Healthy hybrid working – top tips for balancing the ‘best of both’

A world in transition – the new ways of working

Times of rapid change require a heroic spirit, and a willingness to move confidently into unchartered territory, constantly reinventing our tactics as we go. Organisations cannot make this journey of change without the individuals within them also doing so in a healthy and motivated way – every employee can make the difference between an organisation that becomes high-performing or one that struggles in these turbulent times.

Hybrid working is one such rapidly emerging change that we are seeing in the way we do our business, with a wide range of research showing that the majority of workers want to continue working from home at least some of the time. There is justified trepidation for employers around this daunting change because, despite the reported benefits, such as better work/life balance, there are some clear challenges with a work from home model – namely feelings of disconnection, difficulty in focusing and missing face-to-face interaction. Further unknowns remain around the dilution of workplace culture over time and how teams can remain united and collaborative, and then how this dispersion of the workforce impacts mental health and wellbeing long-term. It is already reported that 80% of UK workers feel that working from home has had a negative impact on their mental health.

The cornerstone of an effective hybrid working scenario is personal responsibility and trust. A sense of autonomy and control over our work is something that we have known for many decades drives wellbeing and therefore performance. Now, we have the real opportunity to deliver autonomy for our employees.

With hybrid working, the onus is put on individuals to successfully manage their commitments but alongside this new arrangement there also needs to be the support of a strong psychological contract between the employer and employee based on a fair, clear agreement of what the employee is expected to deliver and how, in particular communicating a change in emphasis from the ‘hours people work’ to their actual outputs. Psychological contracts are slippery by nature, but this shift to hybrid working will very likely leave big gaps in the psychological contract so it’s important that it is re-examined to ensure the organisation can bounce forward out of this crisis rather than backwards.