Global business has had to get used to the new normal ways of work or deal with huge resignations as many workers just haven’t returned to full-time office-based work. Furthermore, employers have had to react quickly to stay afloat. Here are the top pros and cons of the new normal ways of work that have been postulated as the solution to the Great Resignation and the way forward.
Remote work is where there is no office, and all work is conducted by workers from a remote venue. Work can take place from wherever the worker is and is all cloud-based and reliant on the internet.
Hybrid work is a lot easier and more popular for big companies to implement as it is a mixture of remote and office-based work. Various teams come into the office on certain days and then are also able to do most of their work on platforms such as Slack, Zoom, or Teams on the days that they are not in the office.
Both these ways of working are very much part of the current revolution towards a more flexible workforce and the movement towards new ways of working that have been proven and tested during the recent pandemic. There are several great tips for working from home that have now been shared and developed by those who have tried and tested these new ways of working, providing some guidance and templates in this regard.
For many, the new normal only presents positive ways of working and a whole new take on what it means to have a job and go to work. The ability to create a mix of both going to the office and working from home or working from wherever you are, must be one of the best things the internet and cloud computing have allowed modern society to realise and experiment with. The main benefit, as accepted by all who have been involved in the move to remote or hybrid work, has been this ability to start setting out a new form of work-life balance and allow workers of all levels to find a balance that suits them and keeps them happier and healthier.
Simply put, the biggest con of hybrid work has been the flexibility - the factor that makes it so great and such a break from the norm is also its one major downside. It’s just too flexible, there is not enough control, and it’s not just the overly controlling micromanagers out there that are saying this. The flexibility that workers want and that employers would love to provide is a double-edged sword in that, for many, it provides an impetus to work harder and productivity increases and yet, for others, it is too unregulated and remote, and hybrid work results in a downturn in productivity, lessened teamwork, and an increase in cyber security breaches, as the number of endpoints increases.
The best way forward for those organisations that are looking to change towards a new normal way of working is to research and then design the best ways forward to suit both workers and their specific means and mode of production, allowing businesses to return to profitability and providing workers with a route to improved health and wellbeing.