Hybrid Working
About six years ago, I wrote an article on the topic of "Home office goes mainstream": That's what I really thought at the time. However, from today's perspective I have to say: Yes, there were approaches to establish the home office as an optional workplace. But in most companies' efforts, the home office was meant as an exception and not as a regular workplace. Because home office and remote working were always considered the exception, many managers in Germany still had the feeling that work was not really done outside the office.
We all know that this changed abruptly with the pandemic. Companies had to send their employees home and the quicker they were able to send the equipment, the smoother the transition. Employees from companies in all sectors, where the home office was even considered a sheer impossibility, were now sitting at home and working. And they were even doing it very well. The home office has now arrived in all companies in Germany and many managers have found that it is even a highly efficient workplace. And many employees learned to appreciate the short commute.
In the two years of the pandemic, all my expectations were exceeded as far as the recognition of the home office as a workplace was concerned. Because, "not in the office", was the new normal. And yet, many companies are currently discussing how to get employees back into the office as quickly as possible. Are you serious?
I believe that we need to change our way of thinking. Work should no longer be understood as a place, because where someone works is no longer relevant with today's technology. Rather, develop remote or hybrid working concepts for your company that bind your employees to your company because they know that their job in your company is not dependent on where they live, but on their skills.
Many companies are already working on permanent concepts or have already established them, because they know that 65% of employees would like to stay in their home office – at least partially*. This saves time and costs on both sides. It is an opportunity you should seize to make working in your company attractive in the future. The home office came into many companies rather by chance or it was an unavoidable necessity to be able to survive in the pandemic. Now you can turn the obligation into a freestyle and implement it conceptually. It is also clear that it is not enough to simply hand the equipment to the employees and send them home. If people work in different places, different rules, measures and tools are needed than in a shared office. And the design of the office will also be different. Think about this too, because as attractive as the home office is, many of your employees also want to spend time in the office.
We will show you how to work successfully at distributed locations in our free online seminar: Hybrid working in the contact centre.. We will present concepts, tips and valuable impulses from practice as well as the appropriate technology to you in one morning. Get an overview in two and a half hours so that your contact centre will also be an attractive employer in the future and your team can work successfully from different locations.
