TLDR; "Hybrid Workplace"

A (Very) Brief Review of Hybrid Workplace: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review (HBR Insight Series)

Hybrid Workplace contains many fresh perspectives on having a modern distributed workforce. Most, if not all, of the insights, are drawn from the great experiment that occurred between 2020 and 2022. It's hard to believe sometimes, but that 2 years of unprecedented change will continue to reverberate for years to come. Organizations and employees adapted at the drop of a hat and many were successful while others struggled. Many small businesses closed, but many more sprang up during a time when people reflected on their values and lives. Finding, keeping, and developing the right talent today has never been so . . . challenging/interesting/complex. Here are a few takeaways that I want to share with you.

• Start asking employees for input on workplace decisions such as setting up core hours when people can meet in order to avoid conflicts with caregiver responsibilities.
• Explore ways of leveraging technology to make use of asynchronous work such as recording voice and/or video to provide project updates.
• Identify key jobs and tasks to understand the drivers of productivity and performance. Think creatively about where data might come from to help you assess these key indicators.
• "Give us back our time" is a positive trend. Look for ways of giving people back their time by revisiting processes and reducing unnecessary steps and/or tasks and non-value-add work.
• Create real value for employees to physically be in the workplace. This requires re-imagining the purpose of the place of work as more than simply a place someone drives to in order to connect their laptop.

Lastly, for many of these actions to be done successfully, there is a certain amount of data and knowledge of HR, change management, and process improvement that are needed. This is a time when Lean management can support HR, leaders, and employees in designing an efficient and productive workplace using subject matter expertise and data.