Hybrid work is here to stay — and it’s changing the game for managers. How do you handle team communication when some employees work from home and others are remote? Keep track of work hours? Balance virtual meetings with face-to-face time?
As organizations settle into hybrid work for the long haul, the answers to these questions become more complex. While managing a hybrid workforce doesn’t have to be hard, it does require a new approach. These six best practices are a great place to start.
1. Document a clear hybrid work policy
No matter which hybrid work model you use, creating clear policies is crucial. How will you measure productivity? What are your expectations for the speed and quality of work? Who's responsible for equipment and technology? Are any work locations restricted for security reasons? These are important considerations. Left unaddressed, they’re bound to cause confusion. You need to establish clear expectations for employees, managers and the organization to ensure your hybrid workplace meets everyone’s needs.
If you don’t have an official policy in place — or if you do but your policy leaves some questions unanswered — start building it today. Just don’t create your hybrid work policy in a vacuum. Invite employees to provide input on which locations, setups and arrangements help them stay productive. Then use that information to fine-tune your guidelines.
Pro tip: Not sure where to start? Download the hybrid work policy template for an easy-to-customize framework based on experiences across thousands of remote, in-office and hybrid workers.
2. Provide the right hybrid technology
When different people work from different locations — and when those locations change daily — offering the right hybrid workforce technology is critical for success. Employees who feel satisfied with their IT services and technology experience are 158% more engaged than those who don’t. They’re also 61% more likely to stay at their jobs.
At a minimum, make sure every employee has a dedicated space where they can work without interruptions as needed. This means equipping them with the right tools for each environment — a laptop and monitor for home, a physical workspace at the office and the right set of software they can easily access from anywhere.
Pro tip: See which SaaS tools actually work for your hybrid workforce — and which ones you can retire with a SaaS spend management plan.
3. Use hybrid workforce management software
For flexible work arrangements to be successful, hybrid workforce management software is key. These tools equip managers with a range of insights you won’t get in one-on-one meetings or employee surveys. With a platform to analyze daily work habits, you’ll know when people are overworking, underutilized, spending too much time in unnecessary meetings or facing constant distractions.
It’s one of the best ways to ensure your hybrid work policies are actually effective.
For example, consider the hybrid employee who works remotely most or all of the time. Numerous studies show these workers tend to be more productive. But without analytics software to give you the full picture, you might not realize they’re also most prone to burnout. Remote workers stay logged on 10% longer than their in-office colleagues and frequently work weekends. That might sound like a benefit in some cutthroat cultures, but the long-term impacts of overworked employees are no joke — missed deadlines, lower quality work, poor customer service and low employee engagement are all bound to follow.
With hybrid workforce management software, you’ll know the moment a team member starts to exhibit the early signs of burnout so you can step in. And that’s just one example. Workforce analytics makes it easier to manage everything from work locations to workflows and technology use.
Pro tip: Set up a free ActivTrak account to measure performance, monitor workloads, compare in-office to remote team productivity, see how people use your technology and watch for signs of burnout.
4. Watch for productivity barriers unique to hybrid environments
When managing a hybrid workforce, it’s easy to overlook roadblocks that hinder or harm productivity. Why? Because habits that might seem useful on the surface actually pull people away from work that matters. For example, multitasking seems like a valuable skill, but can actually detract from productivity as a result of constant context switching. Having to respond to disruptions like notifications and attending unplanned meetings interrupts focus time.
These and other productivity barriers are hard enough to monitor when everyone’s working in the same office. But add the complexities of managing team members distributed across different locations on different days, and it can feel downright impossible. This is precisely why you need hybrid work management software — to find and fix causes of low productivity in your unique hybrid setup. The sooner you step in, the faster you’ll get everyone back on the right track.
Pro tip: Conduct a workload analysis to ensure tasks are distributed evenly and fairly across team members. By identifying and fixing unbalanced workloads, you’ll quickly remove one of the biggest bottlenecks to productivity in hybrid work environments.
5. Empower hybrid employees to self-monitor
One of the best ways to ensure hybrid work success? Embrace the new wave of employee monitoring trends. Employee monitoring software isn’t just for managers anymore, many solutions allow employees to access their personal insights to track productivity, well-being, and performance.
Through self-monitoring, these solutions can help employees see how they’re doing relative to goals along with other insights like how their daily activities compare to peers, what times of day they’re most productive and even when they need to take more breaks to avoid burning out.
These systems are proving to be so impactful, 31% of surveyed employees say their job satisfaction has increased as a result of having their online activity monitored. One study also found companies that use workforce analytics report 24% higher retention rates than those that don’t.
Pro tip: Use ActivTrak’s personal insights dashboards to let your employees see how they’re spending their time and get personalized recommendations for building healthier work habits.
6. Provide the right hybrid communication tools
Wondering if the above best practices will work for your hybrid employees? Ask them! Organizations with successful hybrid work arrangements provide various outlets for feedback. Conduct regular employee surveys to collect anonymous feedback, identify issues and understand how people feel about your current hybrid work policies. Coupled with hybrid workforce management software, these insights make it easy to adjust your setup as needed — and prevent small issues from becoming bigger problems.
Master hybrid workforce management with ActivTrak
Managing a hybrid workforce may be challenging at first. But with the right tools and processes, you’ll be a pro in no time. Communication, trust and collaboration are key — and the best practices above are a great place to start.
Ready to take your hybrid workforce management to the next level? ActivTrak’s workforce management platform offers comprehensive insights and analytics to help you monitor productivity, manage employee engagement and optimize your team's performance. Join 9,500+ customers who trust ActivTrak — gain the visibility you need to make informed decisions today.
Get a free demo to learn how to leverage workforce insights for stronger, more productive hybrid teams.
