Companies of all sizes and businesses are facing some reluctance when hiring new positions, mainly in administrative positions that are carried out in an office. Human resources teams today more frequently encounter candidates who ask if the work can be done remotely or if they have to go to an office to work. Even many applicants make it a condition to work in a company that it be in a remote scheme or at least hybrid where they only go to the workplace once or twice a week.
Logically, this situation throws employers and personnel in charge of recruitment off balance, because unless the organization already has a plan for remote work, it will be very difficult to make decisions on the matter on the fly, especially since the collaborators who they are already in one scheme, surely they will want to try a different one and that can be a serious problem inside.
According to a recent Gartner study, 92% of human resources executives have as a priority to define the work schemes that they will have in their company. 48% say they are concerned about the increase in the number of employees who want a hybrid or fully remote model, so it is an issue that should be taken very seriously and addressed immediately.
Here are three factors to consider before making a final decision on this topic.
Redefining roles and work shifts
This is a very important point, because regardless of the decision made regarding the work scheme, the current roles must be reviewed to update them according to the changes that have occurred in terms of consumption.
Another important point is to consider the Work shifts; a learning that the pandemic left for some companies to be remote, was the fact that they can work in different shifts, instead of a single shift a day, today some organizations begin to work with night shifts to serve clients from other regions . By not depending on a physical space, it allows you to continue working in one at times and days that could not be done in person in any way.
Importance of diversity
Although not for all companies it is something significant, for others diversity can be a great value by having staff of different sexes, preferences, ages, and even from different cities and languages.
Working in a hybrid or remote scheme allows you to recruit collaborators who could hardly be in person in an office 40 hours a week.
Outside the big cities there is talent in different disciplines, which due to the distance it had not been possible to take advantage of; now with remote work those people who can contribute a lot, begin to stand out by being able to work from home, even thousands of kilometers from the corporate.
In this same sense, the virtualization of work allows some segments of the population that could not be part of traditional work schemes, to now be able to actively join the work environment to fully exploit their talent. An example of this is women with small children who cannot leave them in charge in order to go out to work. In the study Women in Works Index 2022 of PWC, with information from the OECD, points out that Mexico has the potential to increase GDP by 27% if it favors the incorporation of women to work activity.
Rethink tracking
If monitoring projects is complicated having everyone involved in the same place; now doing it in a hybrid or remote way is even more complex, but there are different methodologies and tools that allow it to be done efficiently and effectively.
Tools like Trello, Hive, Hugo and Slack are enabling face-to-face, hybrid or remote work teams to work in a collaborative way that has not been seen before, incorporating new ways of exchanging ideas, assigning responsibilities, tracking tasks, sharing files and information and communicate effectively.
Knowledge that is not shared completely loses its value