The world of work has changed and now to successfully move into hybrid work situations, we need to be thoughtful and if we are, I believe we can see improved employee performance. The pandemic was the worst type of hybrid experiment with lockdowns, screaming children at home and many interruptions but yet we found that our employees were still productive. We have learned a lot and now we have a golden opportunity to create an environment where employees are happier and more productive. To be successful we must design plans, systems and principles to guide employees while giving as much flexibility as possible. Here are 10 steps to creating great individualized hybrid work plans for your employees.

1.      Be Clear on your Organizations Hybrid/Remote Work Rules.  Don’t get too wrapped up in finding a solution that is fair for everyone, as that is likely not possible. Your goal is to find out what your employees want and do your best to design a system that is a win for your organization and your employees. Different jobs will require different amounts of in-office work and different arrangements. Have a guiding policy that is clear but not overly restrictive.

2.      Set Guiding Principles for your Organization or Department. These guiding principles set boundaries that each individualized hybrid plan must work within. The principles outline what is important to your organization and your people. These guiding principles give employees a purpose to rally behind and here are a few examples of principles you could use:

a)     Time together matters

b)      Find Time to Focus. (ex. No meeting Fridays)

c)     The Customer Comes First (important to meet your client needs still if working remotely)

3.      Create an Individualized Trial Plan. Put an agreed upon plan in writing that provides as much detail as possible on when and how work will get done. Try your best to come up with a plan that will be a win for the organization and the employee. Be very clear with your expectations and outline the importance of seeing results of their work. As a manager, be open minded and flexible as employees might have some great ideas. Set times when schedule will be blocked off for regularly scheduled personal/work activities. Updating personal calendars will be much more important than before so people know everyone’s availability. You may want to have a template agreement to work from for your organization, to be consistent and ensure everyone captures the important details in their agreements. Think about important stakeholders, most importantly the customer when making these agreements. Sign the agreement to show that everyone approved this plan, this will be important if there are performance management issues in the future.

4.      Set a Review Date. Before implementing the plan, it is important to set a review date and perhaps a mid point check in. I would suggest 6 weeks would be good for the first review date and perhaps a check-in somewhere around the mid point.

5.      Share the Plan. Communicate with any stakeholders about the new agreement/schedule and outline any changes that may be necessary. Stakeholders may raise some issues with the plan that you didn’t think of; that’s ok, go back to step 3 and amend the plan, its important to be flexible for these agreements to work.

6.      Implement the Plan. Start on the agreed upon start date and remind important stakeholders of the change. Remind the employee that this is a trial and that you will do your best to support them so this plan can be a win for everyone. Explain that we may need to make adjustments to ensure this is a win for everyone so please do your best work and communicate as much as you can on what you need for this plan to be successful.

7.      Midpoint Check-in. Here it is important for the manager and employee to raise any issues or concerns and make adjustments to the plan as necessary. Maybe you find out that the day for the regularly scheduled meeting doesn’t work for someone and you need to change the schedule. It is important to be honest and clear with any issues at this point as problems will not solve themselves if not addressed, and the plan could fail.

8.      Stakeholder Check-In. In advance of the review meeting, it would be good to check-in with important stakeholders to find out if the plan is working for them. Give a week or so notice to allow time for a response.

9.      Review Meeting. In the scheduled review meeting, you should include what was discussed during the mid-point check-in but this time you should also include stakeholder feedback. If the plan is working for everyone, great! If not, make any adjustments as needed and start back at step 3. If the plan is working, you can establish the plan on an ongoing basis but be clear that adjustments may be needed in the future. Communication will be key for this plan to continuing to be a win for everyone.

10.  Ongoing Review and Adjustments. Things change and it will be important to have discussions about the plan on an ongoing basis. How much is necessary will depend on each individual situation and workplace and there may even be a time when this plan will no longer work at all. With any major change, a new or adjusted plan may be needed so it will be important to go back through the steps again as necessary.

There you have it, follow these 10 steps and I believe you can create a plan that will be a win for you and your employees. Be flexible and listen to your employees and look at this as an opportunity to become an even better organization than you were before.

I hope you found this article helpful. I am an experienced HR executive and I have read every book and watched every bit of training and content I could find on the subject of Hybrid and Remote work. If you need some assistance in creating a hybrid or remote work system for your organization, our team can help you thrive in the new world of hybrid work.

The ‘Great Resignation’, hybrid work, hot desking and everything related are very hot topics in the business world. Elon Musk just hit the news with a controversial decision, demanding that all employees of Tesla return to the office if they want to keep their job. Microsoft has been in the media since it increased the pay of all its staff, and they plan to go public with their salary ranges on their future job advertisements. Even Beyonce is getting in on the action with a new hit song called “Break My Soul” (see video at bottom) which is being dubbed an anthem for the ‘Great Resignation.’  Beyoncé’s new song is an anthem for the Great Resignation | CNN Business

I wrote this article because I had the question in my mind whether the Great Resignation was as real in Canada as it was in the United States. The obvious fact is that the world of work will be different in both countries, but I was guessing that the situation would be different in each country because of our different economic and demographic situations. So, I started reading what I could, and I was shocked at the recent statistics and articles I was reading.

To be up front, there are some stats that are very different out there and it seems from month to month these results can be different. I did my best to weed things out but the stats in many cases seem outlandish and from companies who are solid. I knew that things were about to get interesting in Canada, but I didn’t realize that we were at this level of uncertainty.

As an example, we have a great company in Hays Specialist Recruitment Inc whose 2022 Canada Salary Guide states that “65% of workers are seriously considering leaving their current role” meanwhile 40% of respondent businesses said they were losing talent to higher pay being offered somewhere else. Hays 2022 Canada Salary Guide | Salary trends. Those stats seemed unbelievable to me, but I found similar but perhaps not as extreme statistics elsewhere. The Mental Health Index report by LifeWorks for February 2022 showed similar results where they say the following “Nearly half of Canadians are, or possibly are, rethinking their career goals because of the pandemic.” The Mental Health Index report: February 2022 | LifeWorks. Here are some other items of note from the same LifeWorks Report:

• 11% will make a career change because of the pandemic and another 23% are unsure.

• 30% are considering retraining for a different career.

• 24% are considering resigning and moving to a different role.

• 21% are considering retiring.

Wow, ok I know what you must be thinking, these could be flaky reports and stats but here is a stat from Statistics Canada that stood out: the number of job vacancies across all sectors reached an all-time high in the third quarter of 2021, up over 62 per cent from a year earlier. Alrighty then, we now see that we are seeing record vacancy rates, with half of the remaining workers thinking about leaving their job. Captain, we have a problem in Canada, labour shortages while according to Hays, 34% of Canadian businesses who responded to their survey are hoping to grow their businesses in 2022. 

To make matters even worse, we are seeing unprecedented volumes of mental health and addiction issues. Here are some of the findings of the Mental Health Index report by LifeWorks for March 2022:

• More than two in five Canadians end their workday feeling mentally and/or physically exhausted.
• More than one-quarter of Canadians are unable to disconnect from work after usual work hours.
• 51% have too much work to do during their workday.
• 25% report their manager contacts them after work hours.
• 23% say their co-workers contact them after work hours
• One in five employed Canadians are concerned, or are unsure, about their drinking or drug use.
• 11% are concerned about their drinking or drug use, and a further 8% are unsure.

We have a labour shortage crisis, so we are overloading our high performers, causing them to have mental health issues and driving them to drink. Sounds like a great situation Canada, but I hope we respond by treating our existing staff better because if not we will lose employees to another business or to a mental health issue.

Below is a Bank of Canada chart from their Business Outlook Survey, for the first quarter of 2022. They are citing labour and supply chain frictions so that now capacity pressures are at an all time high. Business Outlook Survey—First Quarter of 2022 – Bank of Canada. These businesses can’t afford to lose any more staff than they already are. If half of their employees are considering leaving and some do, their business may be crippled, and they would face devastation if they can’t produce promised results. Clearly businesses need to take this seriously or the results could be fatal.