With discussions about the huge changes in our working lives during the past two years, driven of course by necessity and concerns for safety, it’s clear the pandemic will very much still be a fact of life for many of us in 2022; however, it’s fair to say that we’ve learned to adapt to new behavioral patterns for both working life and personal life.
With more freedom on when and where we work, hopefully, we will be making the most of the opportunity to strike a better balance between home and working life.
The CIPD says;
The CIPD’s Embedding new ways of working post-pandemic report shows that some 40% of employers said they expect more than half their workforce to work regularly from home after the pandemic has ended. According to data from the Office of National Statistics, prior to COVID-19 only around 5% of the workforce worked mainly from home. The pandemic, and government mandates for people to stay at home, increased this significantly. However, according to CIPD research, before the pandemic, 65% of employers either did not offer regular working from home at all or offered it to 10% or less of their workforce. After the crisis, that 65% is expected to fall dramatically to 37%. This represents a significant shift in ways of working which people professionals will need to prepare for.
While some employees want to work from home all the time after the pandemic, most would prefer a balance where they are in the office for some of the week and at home for the remainder. This has led to the use of a relatively new term: hybrid working. Many organisations are now considering what ‘hybrid’ means for them, how they might meet this new employee demand, and what will need to be in place in order for these new ways of working to be effective.
Hybrid Working
While numerous companies will still expect their employees to work in an office environment, after some trial and error, some companies are implementing the idea of hybrid working.
Hybrid structures will be varied and come with their own set of rules and methods. Some companies will be maintaining permanent centralised offices with hot-desking to accommodate the fact that staff will more frequently work remotely, while others will be dismissing offices entirely and relying on co-working spaces and serviced meeting rooms to support the needs of a primarily remote workforce. It is also extremely likely that technology will play an increasingly large role in the workplace during 2022.
While hybrid working comes with many positives, a challenge that companies will come up against in 2022 is finding ways to hit objectives without being overly intrusive or invasive of employees’ privacy and personal lives.
Tools
With the expansion of hybrid working, more companies are creating and promoting tools/software that allows employees and employers to communicate and collaborate. Microsoft have recently released their “Hybrid Work” web page, which embraces the opportunity of working from home by providing employers and employees with an educational guide.
Employee Preference
Video messaging platform, Loom, found that 90% of employees surveyed – including workers and managers – are happier with the increased freedom they now have to work from home, suggesting that this is likely to be a trend that is here to stay as we move into 2022.
Overall, it is certain that we will see an increase of hybrid working, as well as the use of technology. Despite the many complexities and challenges of living and working through the global pandemic, employees have still identified many benefits from working from home, for both them and their organisation. These benefits include a better work–life balance, greater ability to focus with fewer distractions, more time for family and friends, saved commuting time and costs, IT upskilling and higher levels of motivation.
Other benefits of flexible working include savings on office space, higher levels of employee job satisfaction and reduced absence rates. The full benefits of hybrid working as a specific form of flexible working are yet to be fully researched but we can expect that it will, when properly implemented and supported, lead to similar benefits for both employees and organisations alike.
