At a time when the world appears to be caught in a strange kind of hinterland between the intense COVID threat of 2020 and the ‘old normal’, you could understandably be indecisive about whether you should readopt your pre-pandemic work habits or continue working from home.
However, you don’t strictly need to choose between the two – as there’s a middle ground in the form of hybrid working. Here are some of the most compelling advantages of spending a portion of your work hours in the office and the rest at home.
You could boost your productivity
How well a particular work strategy ‘works’ can depend on the person. However, in research cited by theHRDIRECTOR, 31% of organisations believed that they had boosted their productivity since switching to hybrid working.
Meanwhile, 55% of organisations reported that their productivity had remained stable as a result of the change. In short, a huge majority had not seen their productivity take a hit as a result of hybrid working, making it very much a low-risk strategy.
It’s easier to achieve a good work-life balance
Just imagine, for example, how you could opt to stay in bed a little longer on each morning when you wouldn’t need to commute. Furthermore, when working from home, you will be able to start chatting to other members of the household literally as soon as ‘leaving time’ arrives.
You could even find your diet improving when you have your own kitchen’s food cupboards at close hand and don’t have to settle for, say, picking up a chocolate bar from a vending machine.
The boss has an incentive to improve the office
When you can choose to spend a large amount of your work time away from the office, your employer will have to work hard to enhance this office if they want it to “earn the commute”, as Fast Company puts it.
It wouldn’t necessarily be financially prohibitive for many employers to rent a new, more flexible workspace complete with high online connectivity speeds of up to 10Gbps. This could be especially appealing to workers lumbered with a slow internet package at home.
More opportunities for continuous learning could also be on the table
Even if your company already runs regular training sessions, it might not always be practically possible for you to make the most of them.
However, in a survey mentioned by Training Journal, 70% of respondents indicated that they favoured a ‘blended learning’ model incorporating a mix of synchronous in-person learning and asynchronous online learning.
You could be forced to think more creativity
The concept of hybrid working is still a relatively alien one for many workers, who could find themselves regularly having to figure out how to overcome particular challenges thrown up by the hybrid working format.
However, the flipside of this supposed ‘problem’ is that it could put your creative thinking skills to the test. You could then take those skills with you to the familiar office when you do return there – whether temporarily or for the longer term.