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74% of U.S. companies and in transition To move to a permanent hybrid model, leaders are turning their attention to measuring the success of hybrid work models. That’s because there’s one traditional office-centric model of Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 for him. Different ways of hybrid workFurthermore, what works in one company’s culture and way of working may not work in another, even within the same industry. So how should leaders assess whether the models they have adopted are the best fit for their needs, or whether those needs need improvement?
The first step is to establish clear success metrics. Unfortunately, relatively few companies are measuring the key aspects of their transition to hybrid work. for example, new report According to Omdia research, 54% of organizations feel more productive by adopting a more hybrid way of working, but 22 organizations have established metrics to quantify productivity gains from hybrid work. It was only %.
Related: Remote work is bad for employees, they say, but most research suggests otherwise — behavioral economist explains.
Hybrid work is a strategic decision
from my experience that helped 21 As an organization transitions to hybrid work, it is important that the entire executive team is actively involved in developing metrics and that the metrics are approved by the board of directors. Busy executives often feel a natural tendency to want HR to take care of things.
That’s wrong. Moving to a permanent hybrid work model requires care and consideration at the highest levels of an organization. Otherwise, management will not be aligned and will not have the same perception of what “success” is in hybrid work, and he will be in chaos six months after the transition to hybrid work. increase.
Best practice is to determine metrics off-site, where executives can step away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and make long-term strategic choices. Prior to offsite, it is important to obtain initial internal metrics, including obtaining a baseline of quantitative and objective measures.Although there are many external indicator In hybrid work, each company has its own culture, systems, processes, and people.
What are the key success metrics for transitioning to hybrid work?
Based on my client’s experience, companies focus on different success metrics, each of which can be more or less important. To get a baseline, each of these metrics should be measured before establishing a permanent hybrid work policy. Metrics should then be evaluated on a quarterly basis to assess the impact of improvements to hybrid work policies.
Retention provides a quantitative, objective, and clearly measurable, difficult success metric. A related metric, adoption, is a softer metric. It is difficult to measure and is an inherently qualitative metric. External benchmarks clearly show that offering more remote work drives both retention and adoption.
Therefore, if management chooses to adopt a more flexible policy, we encourage our clients to post it on the “Join Us” page of our website. as one of my clients did, Institute of Information Science, University of Southern California. Inevitably, HR departments will notice an increase in inquiries from job seekers who refer to this policy and from potential hires who demonstrate enthusiasm for it in their interviews. .
A key metric, performance can be difficult or easy to measure, depending on the nature of the work. for example, study Published in the National Bureau of Economic Review, reported on a randomized controlled trial comparing the performance of software engineers assigned to hybrid and office-centric schedules. An engineer who worked on a hybrid model wrote 8% more code in 6 months. If you don’t have the option to have such explicit performance measurements, Regular weekly evaluation of performance from the supervisor.
Collaboration and innovation are key indicators of effective team performance, but they are difficult to measure. To evaluate them, the team must rely on more qualitative assessments by his leader and team members. Additionally, by training your team on an effective hybrid, innovation When collaboration These metrics can be improved.
Organizational culture and talent management have some metrics that are difficult to measure. Morale, Engagement, Happiness, Well-Being, Burnout, Retirement Intent, Quiet Retirement.Obtaining these indicators requires the use of more qualitative and subjective approaches such as customized surveys specially adapted For hybrid and remote work policies. As part of the survey, it is helpful to ask the respondent to choose to join her focus group on these issues. Second, focus groups allow you to dig deeper into your survey questions to understand people’s underlying emotions and motivations.
One way to measure employee health and burnout is to use the difficult metric of employees taking sick days. By measuring how it changes over time (seasonally adjusted), you can assess the impact of policies on the mental and physical health of your employees.
Related: You need to let your team determine their approach to hybrid work. A behavioral economist explains why and how you should do it.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are often overlooked but very important metrics impacted by hybrid work.we know an underrated group strongly prefer more remote work. Therefore, my clients, who chose to have a predominantly office-centric schedule, had to invest significant resources in boosting their DEI to compensate for the inevitable loss of under-represented talent.
Measuring DEI is very easy and objective. Note underestimated general staff and leader retention rates as hybrid work strategies are implemented. Also, ensure that your survey allows staff to self-identify relevant demographic categories so that you can measure his DEI related to engagement, morale, etc.
Last but not least, my client is also looking at professional and leadership development as well as onboarding and integrating new team members.Conference Committee Investigation find 58% of employees will leave without adequate professional development. This is even more true for underrepresented groups. Leadership development is critical to the long-term sustainability of a company. Also, onboarding and integration of junior staff is a fundamental need for success. However, most companies struggle to find a way to do this successfully in a hybrid environment.
Measuring professional development is best done using more subjective tools such as surveys and focus groups. You can also assess how well your staff have improved in the areas they have received professional development and compare face-to-face versus distance delivery of learning. Assessment of leadership development is easier, more quantitative and objective. Assess how successful the newly promoted leader is based on performance ratings and his 360-degree review. New staff onboarding and integration includes performance evaluations and productivity measurements by supervisors.
Conclusion
After obtaining baseline data from these diverse metrics, offsite management must determine which metrics are most important to the organization. Select the top 3-5 metrics and weigh their importance against each other. Using these metrics, executives can determine a course of action for hybrid work. optimize for their desired results. Then determine a plan of action for implementing this new policy, including using appropriate metrics to measure success. As you implement the policy, if you find that the metric is not what you expected, modify the policy to see how the revision affects the metric. Similarly, consider conducting an experiment comparing alternative versions of hybrid policies. For example, in one location he is in the office one day a week, in another he is in the office two days a week, and you can assess how that affects your metrics. Reassess and revise your approach monthly for the first three months and then quarterly. By taking this approach, I have found that my clients are most effectively able to reach the metrics they set for their persistent hybrid model.
