As Linda Gratton explains in her article “How to do hybrid right” (Harvard Business Review, May-June 2021), when designing flexible work arrangements it is necessary to focus on individual human concerns, not just institutional ones.

Since mid 2020, companies have adopted the technologies of virtual work remarkably quickly and employees are seeing the advantages of more flexibility in where and when they work. As companies recognize what is possible, they are embracing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reset work using a hybrid model.

As Gratton explains, moving to an anywhere and anytime hybrid model will succeed only if it is designed with human concerns in mind, not just institutional ones. This challenge requires companies to approach the problem from different perspectives:

1. Jobs and Tasks: When thinking about them, it will be necessary to start by understanding the drivers of productivity for each and consider how each driver will be affected by changes in working arrangements considering time and places.
2. Employee perspective: It is necessary to add this to the equation and also its preferences.
3. Projects and workflows: It is fundamental to think how work gets done, to coordinate the work each employee does with that of the others on the team and with other departments and receivers of their work (users, customers, …).
4. Inclusion and fairness: This is vitally important because feelings of unfairness in the workplace can hurt productivity, increase burnout, reduce collaboration, and decrease retention.

At The FITA Institute we help companies to develop new models that help them to reach the best version of themselves adapting to the new reality, engaging employees in the process and training leaders in the management of hybrid teams.

© The FITA Institute (2023)

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