What is hybrid working?

No longer just a trend or a buzzword – hybrid working is a working method of the future which helps to take away any restrictions when attracting and recruiting new talent, prioritise the health and wellbeing of your staff and improved productivity.

One of our clients, Jamie Robertson from Invisible Systems, explains how his new space has helped them to adopt better hybrid and agile working methods, watch here:

More and more organisations are choosing to adopt one of the four common hybrid work models which are:

• Flexible hybrid work model

The flexible hybrid work model allows employees to choose their location, their working hours and when they want to go into the office. For example, they can choose to work from home or in a coffee shop, or if they want a sense of community or to have a face-to-face collaboration, then they can go into the office to work.

This model offers full flexibility and freedom for employees, whilst improving the bottom-line due to cost savings on office space and travel, however, the full flexibility makes for a lack of visibility into how many people will be in the office on any given day. It could mean that the office is constantly running at half capacity, or over capacity.

• Fixed hybrid work model

This is where there are pre-determined days that employees can work from pre-determined spaces, such as it could be a case of everyone being allowed to work from home on a set day, or employees have to choose which days work best for them to work from home.

This allows for better ability to forecast the office capacity and increases the opportunity for in-person collaboration and community within the office. However, it does also reduce the true meaning of flexibility that the flexible hybrid working model offers.

• Office-first hybrid work model

In this model, in-office working is the priority as the employees are expected to spend at least one day a week, working in the office, and have the choice of how many days they work remotely, and which days they are.

• Remote-first hybrid model

This is similar to the office-first hybrid work model, however reversed. Employees will be based remotely, however with occasional visits to the office for staff meetings, training or project work. This model means that the company may not have a office space that acts as the destination office for the workforce, so the team members need to meet accordingly.

This works when seeking the best talent as the distance cannot restrict your recruitment, it also allows for maximum flexibility however, means that maintaining the company culture and community is more of a challenge.

Are you looking to update your current office space, or move elsewhere? Get in touch today to see how we can help you with your hybrid working needs. We can help you get the maximum value out of your space, so that your company and workforce truly benefit from the changes. Email us at projects@officeinsight.co.uk or call us on 0161 233 0030.