hybridity. However, as organizations define what hybrid means to them, their people, and their bottom line, all the players unanimously agree that things must change now. Enterprising business leaders have reinvented their people cultures based on people’s wants, thus enabling their organizations to grow and remain competitive. According to a recent study called Recruit, Retain and Grow by Poly, nearly 74% of Indian employers agree that hybrid working is the way to go.
The post-pandemic workplace culture will continue to embrace digital transformation to discover newer ways of working, utilizing digital tools to improve employee engagement and building a workplace that will strive to be resilient to future disruptions.
As leaders rethink and redesign a win-win workplace for both employees and employers in the hybrid era, what new elements should they focus on?
Building the Right Culture for the Right Change
The social fabric of an organization is a valuable asset as it fosters collaboration, communication, and innovation. The pandemic reinvigorated the need for a more cohesive system. Therefore, going forward employers must focus on creating an environment that is aligned around shared goals, priorities, purpose, and complete transparency. The freedom of flexible working allows employees to fit their work around their personal needs thus accelerating their value-driven participation.
Remote and hybrid working trends have widened the talent pool. Organizations are no longer constrained by geographical boundaries, as hiring processes can now be heavily focused on the best available skill sets and experience.
An organization that proactively advocates for its people is more likely to retain and build a long-term sustainable hiring structure. Additionally, a hybrid working model builds a more resilient workforce as employee exposure to various illnesses is significantly reduced. Business leaders must stick to this trend as this allows people to find their balance and design a system that works best for them. Employees value their time and they are increasingly looking to work with companies that value it too.
Activate Technology to Enhance Efficiency
Technology played a critical role in ensuring businesses could operate during the pandemic. It was also the only tool that enhanced people’s ability to work efficiently and productively. As organizations around the world are equally invested in building a digital headquarter for their business, business leaders must look at how they can fortify employee connections and well-being virtually. Utilizing technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, organizations can empower their employees by bridging the gap between in-person and virtual communication. Video conferencing applications and office messaging platforms come integrated with interactive functions that have made virtual office catch-ups a fun and rewarding experience. These technologies also play a critical role in removing biases from hiring processes so that companies can ensure the diversity that they advertise.
Employee experience platforms are on the rise to help an organization’s employee network stay connected and foster a productive and positive work culture. Gamification methods can be used to keep employees emotionally engaged with their work, particularly in cross-functional teams. It has also been incorporated into employee evaluations and surveys to motivate employees. It also raises their awareness and knowledge of the business and can be used to upskill them.
Flexibility- A Privilege not a Right
Employee expectations will continue to evolve. When the pandemic began and everyone was working out of quarantine, there was a lot of grumbling about missing the physical pleasures of being in an office. Gradually, they discovered the benefits of flexibility and now a five-day in-office week does not bear thinking about. But, the need for flexibility is not going to dissipate. It is only going to evolve as per the needs and requirements of the workforce.
We live in a time when certain surgeries can be performed remotely and skills can be learned, relearned, and unlearned with the click of a mouse. Excellence and innovation do not fit within the confines of a well-designed office. People thrive when they are given the tools they need to thrive. The name of the game is flexibility, and it is up to our business leaders to embrace it wholeheartedly.
The author is Mr. Deepak Visweswaraiah, vice president, platform engineering, and site managing director, Pegasystems, India and the views expressed in this article are his own)
