Most employees would like a hybrid working pattern that allows them the choice to combine working from home with time in the office.

Without this option, 4 out of 10 employees would consider leaving their employer [1]. 450,000 people have left the UK workforce since 2019 and a high proportion of leavers are unlikely to return to the workplace [2].As a result, we need to rethink how work gets done, to enable employees to be productive, collaborative, and innovative in a hybrid working model. With fewer than one in 10 UK employees feeling enthusiastic about their job it is clear that companies need to adapt otherwise their employees could leave [3].

Take our Hybrid Working Quiz to find out how to support your employees

People tend to be at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to hybrid working.  Managers' ability to handle the ambiguity and emotions that come up as a result of change is crucial. In our Hybrid Working Quiz we focus on four key areas: Communication; Management Skills; Wellbeing and Inclusion and fairness to help you pinpoint where your employees may need support.

Hybrid working is here to stay but are your managers ready?

Your managers have a big role in making a hybrid model work for your organisation. Their management ability impacts team engagement and performance more than any other factor. Research has found that 40% of managers lack confidence in managing hybrid employees[4].Managers’ roles are becoming more complex as they grapple with the realities of hybrid work. They are often the ones making decisions about how to put hybrid working in place for their teams. We see this affect new managers who are “finding their feet” and the more experienced who have to change long-established management practices. Managers need to gain a broader skill set to have the capability and confidence to manage in a hybrid workplace.

Inclusion

Proximity bias means we tend to ascribe more value to the things we can observe. The converse of this is that we undervalue what we can’t see. This can have serious consequences on people who aren’t coming into the office as often, particularly around career development. As some underrepresented are more to work from home this has consequences for diversity and inclusion. 62% of employees say that limited networking opportunities with senior employees have a negative impact on career growth. Organisations need to help managers understand that everyone holds biases which we need to be more aware of and challenge in order to make better business decisions. Our Hybrid Quiz will help you pinpoint where your employees need more support In our Hybrid Working training sessions, we encourage delegates to discuss the challenges they’re facing. We’ve used our experience to create a quiz that will give you immediate results and actions you can take to make hybrid working more effective in your organisation.

Why take our free Hybrid Working Quiz?

• Identify your organisation’s Hybrid Working strengths and weaknesses

• Get personalised tips to make hybrid working more successful

• It takes two minutes

Find out more about our Hybrid Working and Management Skills courses or contact us at abby@bitesizelearning.co.uk or call us on 0845 1233757.

[1] 9 future of work trends post Covid-19, Gartner, June 2022
[2] Britain isn’t working. That should concern us all. Financial Times, May 2022
[3] The state of the global workplace 2022, Gallup June 2022
[4] Remote managers are having trust issues, Harvard Business Review, June 2020
[5] Global Impact Economist Survey (2021)