Commercial Integrator August 2021 - 3

EDITOR'S NOTE
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Hybrid Work
is Here to Stay
IN THIS MONTH'S ISSUE we've taken a deep
dive into hybrid work (PAGE 20). According
to a study performed on behalf of Bloomberg
News, 39% of adults would consider quitting if
their employers weren't fl exible about remote
work. Among millennials and Gen Z, 49%
would consider quitting over lack of fl exibility.
Meanwhile, we've seen a number of grand
responses from Fortune 500 companies. Some
have committed to hybrid work schedules,
some have demanded employees
return full-time in offi ce, and
some have said they will move
the entire workforce to full-time
remote.
As it stands there are three
main possibilities for how hybrid
work environments can function
moving forward:
1. Employees come into the
offi ce for a full day 2-3 times per
week and work remotely for a full
day 2-3 times per week. In this
situation it is likely that employees
will try to schedule collaborative
work and meetings for the
days they are in offi ce, but that
will not always be possible.
2. Employees come into the
regulation that applies to every person in an
organization? There are people that want to
come into the offi ce daily. There are others
that prefer hybrid. Some might want to work
remotely full-time. Why not ask them?
I know the obvious answer to that question is
Hybrid work
is anything
that falls
in between
employees
spending the
majority of
the week in
that it creates too much variance. The company
can't standardize when every employee has a
diff erent work schedule. What's more, it could
create discord around employees, where they
look at one another's schedules
and wonder why their own can't
be similar. An employee that
loses productivity when working
from home can't be allowed to
be full-time remote the way a
self-suffi cient employee can be.
I get that.
However, that self-suffi cient
the offi ce, and
employees
spending the
majority of the
week remote.
offi ce for collaborative work and meetings only
and work remotely for individual work. This
would mean employees would oſt en come into
the offi ce for only a few hours per day, or they
will try to pack as many meetings and collaborative
work as possible into a single day or two
per week to ensure they only have to go into
the offi ce on those days.
3. Depending on function, some employees/departments
will come into the offi ce full
time, some will work remotely full time, and
some will have a form of one of the two hybrid
work schedules previously mentioned.
My question is, why not allow the employee
to decide? Assuming being physically
present isn't a requirement of the job (essential
workers, machine operators, laborers, etc.)
then why does there need to be a sweeping
employee shouldn't be punished
because of an untrustworthy
counterpart. Especially at the
" worker bee " level where other
opportunities may be readily
available. That's how you end
up with the above statistics on
employees quitting their jobs
for more favorable fl exibility
elsewhere.
For integrators, what this all boils down to is
that you need to be a partner to organizations
readying for the next evolution of work. Technology
will sit at the center of that evolution,
but in this age, technology needs to be part of
the work strategy.
Companies turning to hybrid plans must
know the technology will hold regardless of
where employees work. Companies returning
to traditional environments ... well, good luck
to them. I imagine you'll be helping them all
the same in a few years when they realize their
lack of retention is a result of their archaic worship
of a workplace structure on its last legs.
Jonathan Blackwood, Editorial Director
jonathan.blackwood@emeraldx.com
@BlackwoodTweets
EDITORIAL
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Jonathan Blackwood, 774-505-8048,
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Robert Archer, 774-505-8049,
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Commercial Integrator August 2021

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