The future of work and how businesses can stay productive has become the focal point post-pandemic, with business leaders working hard to adapt to this new work-from-home paradigm.
This includes employers adapting and adopting to flexible work culture, otherwise known as hybrid working, which is defined by the flexibility of working arrangements in an organisation.
Stephanie Ping is the co-founder & CEO of WORQ, a hyper-localized community workspace founded in March 2017 with a vision of helping individuals achieve greater results by working together, says that for an organisation to practice flexible working, it must have related policies and arrangements to facilitate its employees changing work environments between office and remote.
“As predicted by Harvard Business School professors; the traditional 9-to-5 workday will transform into the ‘3-2-2’ workday, as more employees begin to enjoy and expect work flexibility,” she says.
She adds that many leading corporations have been testing this flexible working arrangement by designating three days to be in the office for collaborative work, two days for remote working and two days for rest.
The time saved from not having to dress up and commute to the office would mean saving more hours. From a logical standpoint, employees should be able to redirect their energy to produce better work quality.
“At WORQ, our team is currently adopting this flexible working arrangement based on job functions and day-to-day job requirements. We have set two days in a week for all departments to work from the office and the third office day to be decided by the respective teams. This arrangement has worked out particularly well for us.
“Our staff can now work from home without distractions when it comes to dealing with focused work. And when they need to engage in collaborative activities, meetings and team-building events, they come to the office. But again, a tailor-made solution is necessary to derive the best outcome. For example, departments that thrive on collaboration, such as marketing, tend to be more productive working from the office most of the time.
To reap the benefits of flexible working, Stephanie says organisations need to change the way they measure work. Employees should be assessed based on their results/output rather than their clock in clock out times.
