The hybrid workforce is coming: Here’s what you need to know

Now is the time for organizations to reimagine how and where work gets done in the post-pandemic economy.

To successfully make the transition, your HR team will need data on diversity and inclusion programs, pay equity gaps, hiring initiatives, employee burnout, preferences for home/office balance and much more.

Before long, we’ll be a year into our mass work-from-home experiment. We’ve learned many lessons along the way about productivity, efficiency, employee resilience and company culture. Something new has been added to HR’s endless to-do list: preparing for the hybrid workforce. As soon as vaccines are widely distributed enough more companies than ever will be embracing a hybrid model.

Related: Employers’ new challenge: Managing a hybrid team

Not all jobs can be done from home, of course, but many can, and the verdict is in for businesses that allowed for remote work during the pandemic: the work-from-home experiment has been a success. Because of that success, PwC’s January 2021 US Remote Work Survey suggests that organizations will need to reimagine how and where work gets done in the post-pandemic economy. Among the topline findings:

Movement in commercial real estate portfolios also indicates that at least some organizations are consolidating workspaces. The bottom line for HR teams is that now is the time to get out in front of the coming hybrid workforce. That prospect causes anxiety for some overworked HR teams, but, as in many situations, preparation is the best cure for anxiety, and organizational design can help you prepare.

Using data and analytics to balance multiple priorities

HR leaders are balancing multiple priorities as their companies move toward a hybrid workforce. Organizational design and HR analytics tools that empower HR with accurate data and provide analytics capabilities will be essential in your preparation. To successfully make the transition, your HR team will need data on diversity and inclusion programs, pay equity gaps, hiring initiatives, employee burnout, preferences for home/office balance and much more.

You’ll also need visibility into where people are (remote and onsite) and the ability to drill down into the relevant data so you can structure programs in a way that drives hybrid workforce success. The good news is that most HR departments already have rich caches of data, including information on productivity, core competencies, employee satisfaction, recruiting, training and development, etc.

This data will be critical as you reimagine your workforce so that you can create equities between groups, map out new processes, and create and track KPIs to monitor the health of your hybrid workforce. Your HR team will also need advanced analytics to model various scenarios and gauge organizational impact before finalizing decisions.

Using the right tools to reduce complexity

If the good news is that HR is already sitting on a data gold mine, the bad news is that it’s not easily accessible at most companies. When they need to pull data together quickly to get information in front of decision-makers and make informed recommendations, many HR leaders have to tap data extraction expertise from outside HR to get the information they need.

That strategy too often creates a disconnect. Technical experts approach data extraction projects as a technical problem and produce a technical fix, whereas HR is trying to solve a business problem. And even when the data extraction project succeeds, HR inevitably has follow-up data needs and related projects that require additional information, and the whole process starts over again.

A better way is possible; HR technology exists today that is capable of pulling all relevant company information into an interface designed with HR in mind. With the right analytics and organizational design technology, you can access an organizational chart and filter tools to gain visibility into the workforce and solve today’s business problems — and those that come up tomorrow.

Getting ready for the hybrid workforce

Using multiple spreadsheets to manage data was never a good solution, not even before the pandemic accelerated the move toward a hybrid workforce. Accuracy is a persistent issue when HR uses spreadsheets as a data repository, as is lack of access when information has to be pulled together quickly to make decisions. Now the stakes are even higher.

To prepare for workforce reconfiguration, you need to be able to rapidly correct workforce data and make edits across your human capital management system. You’ll need the ability to audit data to ensure accuracy for planning purposes. You’ll also need tools to track the progress of key initiatives like diversity and inclusion programs and pay equity projects.

The hybrid workforce is coming, so if you’re feeling anxious about it, now is the time to get ready with a modern organizational design strategy that improves data accuracy and expands your capabilities. With the right tools and technology at your fingertips, you’ll be able to manage the transition to a hybrid workforce with confidence.

EJ Marin is head of solutions engineering – HCM for Nakisa.

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