Hybrid model: The ideal solution for sustaining work culture during work from home

The outburst of the pandemic has indeed brought about major disruptions and transformations in our lifestyles. Be it personal or professional, every aspect of our life seems to have upturned. When it comes to the latter, it is undeniable that work from home has been the recent trend and has brought major changes in our working patterns.

While most of us feel that work from home should be the new norm, I have a different viewpoint and I feel that work from home shouldn’t be adopted in a full-fledged fashion in the times ahead.

I believe that interpersonal communications and one-on-one interactions possess the capability to join and connect our workforce. Working together at the workplace instills teamwork and motivation and emotions of empathy and togetherness amongst the employees. It also ensures the building and development of a collaborative work environment. This is what is lacking in the WFH concept!

Since we are working remotely, no matter how much we try, we just can’t connect and bond as seamlessly as the physical meets and communications. Yes, there is flexibility but I do have my doubts about the work culture being sustained.

I feel that the occurrence of COVID-19 and the pandemic induced work from home has brought about major changes in our work cultures and code of ethics which play an important role in the growth of an organization and our employees. We face various issues while working remotely, ranging from effective communication, internal or external, to a delay in meeting deadlines. Additionally, it is also acting as a barrier in shaping up the analytical thinking and problem-solving skills and in enhancing the overall personality of the employees.

I believe that one can’t build a work culture while working from home while it can be easily formed when we are going to the workplace, are physically meeting our team, and are having face to face conversations.

Hence, I strongly feel that hybrid work culture should be adopted and will indeed be the ‘new normal’ of working in the times ahead. Following all the precautions while meeting alternatively will ensure that the human interaction exists, the bond stays intact, and discussions happen frequently, operations happen smoothly and seamlessly and the team also gets considerable relief and flexibility while working from home twice or thrice a week.

The hybrid work model combines the features of both physically working from the office along remote working. It brings the best of both worlds- structure, work ethics, and socializing along with flexibility and independence and ensures the provision of a supportive, collaborative and positive work culture to the team. It offers not only flexibility but freedom and convenience and also helps in improving the productivity of your employees.

Being the leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure that the teams’ morale is boosted and they can work in a hassle-free manner. We have to ensure that there is constant communication even beyond work and that all their grievances are addressed and taken care of. The hybrid work model can help in achieving this very objective. All we need is planning and putting in efforts in the right direction to successfully implement the hybrid working model in our operations.

I am also well aware that the hybrid work model won’t help us achieve satisfactory levels of work culture as in the case of routine working. But owing to the present uncertain times, it will definitely emerge as a viable solution. While there will be challenges and the road won’t be an easy one but the outcome will indeed be desirable and fruitful – we would have gone one step ahead towards achieving our goal and would have already attempted to regain the work culture and the connection amongst the team!