Working In The New Normal: Work From Home Or Office?

Remote working – from a supporting role to a lead role?

A survey by Boston Consulting Group in the US, Germany and India found that 75% of employees maintained or improved their performance when changing their working environment, from the office to their ‘resting place’ and even with collective performance, this number still reaches a positive rate of 51%. This might make HR wonder about bringing the idea of working from home as a supporting role to become the “main role”.

A dilemma situation that managers must deal with

Dang Vinh, Director of a media company, shared that he had to spend a lot of time rebuilding the human resource management process during the lockdown. “All the interactions with my team or customers are changed to digital meetings. Although many communication and working software have been applied to ‘clear the space’ caused by online working, the unstable internet access during the meetings also brings us many problems while working with our customers”, Mr. Vinh shared.

Hybrid Working – Days at the office, days at home

In the midst of endless discussions: Is it better to work in the office or remotely, which solution will satisfy the company workforce, but still ensure the business operation?

Ms. Tieu Yen Trinh, CEO of Talentnet, pointed out several potentials while applying the Hybrid Working model to management: “Living with the pandemic, 81% of leaders are changing workplace policies to create more flexibility. For that reason, ‘Hybrid Working’ – which possesses the advantages of both remote and in-office working, is a trend to meet the expectations of both groups of needs. However, there are many challenges that businesses need to adapt to increase the effectiveness of this model.”

According to Ms. Trinh, businesses can refer to these tips to increase their employees’ satisfaction and reduce administrative pressure on HR and leaders:

Nurture an equal working environment: The importance when implementing Hybrid Working is to understand ‘inside out’, which can help reduce the conflict between different opinions. Then, businesses need to provide an equal working environment, and no matter where employees work, they still have the right to receive the respect and development opportunities they deserve.

Provide supporting solutions: The core human resource activities such as recruitment, introduction, training, or performance management need to be redesigned to be suitable for the Hybrid Working model. At the same time, your employees also need to be well-equipped in terms of necessary tools, systems, processes, etc. to increase their working performance.

Upgrade step by step: Leaders need to pay attention to employees’ expectations but still need to ensure the company’s benefits and working performance in order to provide appropriate adjustments. Businesses should conduct employee surveys and questionnaires to make timely adjustments. Like Google or Ford, each department is allowed to adjust their working schedules according to their need, which can be at home or in the office.

“The new working model will inevitably have some deviations, which might lead to low efficiency or difficulties for employees and managers at first. Therefore, the HR department needs to map out a suitable development roadmap and be receptive to feedback from other departments in order to improve the suitable new working model for the business. This flexible working model will certainly attract more talents and gradually become a potential model to shape the future of the Vietnamese labor market,” concluded Ms. Trinh.