7 Dangerous Hybrid Work Mistakes You Should Never Make in 2021

Coronavirus has forced businesses to ask their employee to work from home. Employees also love working from home so much so that they are not willing to return to their office. According to remote work statistics, 98% of people would prefer to work remotely part-time throughout their entire career. 97% of respondents also said that they would even recommend remote work to others due to hybrid work mistakes. In fact, 68% of employees work remotely at least once a month while 52% of employees work remotely once every week.

Most business leaders want their employees to return to office as this pandemic goes away but they should not make hybrid work mistakes that can negatively impact their businesses in the long run. Want to know about these deadly hybrid work mistakes that business leaders should not make? If yes, then you are at the right place.

In this article, you will learn about seven hybrid work mistakes business leaders should not make.

7 Hybrid Work Mistakes You Should Not Make

Here are seven hybrid work mistakes a business leader should avoid at all costs.

1. Not Starting from the Top

One of the biggest hybrid work mistakes you could ever make is not adopting hybrid work at the top management level. According to Jason James, CIO of Net Health, “As companies blend remote and in-office employees, be meaningful and diligent in the awareness and possibility of work-location bias.

He thinks that “Leaders can reduce the risk of this work-location bias by setting an example and working remotely, even for large or critical meetings. Ensure that a two-class system is not happening by embracing hybrid, even at the executive level.” You should treat both remote employees and traditional office workers equally and no favoritism should be done.

2. Spreading Distrust

Put yourself in the shoes of your employees and think about what impact did this pandemic had on them. How they have been tirelessly working to help your business survive and thrive while managing their health, families and education at the same time? Instead of forcing them to return to work or telling them that they are only productive when they are working in a traditional working environment, you should give them flexibility and autonomy. This will send a clear message that you have trust in their abilities and eliminates the lack of trust between employees and employers.

3. Traditional Meetings

COVID-19 has changed the way business leaders conduct meetings. Traditional, face-to-face meetings were replaced by online meetings. Most businesses have even adopted new tools for conducting online meetings such as video conferencing and instant messaging apps created by a app development company. If your business is still sticking to the traditional meetings, you are meeting the wrong way in today’s remote work environment.

Rich Theil, CEO of Noble Foundry highlight this issue when he said, “As we return to the office we’re all naturally tempted to run meetings the way we’ve historically done it, which assumes certain things about our audience (namely, that they’ll be in the office). In a hybrid world, meetings need to be designed for remote team members and in-person members – and they need to be treated equally”

Just like in a workplace, your communication skills play an important role even in the hybrid work environment. In fact, it will open up new avenues such as satisfied, engaged and happy employees. It will also help you stay connected with your employees who are working remotely so they don’t feel isolated.

4. Adopting Set and Forget Approach To Work Policies

If you think that you can create hybrid work policies and forget about them then, you are totally wrong. When you are creating a hybrid work strategy, make sure that they are implemented as planned otherwise there is no point in creating hybrid work policies in the first place. It won’t happen overnight, you will have to continuously monitor policy implementations and make changes to your policies based on your hybrid worker’s feedback. Since the hybrid work environment is new to most businesses, it will take some time in adjusting to the new normal but that’s ok.

5. Abandoning Proven Communication Structures

Even though the majority of employees like remote work but there are also those who are itching to get back to the office. These are the people who prefer face-to-face communication with their peers over online meetings. If you already have a communication structure, which has served you well throughout this pandemic, you must stick to it. Avoid ditching the existing communication structure which is working well and implement a new and untested communication structure, as it will only create more problems for your hybrid workers.

For instance, you can organize an online session to replace water-cooler chitchat so your remote employees feel right at home or feel disconnected or left out from the traditional office workers.

6. Poor Management

People don’t leave jobs, they leave bad bosses. You might have read and heard this many times but did you know that it is actually true. How managers manage employees has a direct impact on their productivity and engagement levels. Additionally, poor management can severely affect employee morale and could also create confusion and lead to conflicts. If you want to avoid them, you need to build trust, communicate frequently and stay on the same page. Managers need to understand this and continuously work on improving their leadership and coaching skills.

7. Measuring The Wrong Metrics

One common mistake that most managers make is they focus on the wrong metrics. For instance, they consider filled seats as an indicator of productivity. Due to this, they start measuring outcomes and business value based on that. Sadly, these metrics don’t really work in a hybrid work environment. Prepare managers for the challenges of hybrid work and train them so they are well prepared to overcome them instead of trying to apply traditional work environment metrics in a hybrid work environment. This might seem like a small investment but it will pay rich rewards in the long run.

Which is the biggest hybrid work mistake you have ever made? Share it with us in the comments section below.