The key components of a hybrid working model that actually works

If you believe hybrid work models don't really work, you are most likely still fixated on the physical location. Turn your attention to being more human-centric for greater success. You might feel pressured to regain more control over work when economic conditions worsen, such as by enforcing a strict return to the office policy. The data, however, indicates it would be a grievous mistake.

According to a Gartner survey with more than 400 employees and leaders from organizations throughout the world who have consistently used a hybrid work model since the pandemic, the majority of hybrid work models had below-average results. But one approach showed greater success. All of the failing models are location-centric and impose strict on-site requirements. Only one model, the hybrid-flexible, allows executives and employees some flexibility in where they work from—scored above average. A hybrid-flexible model that includes other essential components of human-centric work design, such as geographical flexibility, purposeful collaboration practices, and empathy-based management, is even more effective.

You can succeed and increase performance among employees if you effectively switch to a human-centric hybrid working strategy. However, expecting your legacy work and management practices fixated on-site settings to work just fine in hybrid models is absurd.

Hybrid work models struggle with location-centric approaches

Although many organizations refer to their work model as a hybrid, they frequently consider one aspect: how flexible they are about where employees work.

Some location-centric models are 100 percent on-site or 100 percent remote. Some require office visits because the employer expects them or because the company's regulations require them, while others assert that they are hybrid-first but still require some office presence on a certain number of days each week. As opposed to this, hybrid-flexible models are malleable, giving teams and employees flexibility over how much on-site and remote work they perform to achieve their goals or do their best work. This model significantly increases employee performance, intent to stay and lowers fatigue levels compared to the inflexible location-based models.

Human-centric flexible work design

Human-centric work design extends beyond hybrid-flexible to incorporate chances for purposeful cooperation and empathy-based management. The most recent survey from Gartner confirmed reports from practitioners that greater levels of location flexibility, intentional collaboration, and empathy-based management strongly correlate with increased employee performance, intent to stay, and reduced fatigue. The cumulative effect of these advantages makes the human-centric paradigm the most effective for businesses and employees. According to this study, organizations with the most human-centric work environments are 3.8 times more likely to experience high employee performance, 3.2 times more likely to experience high employee intent to stay, and 3.1 times more likely to experience low levels of employee fatigue.

Accountable employee autonomy

Human-centric hybrid work models can only be implemented if employees and teams are given autonomy over how, when, and where they work. That autonomy alone generates significant rewards. According to the research, employees who have autonomy over when they work are 2.3 times more likely to show superior performance than those who don't. Autonomy reduces worker fatigue by 1.9 times, empowering them to maintain high performance over time. Furthermore, the autonomy increases employees' likelihood of staying with the company by 2.3 times, which is crucial for having fully staffed competent teams.

Giving employees autonomy doesn't mean establishing complete flexibility. In reality, human-centric work design depends on teams and employees being held accountable and using autonomy not as a right but as a tested method to achieve goals.

How to create an effective human-centric work design

Human-centric hybrid models reform work centered on the requirements of people rather than requiring them to adhere to limiting traditional rules or norms. This calls for a significant change in essential aspects of the workplace experience and close attention to three crucial characteristics of a productive human-centric work environment:

Flexible experiences

Flexibility in work arrangements is one important component of employee autonomy, but there are others. Each employee should be able to establish the work-life balance that works best for them when there is a decent amount of choice regarding where they will work, as well as on which days and at what hours. The data indicate that flexible work environments result in a 1.5–1.7 times greater chance that employees will stay with the company, feel less fatigue, and perform better.

Collaboration

Collaboration is crucial to the development of a human-centered work design. The belief that synchronous, in-person contacts are the only way to achieve effective cooperation still forms the foundation of many organizations' working practices. According to Gartner data, using these models exclusively results in poor outcomes. Results are significantly improved by introducing asynchronous cooperation, especially if the business consciously integrates both synchronous and asynchronous models into working practices. The most successful businesses carefully plan collaboration, figuring out the optimum synchronous and asynchronous methods for the task and the individuals carrying it out. Intentional collaboration maximizes collective performance and innovation while considering personal preferences to enable people to offer their best work. However, the human-centric paradigm achieves even better overall results when this intentionality is combined with the other components.

Empathy-based management

Employees want to feel trustworthy and that they matter to the organization. Management must show its respect for employees through their behaviors, which have a great impact on them. Managers have typically used visibility to adapt their management strategy. They, therefore, make decisions and act based on what they observe. Many businesses attempt to replicate the limited visibility-based approach to the hybrid models by adding manager/direct report check-ins or direct monitoring.

Organizations with leaders sympathetic to employees' needs achieve the best results. The poorest results were at companies where managers required employees to be present so they could see them. This makes employees feel they are not trusted and, therefore, not valued. Although empathic managers significantly improve employee outcomes, the best overall results come from integrating empathy into a holistic human-centric design.

For the people, by the people

Results will be subpar if new work models are imposed on employees without getting their feedback or if it is thought that the initial model is a one-and-done proposition. Expect to continue changing the work design over the next 12 to 18 months as work models must adapt to changing business objectives and employee needs.

There are significant advantages to keeping the work model flexible and actively seeking employee feedback. Employees were 2.5 times more likely to attain high performance and four times more likely to report lower fatigue if they had considerable input into the post-pandemic work design.

The least used but most effective approach is the active co-creation of work models, increasing intent to stay by 60%. However, don't limit employee participation to direct design and implementation activities. Make sure you get enough employee input by using various engagement strategies to discover the tailored work model best suit your organization.