Hybrid Working Policy Checklist for Workplace Managers

Why Should You Use the Hybrid Model?

1. The current workforce demands an agile and flexible business model, making the hybrid working model perfect for meeting these new employee expectations. 
2. Hybrid workplaces have shown a significant contribution to employee engagement, productivity, experience, and satisfaction. 
3. It has reduced employee turnover rates and the barriers to attracting new talent.
4. The hybrid workplace offers employees a chance to experience a work-life balance while reducing commuting time and costs, thus encouraging motivation among employees. 
5. Hybrid work is also excellent for businesses since they help reduce office costs, increases diversity and inclusion, and enhances employee wellbeing.

Your Short vs Long Term Vision for Hybrid Working

The hybrid work model might be an interim to the long-term version in the short-term vision. As such, determine when it is safe for employees to return to the office and how you plan to accommodate employees while maintaining social distance requirements. 

Communication about safety protocols should be clear, and a system for ongoing wellbeing support should be enacted. You can start by prioritizing roles that need to be in the office and leaving the remaining employees for the long-term plans.

When considering a hybrid future, consider:

1. Your hybrid strategy, policies, and guidelines to support the strategy
2. The different hybrid applications for your organization
3. The role of managers, employees, and shareholders in creating the hybrid model
4. Your communication strategy for sharing your hybrid plans
5. The implications of hybrid work on your organization through various factors like company culture, technology, and employee wellness

1. Choosing The Right Hybrid Working Model

The different hybrid working models include remote first, scheduled hybrid and synchronized hybrid. The purpose of the checklist here is to determine the model that best suits your organization, and you can do this by identifying:

• Whether your employees spend a majority of their working days in the office, at home, or if the number is balanced
• Your employee work preference based on employee feedback insights
• Your preferred source for hiring employees, whether local or global

Remote-first

Everyone works in the office for a set number of days per week and remotely the rest of the time – this model can further vary based on company policy and needs. 

Scheduled hybrid

Scheduled hybrid teams people will have reserved desk space at an office. However, teammates are able to fluidly move from working from home to working in the office. There is also guidance about how many days employees are expected to be in the office with a fixed weekly schedule. For example, “WFH Friday” or “Wellness Monday”

Synchronized hybrid

A synchronized hybrid approach where everyone is expected to be in the office with a synchronized schedule. It is often a preferred option for employers as it is more predictable for managers to cope with space demand.

With this approach, you will need team coordination tools like Kadence to bring easy visibility into personal schedules, streamlining communication so your people can collaborate better together.

2. Employment Laws for Hybrid Work

Figure out the employment laws that apply to your new hybrid plans by asking:

• Whether you will reimburse your employees for home and office equipment, which are a laptop, headsets, internet, mobile phone, desk, chair, mouse, and keyboard
• Whether the reimbursements are tax-deductible and transportation payable (transportation is for primary remote workers once they travel to the office)
• Whether your remote workers should have health insurance
• The types of insurance you need to protect your business from potential liabilities
• Whether you need work from home safety compliance
• Whether your business should comply with any overtime laws
• Whether you can operate in global locations that house your remote employees

3. Hybrid Work Policies

Identify the changes you make to your internal business policies in a bid to accommodate your new hybrid plans. The checklist should include:

1. Health & safety protocols depend on your state. Include measures for remote workers if they plan to come to the office. For instance, Kadence provides touchless room check-in as a safety protocol against the spread of the virus
2. The expenses you consider to be reimbursements and the employees eligible for these payments
3. Employee code of conduct whether they work from home or in the office
4. Any stipend you plan to offer and indicate that they are equally shared among in-office and remote workers
5. Desk sharing and etiquette rules for systems like hot desking

4. Communicating Guidelines and Expectations

Communication challenges are prevalent among hybrid work models. This checklist helps to provide solutions to communication challenges like leaving remote workers out of meetings.

• Identify your company-wide communication strategies
• Identify conversations that build your hybrid culture
• Identify conversations that enhance collaboration

For instance, move all your company-wide communications online to make them accessible to every employee. Tools like Slack’s Donut are equally excellent at facilitating random online interactions among employees, thus creating an interactive communication culture.

And for collaboration, let hybrid meetings become the norm and conduct them depending on the number of people available. A tool like Kadence allows you to create office neighborhoods that enable teams to collaborate and perform optimally.

Always record all your conversations for easy accessibility by everyone. Communication is also a powerful tool for providing equal opportunities to your hybrid workers. For instance:

• Communicate new clients or other prospects to all employees
• Collect feedback from all employees through open public communication channels
• Use communication avenues like meetings to connect socially with employees

5. Choosing The Right Hybrid Work Software Solutions

You need robust software to handle your agile hybrid work plans. This is where the desk booking software like Kadence comes in. It helps to assign desks correctly without overbooking and tracks employee personal schedules. To pick the best desk booking software, look at the features you need that include:

• The capability to book a workstation in advance based on the space, desk, and department of the employee
• The platform’s ease of use
• Employee visibility to help plan for collaborative activities
• Integration capabilities with your current business tools like Outlook or Slack

6. Coordinating Hybrid Work Schedule

In addition to desk booking software, you need a solution that lets employees know the days they can work remotely and those they should be in the office, while making it easy for employers to set their hybrid working expectations.

Use this checklist to work out your hybrid work schedule:

• Identify remote and office-based tasks based on employees preferences
• Identify employees that need to be in the office every working day, like front desk employees and those that need to work on fixed hours
• Identify a list of the hybrid work schedule with merits and demerits for each and how they affect your employees and business

Depending on the hybrid work model being chosen, the hybrid work schedules would include either:

• Employee-led schedule that gives employees the freedom to choose their in-office working days
• The manager-led schedule that allows team managers to determine the days their team will work in the office

7. Training And Development for Hybrid Workplace Managers

As a manager, the hybrid work model will bring about new demands that might require new skills for managing and handling challenges raised by employees.

As such, managers require training and development in managing the hybrid model’s implementation and developing the skills needed to ensure collaboration, team building, performance management, and effective communication between remote and in-office workers. For instance, as a manager, you need to ensure inclusivity and diversity within a distributed team of employees. You also need technical skills to help develop the hybrid model. 

Find out more about our people coordination solution to boost productivity in a hybrid workplace.