HR and the Hybrid Workplace

Across the country, more and more commercial real estate owners and operators are being tasked with creating meaningful work environments that support the needs of modern tenants. This shift is primarily due to the large number of full-time workers that are seeking a hybrid workplace experience for better work-life balance, a more supportive company culture, and more ideal work settings.

In order to create the most engaging experience that encourages tenants to return to the office, many property management teams have begun to hire dedicated Tenant Experience Managers to add value to physical office space. And, just as property teams are restructuring to ensure that they are laser-focused on the workplace experience, so too are tenant companies to focus on the employee experience.

In fact, human resources teams play an increasingly important role in these strategies, especially as many employees work both at home and in the office. HR professionals know their employees best – they are often the first point of contact when workplace issues arise, and they are a people-focused role that has significant input in work arrangements and policies. 

Enhancing Employee Experiences 

To understand how HR teams are redefining the employee experience, let’s dive into the emerging strategies and trends around office work that are predicted to change the game in 2022:

• Flexibility in both work locations and policies. As a recent Fast Company article suggests, employers that work closely with employees to empower them to make decisions that suit their needs will remain competitive: “This awareness has refocused the field of HR toward employee experience and is allowing us to co-create programs with employees—not just for them.”
• Hybrid work models are the future. In a survey by WeWork and Workplace Intelligence, 79% of the C-suite said they will encourage their employees to adopt a hybrid working environment if their job permits it. In the same vein, 90% of HR leaders would like to allow their employees to split their time between working remotely and working from an office post-vaccination.
• Employee wellness matters. People work better when they are a part of a supportive community that supports both remote employees and those that partake in the physical workplace. According to a Business Group on Health report, employers need to take into consideration their employees’ interests and focus purposefully on health equity, go beyond behavior change, and alter the circumstances that shape physical and mental health. These tactics will increase the trust employees feel towards their employers in terms of safety, health, and well-being.
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion must be prioritized. These issues are so important for the younger workforce, that they’ve revealed that employees will make decisions based on a company’s policies. They are especially critical to prioritize because of the switch because of the amount of people working from home. “As more companies embrace remote constructs,” Fast Company explains. “HR teams must be more mindful and intentional about maintaining equity within these new distributed teams.”
  

The Future of Work is a Hybrid Workplace 

As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to evolve – causing employees to work remotely and spend less time together in physical spaces – one thing is certain: HR roles are becoming increasingly more necessary to bridge this gap.

And, as their responsibilities grow, so too will their tool sets. As industry experts explain, “HR is now tasked with managing people across multiple locations, time zones, and jurisdictions and ensuring remote workers are healthy, engaged, and can access HR products and services.”

This means that regardless of the type of work of the employee, having an Employee Experience app that can reach every worker – even if they only come into the office one day a week – will ameliorate the additional tasks on HR teams and open up new engagement opportunities (and even cost savings) for the employer. 

The right app can help employees make the best use of their time and workspaces, as well as inform employer investments through meaningful insights and analytics features that can monitor desk and conference room booking requests, mobile access data, and more to help optimize office resources and an employer’s overall footprint.

Want to learn more about how HqO can help HR teams enhance the employee experience? Schedule a consultation today.