Available for Interviews: Leni Rivera
Leni Rivera is a Workplace Experience specialist and author of its very first book in the industry, Workplace Experience. Her passion is creating work environments that enable employees to be both productive and happy, regardless of where that is.
What Leni Rivera can say in an interview
on How the Hybrid Work Model Can Be Improved:
A “hybrid work model,” which means having workers alternate between working from home and working in the office on designated days, is not a new concept. Workers have been working from home for more than a decade. And while there is significant data highlighting the benefits of this model—both for the employee and for the company—the pandemic has also revealed many challenges that form barriers to its future success.
In the past, the hybrid work model found companies ensuring the productivity and engagement of employees while they were within the corporate offices, but not when they were working from home. Today, working from home is not only a norm, it’s an expectation into the future. So ensuring their productivity and engagement working from home long-term means shifting the way we perceive the “hybrid work model.”
Here are three aspects of the hybrid work model of the past, why they won’t be effective anymore today, and how to pivot to a new work environment with employees at the center:
1. Placing responsibility for building a productive home office environment on the employees.
Employees who worked from home during the pandemic faced a range of challenges—from childcare, mental health, the correct computer hardware and software and video conferencing equipment, to a designated ergonomic home office. These challenges won’t go away after the pandemic, so ignoring them and leaving employees to fend for themselves when working from home is no longer going to be effective.
Instead, enable them to be productive at home, and provide solutions to each of these challenges. For example, offer childcare services, regular mental health days, meditation and yoga classes, and enlisting corporate designers and ergonomists to ensure workers have the proper home office set-up in their homes.
2. Deciding which days employees can work from home, and which days they should be in the office.
Employees have begun to discover the most conducive environment for their working habits and styles. Some have thrived working from home, while others craved interaction with colleagues. Likewise, some teams work well in flexible environments, while others require in-person gatherings. Instead of establishing a sweeping hybrid work policy for all, allow employees and teams to decide which work environment best enables their success.
3. Employees who work from the office enjoy perks and benefits that are only available in the office.
Nothing expresses the value that employees feel from their companies better than a Workplace Experience. If providing them with benefits such as food and coffee, playtime in game rooms, and free gym classes is part of your corporate culture, then ensuring employees feel this same value from the company is important regardless of where they work. So, providing access to the same benefits to employees within their homework environment—whether that’s in the form of food delivery cards, snacks, and coffee sent to homes, online workout classes, and allocating game time for teams, is something companies should be seriously considering.
That’s why instead, the focus is shifting from where employees work, to how they work, and empowering them to be productive, engaged, and happy regardless of where it is they choose to work. Placing focus on what employees need to be productive, rather than where they can be productive, is the key to a successful future workplace experience.
Interview: Leni Rivera
Leni Rivera is a Workplace Experience specialist and author of its very first book in the industry. Her passion is creating work environments that enable employees to be both productive and happy, regardless of where that is.
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