Cartoon Coffee Break: What your organization needs to navigate a hybrid workplace

With all the ways the pandemic rapidly and demonstrably changed work, one of the longest-running debates focuses on returning to the office. Do we do it, and if yes, how?

Many workers never had the luxury of working from home, but for those that can (like, say, random example: Your team writes and edits a corporate blog focused on work), returning to the office is a hotly contested topic.

For example, Airbnb has recently told their employees they never have to return to the office. Others, like Goldman Sachs, are back five days a week. Those schedules seem to work for those organizations, but some that have required people to come back into the office full time have seen a lot of their best people resign immediately or leave shortly thereafter. And some organizations were real jerks about it. What that shows is that not all organizations are making people decisions after talking to the people those decisions impact.

Hybrid work seems to be a compromise on which the rent-paying organizations and the employees who enjoy the freedom of remote work can agree.

And all signs point to the fact that hybrid work is here to stay, and the success of remote work has reimagined how corporate work gets done and where the work takes place. For most, coming back to the office any days a week feels like a big change after almost two years of navigating work under their own roof. There's a good chance many of your employees have gotten used to working alone over the past year. So how do you keep them happy and aligned with your organization's goals?

Finding the right mixture of time in and out of the office is a tricky situation that many employees and organizations are currently working on getting right. To ensure your organization is doing what works best for you and your people, you need a plan. A plan that offers flexibility, upskilling resources, and communicates the benefits and necessities of working in the office.

According to the 2021 Work Trend Index, over 70% of workers want flexible remote work options to continue, while over 65% crave more in-person time with their teammates. As a result, 66% of business leaders are preparing to redesign office spaces to accommodate hybrid work environments better.

As you probably guessed that you do all those things to build a successful hybrid workplace with Cornerstone products because this is a corporate blog and you know how this works.

But outside of the benefits of Cornerstone, as you figure out what sort of hybrid balance works best for your organization, remember to keep communication with your people open and honest. Your people will appreciate you considering their opinion as they are the people who do all the work. If you don't work with them, they'll work somewhere else.