What is a hybrid work regime?
As the name suggests, hybrid work involves combining remote work with that which is done stationary, in the office. It's a solution that involves carrying out duties that don't require contact with people from home, while visiting the company's headquarters when it makes sense or is simply necessary. According to Gartner, the implementation of processes in the hybrid model makes the place of work dependent on its productivity and efficiency - if a certain task is better performed at home, that's where the employee should be.
Working in a hybrid model can take many forms - after all, we can imagine a person who will spend 4 days a week in a home office, as well as one who will spend those 4 days in the office, staying at home only on Fridays, which is becoming an increasingly popular solution in Poland. Both proportions may be reasonable, but the choice of the optimal solution depends, for example, on the specifics of the company, the role of the employee and even the time of year.
Why is hybrid work so popular? Pros and cons of hybrid work regime
Like perhaps any solution, working in a hybrid model has both advantages and disadvantages. However, we have the impression that pros prevail:
Advantages of hybrid work
- According to the already mentioned Gartner, the share of “high-performing” employees in organizations operating in a hybrid model is 55%, compared to 36% recorded in companies operating entirely stationary. We can therefore conclude that working in hybrid mode results in higher productivity;
- Lower costs - technically, fewer people in an office reduces the space used, and this translates into lower rent bills. Smaller space also means lower electricity, heating and water bills. In the last four years, many companies have decided to change their premises to more compact ones, while others, operating under a hybrid model, have reduced the cost of operating offices due to their closure on Fridays;
- Time savings - let's not kid ourselves - most of us spend at least an hour a day commuting, and this time is not additionally rewarded. Introducing a hybrid model is a way to improve employee satisfaction, and this, of course, affects employee loyalty and productivity.
Disadvantages of hybrid work
- Hybrid work involves interference with employees' private lives - as with remote work, the partial performance of professional duties at home also increases the risk of working after hours and disrupting the daily rhythm. This is particularly evident in the case of teams working in a project model;
- Endangered data security - every instance of working from home increases the risk of sensitive data leaks. In many industries, such as banking, hybrid work is simply too dangerous to be possible;
- Weakening of bonds between colleagues - although this is much less pronounced in the hybrid model than in fully remote work, teams that function only partially in the office integrate much more weakly and slowly. While this can be remedied by maintaining an appropriate balance between on-site and remote days, it is still somewhat of a challenge for managers.
How to organize hybrid work to make it effective?
In the case of technology companies, it can be assumed that the risk of communication problems between members of the organization is relatively low - after all, instant messaging has already been in use for many years, which allows for the effective exchange of information. This is, of course, a big advantage, because in many sectors, long-distance communication has still not been perfected. To be sure, however, let's add that the most popular applications are Office 365 from Microsoft, Slack and solutions offered by Google.
On the other hand, a weakness of IT organizations is often a relatively poor degree of integration - working from home, many people do not feel the need to network with their team at first, focusing instead on solving individual problems on their own. A way to counter this may be to introduce open office spaces, hold regular events and conduct weekly or daily meetings dedicated not only to discussing current strategy, but also to nurturing relationships within the team.
Some managers also suggest designating fixed days during which all team members will be in the office - the perfect time to organize brainstorming, coding sessions and discuss project development together. As the report of the popular website Pracuj.pl shows, this is quite a popular solution, as in the vast majority of cases, people working in hybrid mode show up at the office in the first half of the week, and the closer we get to the weekend, the lower this percentage is.
What do candidates think about hybrid employment?
As a provider of recruitment services for tech companies in Cracow, we very often ask candidates about their expectations of job opportunities and their needs. More than 45% of those with whom we are in contact mention precisely the possibility of performing their duties from home at least two or three days a week. Sentiment toward remote work remains very strong, with only 8% of those employed in this model preferring to return to the office. On the other hand, working fully from home is frustrating for many people, as doing so results in drastically reduced contact with people.
Many people even declared to us that it was the possibility of hybrid work that was one of the three main factors influencing the choice of a particular offer. This shows that the “hybrid” can, in a sense, be regarded as an employee benefit that has a direct impact on the attractiveness of a job offer, and in the eyes of candidates, it is sometimes a better solution than more conventional models.
And what do employers think of it?
There is also the other side of the market, namely employers. Their opinions on hybrid work are much more varied, although it must be said that this may be due to the broad spectrum of our clients.
Some of the companies we work with have decided to return to working from the office altogether, and the managers working there explain both top-down guidelines and their own observations - in their opinion, remote work negatively affects the efficiency of a large part of the specialists employed there, and the risk of leakage of sensitive data is too high to take for convenience.
There are also organizations that, due to their desire to improve the comfort of their employees and their short presence on the Polish market, have not decided to set up an office in our city at all - often these are Western startups, which, by the way, readily agree to B2B contracts and offer unparalleled freedom to adjust the work mode to individual expectations.
Finally, we also work with companies that have chosen to operate on a hybrid model with one, two, or three on-site days. While a four-day home office work week combined with one on-site day is relatively rare, such deals also happen. In this case, popular arguments behind this solution include improved employee comfort, lower fixed costs, and, interestingly... higher productivity for the entire team! As you can see, it really depends a lot on the specifics of a given company, the sector in which it operates, and the culture and customs within the organization.
Summary
From a recruiter's perspective, we believe that hybrid work is likely to dominate those areas of the market that can be dominated by it. While more conservative companies will most likely never make concessions to employees and remain with fully stationary processes, we can assume with a high degree of probability that startups as well as many modern organizations will fully decide to introduce two or three days of work from home. Will this be a good thing? Time will tell. We are already looking forward to the results of these changes!