Making the hybrid model a success
How are you going with the hybrid model in your workplace? For office-based workers, it is a hot topic and you’re not alone in feeling like it’s a pretty steep learning curve.
Nick Bloom, professor at Stanford, has been up to his usual tricks again and done the research to help us get there faster. Hooray! Thanks Nick, you’re a legend.
Here are three insights from that research that I’d like to share with you:
The hybrid model is here to stay
A mix of three days in the office and two days working from home is ideal
Understanding long-term and short-term productivity can help get the balance right
It’s this idea of long-term and short-term productivity that I really like.
Short-term productivity benefits from time spent working from home. The type of work that lends itself to short-term productivity is when we are doing task-focused, routine jobs or work that requires focus, like report writing. This is the work that just needs doing. It doesn’t require a new approach, at least not in the short-term.
Short-term productivity is great. We all crave it! No-one, no-one at all, enjoys the drawn-out process of trying to write a report in an open-plan office with all the distractions of bake-off entries and incidental conversations. Having the opportunity to work from home and blitz those jobs in half the time is such a good feeling, with massive productivity gains.
As great as it is, this type of productivity only gets you so far. Over time, if we focus on doing the boring stuff more quickly, we forget to spend time doing the work that make those tedious reports redundant altogether!
This is why we need to hang out together. There is value in the bake-off cakes and incidental conversations way beyond the immediate sugar-hit and social connection. These are the moments we share that build our relationships and trust in each other. With those deeper connections we feel safe to have bigger conversations. This is what we need to get creative and generate new ideas. Ultimately, it’s the ideas that change the work we do and deliver value to the customers we serve.
This is the engine of long-term productivity. It is so much harder to achieve if we are predominantly working remotely. It’s not impossible, but there is more friction built in.
Clearly, there is significant value in both short-term and long-term productivity. Enabling a healthy combination of both types is easier to achieve if we embrace the hybrid model. The way I’m thinking about it doesn’t mean that some people can’t work remotely permanently, but it does mean that it’s worth thinking about getting the balance right across your workforce.
Nick Bloom recommends a three-two approach. Three days in the office and two days from home.
How is the hybrid model going in your workplace? How can the idea of short-term and long-term productivity support your flexible work strategy? I’d love to hear your thoughts!