The COVID pandemic changed work forever. Businesses with limited or no telecommuting options found themselves scrambling to get employees out of worksites and working from home. As safety restrictions are being loosened and more employers have the option of returning to worksites, many companies are now seeing the appeal of combining office life with the option of work-from-home flexibility. As companies reopen their offices, they are deciding how the remote-work arrangements that their employees have become used to can transition into their new normal. For many, this new normal is somewhere between telecommuting and working in the office — a hybrid workplace.
So, what exactly is a hybrid workplace?
What is a Hybrid Workplace?
A hybrid workforce is defined by a type of blended workforce of employees who work remotely and those who work from an office or central location. This way, employees can work from the places they want to—either in a central location, such as a warehouse, factory or retail location, or in a remote location, such as the home.
Advantages of a Hybrid Workplace
- Productivity: Having a hybrid workplace allows companies to focus on productivity and let their employees work how and where they’re most productive
- Reduce Operation Costs: Having more employees work remotely can help reduce the cost of operation.These costs include obvious ones like real estate, as well as less obvious ones such as a reduction in absenteeism. A recent study by Global Workplace Analytics determined that by allowing employees to work from home, businesses can “save on average $11,000 per employee, and each employee would save between $2,000 and $7,000.”
- Prioritizing Employees: A hybrid workplace shows employees that your business is prioritizing their health and well-being without sacrificing company culture or reducing access to valuable office resources. Establishing guidelines about how often employees should work in their office can also help with work/life imbalance that can result from telecommuting 100% of the time. More companies are now working on employee prioritization, with some having 1:1 meetings with individual employees to check in on both their professional as well as personal lives. Which can help with updating the relevant achievements or pain points.
Challenges of a Hybrid Workplace
Creating a hybrid workplace that meets the needs of your business as well as the needs of your employees isn’t easy. Be sure to plan for its challenges, including:
- Less Access to Technology: By working remotely, it is likely your employees are working at home or a flex office, which can pose a problem if they do not have suitable access to the technology and applications they would have in-office.
- Difficult to communicate with Employees: It can be very hard to communicate in real time in this new hybrid workplace, especially between teams in a company.
- Scheduling Issues: Unlike before the pandemic, workplaces are becoming more and more flexible during the workday, which can pose a problem for other employees trying to collaborate with another employee or needing to meet with an employee who may be out of the office.
“It is important for businesses to lay the appropriate legal groundwork for the new way they arrange their workforce. Our work with SixFifty enables businesses of all sizes to implement and maintain a comprehensive employment framework for today’s workplace that complies with the current state of the law in each of the states in which they have employees.”
– Marina Tsatalis – Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
SixFifty Solutions
- Employee Handbook: Creating an employee handbook can take time, money and even lawyers to keep your policies up-to-date. SoSixFifty created a solution to save you time, money, and keep your employee handbook up-to-date on the latest state and federal laws and guidelines. SixFifty has an easy to use employee handbook generator that helps keep your company’s employee handbook both up-to-date and compliant. This tool includes over 50 policies that account for the law in every state. And, if you’re looking to make more permanent changes, SixFifty’s Employee Handbook can be customized to your business’s specific needs.
This tool was designed with your business in mind.SixFifty teamed up with the top employment law firm in the U.S, Wilson Sonsini, in the nation to show a computer how to write employment policies for companies, just like an attorney would to create the employment documents your business needs.
- Return to Work: A return to work policy is a policy put in place to return employees to the workplace safely, or outline how they’ll work remotely. This policy is set up to help keep returning employees in the workplace safe during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
We partnered with the employment experts at Wilson Sonsini to help you assess your back-to-office readiness. SixFifty’s Return to Work solution generates the back-to-office policies and other documents your company needs to return to work safely, as well as track employee health and vaccinations so you can keep sick employees at home.
How We Can Help
Although your company may have already adapted to the hybrid workplace model, there is still a lot more work that should be done. That’s why SixFifty developed an employee handbook solution. This easy and affordable solution helps you customize as well as generate employee policies for your company handbook, in all states where you have employees.
Schedule A Demo
As employment policies are ever-changing, it can be difficult to know what guidelines your company may need to follow. SixFifty’s employee handbook tool provides your company the peace of mind of knowing your employment policies comply with both local and federal guidelines.
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