(Expansion) – In different recently published studies, among them, the Microsoft one stands out, revealing that 50% of collaborators want to maintain activities at least partially in the home office. In another study, 55% of employees from different companies consider it necessary to return to offices for face-to-face activities and face-to-face meetings.
With these similar results, it is not surprising that a large number of companies are proposing hybrid work models as the solution for the future in the short and medium term. Faced with this reality, the immediate question is: Are the leaders prepared for it?
Work culture changes never come alone, they are accompanied by technological and physical changes, evaluation methods, communication, among many others.
The “technological approach” tools have accelerated: Zoom, Google Meets, Teams, WhatsApp, just to mention a few, and have improved their proposals for efficient solutions to bring work teams closer together. The options of temporary offices, shared spaces, room rentals for specific hours or adjusting non-personalized offices and workplaces have made it possible to quickly adapt to new demands.
Neither 100% home office, nor 100% face-to-face; The important question is, are leadership and management models ready for this challenge? Here four roadmaps:
1. Choice : All employees perceive that in this scheme they can improve their quality of life, which is extremely positive. For example, there will be single mothers who will be able to add their eight hours of daily work with four hours very early, then two hours of lunch with their children, to close with another four or perhaps more in the evening.
There will be those who can do “Early Friday” from home so that at the end of their day they can do sports, refresher courses or why not learn a new language. In short, the important thing is to understand needs, adapt and reach mutual agreements.
2. Discipline : For this scheme to be also attractive for companies and entrepreneurs, the deliverables of the collaborators must be very clear and in “black and white” on a weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis. In addition to a series of KPIs ( Key Performance Indicators ) expected from this hybrid model. Nothing worse to annihilate this method of work than not seeing people and also not having the expected results.
3. Confidence : Although there are countless Apps on the market that help control who is working and where they are doing it from their smartphones (Factorial or Teramind, to name a few), nothing replaces face-to-face or remote feedback.
The preparation of a minute of agreements to follow up on what and when they will be, being useful tools that allow us to alert if the projects are on time or late; if an intervention of a leader or at least a “task force” is required.
4. Labor Culture : For the entire company to be aligned, the global and strategic objectives of the organization must be very clear and perfectly understood by its collaborators so that, regardless of which trench each collaborator works from, their contribution to said strategy is clear.
Business leaders need to make sure things like this are built regardless of whether you do it from home, office or from an internet cafe.
Modern leaders must know how to read the emotional and technical maturity of each of their collaborators so that they adapt to new habits that lead them to a balance between personal and professional life. With this, design the tailored suit that corresponds to each collaborator in this new hybrid model.
When the suit is already built, it will be necessary to adapt the work culture, gain confidence, discipline and give choice to let go and navigate in this new reality.
Editor’s Note: Daniel Razo is Director of Operations and Supply Chain at Comerlat. He is an Industrial Engineer from the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Follow him on . The opinions published in this column belong exclusively to the author.
