The term “hybrid” has become increasingly popular over the past few years. The word hybridization means different things in different fields. In biology, the definition is as follows: “The process of an animal or plant breeding with an
individual of another species or variety, producing a hybrid.”
Nathan Ro
Multimedia Designer
What does hybridization mean in the workplace? What two animals are we splicing together to form a completely new creature? These would be the office and the home.
However, not all homes and offices are the same. So, before you make a hybrid working environment a mandatory prerequisite, first give some thought to your employees as their homes make up a portion of the new hybrid workspace. Let’s look at a few species of office and a few species of homes to see if creating a hybrid would hurt or help your employees.
There are many types of offices but for the purposes of simplicity,
here are three extreme examples.
The Silent Office
The silent office is a space that encourages individual focus to complete tasks that usually form part of a greater whole. Collaboration is not of high importance and the office space is usually very quiet to help each cubicle focus on the task at hand.
The Social Office
The social office is great for collaboration but can often be a distracting place to work. There are always conversations going on, which can pull you away from focused individual work but can be really great regarding problem-solving in a group setting.
The Stressful Office
These offices can be stressful for a number of reasons. It can come down to the nature of the work, the colleagues you work with or even the cluttered, chaotic design of the office space itself.
Now let us take a quick look at some examples of homes that we could
potentially use to create a hybrid.
The Lonely Home
The lonely home can be a great place to focus or for an introvert to recharge. But for an extroverted person, it can cause low energy and diminished workload. Some introverts might even embrace their cave and never want to leave it, becoming socially inept.
The Distracted Home
The distracted home can be distracting for many reasons, be it children that require your attention or maybe even things like gaming devices or TVs. For an undisciplined employee, these things can really distract from the work they are trying to achieve on any given day.
The Unequipped Home
This type of home does not have the necessary tools to perform the task that the employee requires to do their job. This could be things like an internet connection, a phone or even electricity.
Well, we have met a few species of OFFICE and a few species of HOME.
Let’s put them together and see some outcomes.
| OFFICE | HOME | HYBRID |
| Silent Office | Lonely Home | A work environment that is highly focused but socially lacking. |
| Silent Office | Distracted Home | A work environment that allows focus at work but not at home. |
| Silent Office | Unequipped Home | A work environment that is only beneficial in the office. |
| Social Office | Lonely Home | A work environment that allows focus and socialization. |
| Social Office | Distracted Home | A work environment that is potentially distracting in both the office and at home. |
| Social Office | Unequipped Home | A work environment that is only beneficial in the office. |
| Stressful Office | Lonely Home | A work environment that could allow the employee a reprieve from office stress. |
| Stressful Office | Distracted Home | A work environment that could potentially cause more stress at home and office. |
| Stressful Office | Unequipped Home | A work environment that could potentially cause more stress at home and office. |
As this short thought experiment shows, creating a hybrid work environment has many moving parts. If a hybrid working environment is something you would like to incorporate into your company, consider your employees and their needs.
There are often very simple solutions to each of the problems that hybrid environments present, and often those solutions lie in giving the employee the freedom to choose what best suits them and allows them to perform their jobs effectively.
Here are four types of hybrid work models to consider:
Hybrid at-will
Employees can choose which days to come into the office.
Hybrid spit-week:
Your company assigns specific days for on-site and remote work by team or function.
Hybrid manager scheduling:
Managers choose which day(s) their team comes into the office based on the needs of the company and the employees.
Hybrid mix:
A combination of all three options.
At the end of the day, the most important hybrid that
matters are the bringing together of “support for
employees’ preferences” and, of course “the
company’s goals.”
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