5 Reasons To Consider Hybrid Workplaces for Your Employees
The internet revolutionized the way people work. It allowed them to take their work with them when they traveled and it allowed them to access computer files on their office desktop from anywhere in the world. Yet, people still reported to the office daily and people still worked 9 to 5. It was a pandemic that made employers see that employees could work from home with flexible hours and still produce the same quantity and level of work.
Known as the hybrid workplace model, this type of work structure still has some scratching their heads. If you’ve been wondering if a hybrid workplace is right for your business, read on to learn of the benefits being experienced all around.
- Improved Employee Satisfaction
The worst thing a business can have is low employee morale. This leads to higher turnover, increased overhead to fill positions, and overall poor work performance. Low morale is usually the result of employees feeling their employer doesn’t care about their needs and well-being.
When employees are given a work schedule that says work when you can and put the needs of your family first, which had to be done during the pandemic, then morale starts increasing. The pandemic may be the first time everyone had a stay-at-home emergency at the same time, but it’s definitely not the first time employees or anyone has felt their day would be better served if they could just work from home.
- Decreased Overhead
This one is a given that not many employers give enough thought to. If you don’t have employees in the office, your utility bills are going to decrease significantly. Your janitorial expenses are going to decrease significantly. You may not even need an office anymore, and if that becomes the case, you need to decide what your business is going to do with all that extra revenue.
- Better for the Environment
There is no doubt a hybrid workplace model is better for the environment. When China shut down the whole country due to COVID-19 the results were surprising. There was an unprecedented reduction in pollution and as a result, spring came early that year.
Imagine how quickly the world could turn global warming on its heels if there were more work-from-home opportunities available to laborers. Not only would you see bluer skies and greener grass, but your employees would reap the health benefits as well. Imagine, a healthy world with healthy people.
- Increased Productivity
How could productivity possibly be increased if a supervisor isn’t able to keep their eyes on the employees? There are several answers to this question. One answer is employees don’t need as many breaks, because they’re home, and they don’t need to call out sick, because they’re already home. Another way to answer is, a happy employee is a productive employee. It’s true. Studies show that productivity increases by up to 13% when employees are allowed to work from home.
- Better Employee Relationships
If you have friction among the many personalities in our workforce, you’ll appreciate this last reason for moving to a hybrid work model. Employees actually have better relationships when they have flexible workplaces.
Think about it. Employees are reduced to Zoom meetings. There’s no time for gossip or forging alliances. That time is spent productively. Everything that needs to be done collaboratively is done in that Zoom call and then everyone goes off to complete their tasks. That call was time spent wisely and why wouldn’t everyone feel good about being a part of a team like that?
If you’re on the fence about having a flexible workplace it’s completely understandable. It’s not something that requires you to dive right in. Many businesses are dipping their toes in first, and the results have been promising. Go toes first. After all, you’ll never know if it will work if you aren’t willing to at least give it a try.
