5 Types of Hybrid Workplace Model and how to implement them

Quixy Editorial Team

February 28, 2024

There have been many changes in the business world in the recent two years, so many organizations have turned their work environment into a hybrid work culture. These alterations brought many challenges to the organizations as they were unprepared for this adaptation.  

Now, as time passes, organizations also learned to adopt this hybrid working culture but not fully, as hybrid working styles and models are still the burning issues for the agencies. Currently, many agencies are switching from in-office to remote cultures or intending to have a mixture of both.  

Here, it brings a major concern for the organizations to decide which hybrid workplace model they anticipate moving on with, as there exist three classifications of the hybrid working model. This includes scheduling, categorization of employees, and work culture. Depending on your business, you can use one of these classifications as your starting point. 

Let us take a brief look through five types of Hybrid Work models: 

1. At-Will & Remote-First  
2. Office-first 
3. Split-Week 
4. Week-by-Week 
5. Designated Teams 

Each of the above models possesses some supremacy and delicacy. Organizations need to figure out a suitable model as per their working convenience. Since the model that proves to be fruitful for one big corporation may not give results to the smaller one, moreover, due to the diverse working culture among organizations in similar occupations, the same strategy might not be advantageous to all.  

As in one of the posts, Satya Nadella, a Microsoft Chairman and CEO, said, “Our motive is to attain a compatible environment in terms of task spaces, person, and reference for every employee, whether remote or on-site.” Hence, you need to boost up the compatibility of the workflow as well as scheduling and then look into the exciting results of the hybrid work. 

Therefore, the biggest task is selecting your compatible hybrid workplace model per your organization’s needs. This is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, this blog will help you make your decision easier after getting through the strengths and weaknesses of every model. 

The Benefits of Hybrid Workplace Model: A Win-Win for Businesses and Employees

The traditional office environment is no longer the only game in town. Hybrid work models, which combine remote and in-person work arrangements, have emerged as a popular choice for businesses and employees alike. But what exactly are the benefits of this new approach? Let’s dive in and explore the advantages for both sides of the equation.

Enhanced Employee Well-being and Productivity

• Improved work-life balance: Hybrid work offers employees greater flexibility in managing their personal and professional lives. This can lead to reduced stress, improved mental health, and ultimately, increased productivity.
• Boosted autonomy and control: Employees have more control over their work environment and schedule, which can foster a sense of ownership and responsibility, leading to higher engagement and motivation.
• Reduced commuting time and expenses: Less time spent commuting translates to more time for personal pursuits, improved overall well-being, and cost savings for employees.

Benefits of Hybrid Work for Businesses

• Attract and retain top talent: Offering a hybrid work model broadens the talent pool, allowing companies to tap into a wider range of qualified individuals who may not be geographically limited.
• Increased employee satisfaction and engagement: The benefits mentioned above lead to a more satisfied and engaged workforce, which can positively impact creativity, innovation, and overall company culture.
• Reduced overhead costs: With fewer employees physically present in the office, businesses can potentially reduce their real estate footprint and associated costs like utilities and maintenance.

Finding the Right Balance

While hybrid work offers numerous advantages, it’s crucial to remember that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Effective implementation requires careful planning and clear communication to ensure a smooth transition and address potential challenges.

By considering the needs of both employees and the business, companies can leverage the benefits of hybrid work to create a more efficient, productive, and satisfying work environment for everyone.

Also Read: Top 44 Remote Working Tools you need to work from anywhere

Types Of Hybrid Working Model

56% of the employees wish to move forward with a mixture of remote and in-person working schedules, as per the LinkedIn survey. However, before taking such a challenging and complex decision, you must know the various hybrid models. These models can be categorized as per the following perspective: 

1. Work Culture

• At-Will/ Remote-First 
•  Office-First 

2. Scheduling

• Week-by-Week 
•  Split-Week 

3. Categorization of Employees 

• Designated Teams (on-site/remote) 

Types of Hybrid Work Model As Per Work Culture

Let us consider the working models according to the organizations working culture.  

At-Will/ Remote-First Hybrid Models

There is no significant difference between the remote-first and at-will hybrid work models, which are synonymous. In both the work culture, workers can give precedence to remote work. And however, they are still allowed to work on-site. 

In this model, employees are free to choose their preference of working from the office or staying back home, and the workers can opt for the workplaces wherever they are most productive. Therefore, this hybrid work model allows employees to choose the most efficient working environment, further optimizing the workforce. 

A physical workplace is an exact place for meetups or inbound discussions. Hence, this culture can be advantageous for organizations with regular client meetups. These hybrid work models will generate an in-person relationship and trust with an employee, eventually stimulating workers to perform best. 

Also Read: Hybrid Workplace Model: The Future of Work

Office-First Hybrid Model

As the name suggests, employers must prefer attending the office most of the days. However, this model also provides the reliability of either working from the office or home. 

The office-first model is straightforward and unchallenging to implement for organizations whose production depends on teamwork and collaboration. Organizations need not alter their protocols or make many digital adjustments. 

For many organizations, there might be a choice to opt for another hybrid model, but for the industries like manufacturing or construction, the office-first hybrid model remains the only choice for a hybrid working model. This model offers only specific flexibilities to its workers, and is ineffective for the employees who stay away from the geographical location of the office. 

Types of Hybrid Work Model As Per Scheduling

The hybrid work model can also be distinguished into various types per the work culture’s scheduling. The week-by-week and split-week working models enables employees to attend the office at the varying time of the week. Let us dive deeper into these perspectives. 

Split-Week Hybrid Model

This setup also comes under a hybrid workplace model where the employees are allotted a specific number of days in a week to work on-site or remotely. For instance, a particular team can work on-site for the first half of the week, whereas another team can work on-site during the second half of the week. Likewise, the departments can schedule their workplace to avoid overcrowding. Moreover, the team will get enough chances to collaborate consistently. 

Additionally, the organizations can reduce the team’s working hours per week, but this step must boost productivity. For Instance, Microsoft Japan staff says that its productivity gets increased by 40% while experimenting with working four days per week with total compensation. 

Conversely, a split-week hybrid workplace model can enhance the organization’s expenses. Companies need to pay remote working expenses to their employees. Moreover, there will be a null possibility of inter-team interactions as the number of on-site working days is different. 

Week-by-Week Hybrid Model

If you are not getting enough production with the split-week hybrid workplace model, you can opt for week-by-week hybrid work culture. In this type of schedule, the work weeks are assigned to the employees, for which particular week they need to be physically present in the office. The rest of the weeks can be spent working at home. 

In other words, you can select specific team members to work from the office for a particular week.   Then these teams can switch to working from home for the next week. This type of hybrid work setup is beneficial for companies having more employees. With this, you can easily dampen the office space and secure overhead costs. 

However, the model does not prove fruitful sometimes because of insufficient flexibility. Moreover, unprecedented meetings can spoil the weekly schedules to come true. 

Types of Hybrid Work Model As Per The Categorization of Employees

This approach can be adopted as per the work assigned to the employees. This setup can also be termed a designated team hybrid model. Let us look closer at this type of hybrid work setup. 

Designated Team Hybrid Work Model

Companies assign designated teams to work on-site or work from home in this hybrid working setup. Such a working setup benefits companies that need specific workers to work from the office. 

For instance, organizations requiring consistent security checks, including factories, power plants, and networking, require in-office workers. At the same time, other staff like IT experts, sales, or administrative workers need not always work on-site. 

This setup moreover saves the overhead costs of the office expenses like electricity bills, utilities, etc. This also improves the efficiency of the workers. 

Digging a bit deeper 

With some advantages, the setup also brings some disadvantages, like this hybrid model generates complex feelings among the employees working from home and office. The remote employees think on-site workers are getting more opportunities and better bondings with the managers. In contrast, on-site workers think companies are not bothered about their work-life balance. 

However, to adopt the best hybrid working environment, you must ensure that nothing bothers your employees. After all, employee satisfaction is a paramount factor in growing your productivity. 

Integrating other hybrid working models into a designated team model is also possible. For instance, you can incorporate remote-first or office-first hybrid models to allow them to work at their convenience. 

We have discussed the types of the hybrid workplace model in detail with their strengths and weakness. Here comes the need to execute these models at the company’s convenience. 

Executing Hybrid Work Model

With the specified strengths and weaknesses of the different hybrid models, you must have figured out which one will best suit your organization. However, with any of your choices, there also come many challenges, as adopting a new working structure for your company will not only offer profits. It will come up with inherent difficulties.  

Hence, focusing on some conscious perspectives will help you overcome these difficulties, or I should say, will teach you to be pre-prepared for the coming challenges. 

Foremost Investment in Cybersecurity

Per HP’s survey, 238% enhancement in cyberattacks since COVID-19 initiation.  This is a major hint that you should priorly invest in cybersecurity. The hybrid working culture regularly involves digital communication, and sharing delicate documents online can be unsafe and harm your progress. Hence your prior step should be to focus on the secure network.

Better to invest in providing training to your employees to execute amazing cybersecurity practices in such situations. 

Consistent Breaks To Focus On Employee Wellness

Working hybrid often results in stress or mental tiredness for the employees. The employees working remotely give extra working hours in comparison to on-site workers.  

To overcome such circumstances, for the sake of your employees and the company’s productivity, ensure to conduct regular wellness breaks. You can prefer conducting informative wellness seminars on:  

• Stress Management 
• Fitness and Exercise  
• Meditation 
• Yoga 
• Nutrition Intakes 
•  Proper Time Management, etc.  

Doing so will gain the trust of your worthy employees, which eventually stimulates them to be more productive for you. 

Boost Up Technical Support For Workers

Offering firewalls and network security measures will not be enough for your organization to secure. You need to enhance cybersecurity practices for each individual.  

It would help if you offered your employees the required software and gadgets to avoid any loss due to scarcity of resources. For instance, you should give the company’s laptops and network facilities to remote workers, and this will secure your crucial files and data on the company’s laptop.  

Also, determine whether all the necessary software should be installed on the laptop before it is delivered to the employees to avoid any later inconvenience. 

Revision To Company Benefits

The more you care for your employees and make them feel empowered, the more they stay longer with you and perform efficiently. Moreover, you have to make them feel like you care for them. This job can effectively be done by offering compensation and profits apart from their usual pay. 

While working remotely, employees may feel an enhancement in their utility bills. Hence, you can compensate for such issues by increasing their salary or offering utility bills per the revision to your company benefits. Therefore, you need to figure out your employee’s personal needs to improve your productivity. 

There can be many more ways through which you can manage your hybrid workplace and make it more productive.  

Hybrid Work Best Practices

The hybrid work model, blending remote and in-office work, unlocks various benefits for both businesses and employees. However, it requires careful planning and implementation to ensure its success. Here are some best practices to guide you:

Communication is Key

• Clear expectations: Establish clear guidelines regarding communication protocols, availability expectations, and collaboration practices (both online and in-person).
• Transparency and inclusivity: Keep everyone informed about important updates, decisions, and companywide initiatives. Ensure remote employees feel equally involved in discussions and decision-making.
• Regular check-ins: Schedule regular individual and team meetings to maintain strong connections, monitor progress, and address any concerns promptly.

Optimize the Tech Stack

• Collaboration tools: Invest in user-friendly tools for video conferencing, online document sharing, instant messaging, and project management to facilitate seamless collaboration across locations.
• Accessibility: Ensure all employees, regardless of location, have access to the necessary hardware and software to perform their duties effectively.
• Cybersecurity: Implement robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive data and ensure safe communication channels.

Foster a Culture of Connection

• Socialization and team building: Organize virtual and in-person events (e.g., online games, team lunches) to promote interaction and build camaraderie amongst remote and in-office employees.
• Recognition and appreciation: Recognize and celebrate individual and team achievements to boost morale and foster a sense of belonging, regardless of location.
• Emphasize company culture: Regularly communicate and reinforce the company’s values and mission to maintain a strong sense of community, even with a dispersed workforce.

Embrace Flexibility and Fairness

• Define flexible work arrangements: Establish clear guidelines for requesting and approving remote work, ensuring fair and consistent application of policies.
• Equip managers: Train managers on effectively leading and managing hybrid teams, fostering open communication, and addressing the unique needs of both remote and in-office employees.
• Performance over presence: Evaluate and reward employees based on performance and results, not solely on physical presence in the office.

Continuous Improvement

• Gather feedback: Regularly solicit employee feedback on their experiences with the hybrid model using surveys, focus groups, or anonymous suggestions.
• Be adaptable: Be willing to adjust policies and practices based on feedback and real-world experiences to ensure the model continues to meet the organization’s and its employees’ needs.
• Embrace innovation: Explore new tools and technologies that enhance communication, collaboration, and productivity in a hybrid work environment.

By implementing these best practices, companies can effectively navigate the hybrid work landscape, fostering a thriving and productive environment for all employees, regardless of location.

Tech Powering Your Hybrid Workforce

Stay Connected & Collaborative

• Video Conferencing: Platforms like Zoom or Teams bridge the physical gap with virtual face-to-face interactions, fostering a sense of connection in a hybrid environment.
• Project Management Tools: Platforms like Quixy can help you develop PMS to keep teams organized, track progress, and enable seamless collaboration on projects regardless of location.

Streamline Document Management

• Cloud Storage: Platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox offer secure storage and facilitate seamless sharing and collaboration on documents across teams and locations.
• Real-time Collaboration: Tools like Google Docs or Microsoft Office 365 allow multiple users to work on documents simultaneously, improving efficiency and communication.
• No-code/Low-code Solutions: Empower non-technical users, like citizen developers, to build custom applications for internal communication, document workflows, and task management, streamlining collaboration within and between teams (e.g., Quixy, Airtable). Quixy, in particular, offers a user-friendly interface that allows users to build custom applications without needing coding expertise, making it a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes.

Secure & Scalable Infrastructure

• Virtual Private Network (VPN): Ensures secure remote access to company resources and protects sensitive data when using public Wi-Fi networks.

Conclusion

Hybrid workplace models are in real low, densely populated environments rather than fully overloaded office environments. This, moreover offers flexibility for every single employee to attain a work-life balance. If appropriately managed, hybrid workplaces enable workers to be more productive and efficient. 

All in all, now you must be well aware of the hybrid working models’ necessity and their positive and negative sides. With this information, you can easily decide which model to adopt that suits you best and make your company more productive for you and your employees. 

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