Workplaces, work environments, and employees are not the same as they were before Covid. There has been a change in priorities and perspectives in the last few years due to the invasion of technology. Organisations are adapting their policies to make them more people-friendly in order to retain talent. Office cultures are becoming increasingly people-centric as times change. R U Srinivas, Senior Vice President, People-Chargebee, shares how a people-centric culture encourages growth, learning, and purpose for employees.

What are the challenges that HR/business leaders are facing vis-à-vis the hybrid workplace? How can we address them?

If 2020 taught us anything, it is to make people the centre of everything. If people are taken care of, the business will automatically be taken care of. Like many others, we also foresee challenges when it comes to ease of communication, conflict resolution, and onboarding new people, especially new graduates, in the virtual world. For this, coaching managers and implementing more training to ensure they are going the extra mile to communicate clearly and check in regularly with their direct reports help. It can be easy for virtual work to become too impersonal, so it’s important for managers to check in.

We have offices across the world and in nearly every time zone, so we had to find ways to effectively manage the challenges of working together when separated by distance and time zones. One of our biggest challenges right now is finding better solutions to working across time zones. Staying connected makes sense when working across time zones that are 12 and a half hours different. We are looking at solving this with ‘time-zone optimisation v/s geographical optimisation’. This means optimising and balancing teamwork across geographies to enable better collaboration.

What are the key strategies that organisations should follow to retain talent and survive the Great Resignation?

A transparent, flexible, and adaptive work culture must be in place to battle the great resignation and retain talent. With that in mind, creating an adaptive workplace model will be suitable for diverse scenarios while keeping global or regional situations, business requirements, and individual safety as the guiding principles. Employees want to be part of high-performing teams with healthy cultures. In times when there are so many opportunities, it is essential for employers to step up their transparency, fairness, and equity to survive as employees give a deeper emphasis to meaning and purpose at work and in the workplace, as we move forward. The demand for skilled and diverse talent is driving the need to create a work culture that serves as a magnet for the best talent to attract. To do so, organisations must balance work and employee flexibility.

Can you explain the strategies that must be in place to increase employee efficiency in the hybrid model?

Being adaptive to change and open communication must be part of the culture of any organisation. With employee well-being at the top priority for every company, a major shift in companies' turning towards a more flexible workplace culture has been witnessed. Open communication creates trust and makes it easier for employees to reach out to management about their problems.

What needs to be done to prepare for the future of work?

The future of work holds working in a way that suits you as a professional as well as aligns with the business’s goals and the existing environment. To prepare for the future of work, companies can think of having policies such as: first Fridays off, WFH allowance, year-end leave, mandatory 2-week block leave, uncapped leave policy, medical insurance, parental leave, employee assisted programs, etc.

Additionally, technology skills will be sorely needed in the future. Thus, to address the constant evolution on the tech front, employers should address the skills gap by providing ongoing training to help workers keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date. Training should be interactive and go beyond handing new employees a manual to read. Employees should be exempted from working in any particular time window. This allows people to build schedules that work around their lives. Besides, keeping mental and physical well-being in check is also a must-have to prepare for future work.