Best practices for leaders in a hybrid environment

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More than four in five (86%) companies are looking to expand their hiring criteria for job candidates in the next two years - just one of the many ways leaders are evolving.

In the latest edition of the Hybrid Work Index derived from data on Cisco’s platform, 64% of respondents said that the decision to "work from anywhere vs. coming into the office" directly affects whether to stay or to leave a job.

Breaking this down into regional findings, which includes the APJC region (Asia Pacific, Japan and China), these were the return-to-office preferences cited:

• Global data - Just 19% cited spending 3+ days in the office as a post-pandemic reality
• Americas data - Just 15% cited spending 3+ days in the office as a post-pandemic reality
• APJC data - More than one in four (28%) - and the highest globally - cited spending 3+ days in the office as a post-pandemic reality
• EMEAR (Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Russia) data - One in five (20%) see themselves spending 3+ days in the office as a post-pandemic reality

Evidently, work preferences coming out the pandemic have shifted from their pre-pandemic mindsets, where spending more than three days per week in the office was a norm. 

Hiring criteria for job candidates to be expanded 

This edition of the Index also found that 86% of companies anticipate they will expand their hiring criteria for job candidates in the next two years.

 As such, the following are the changes expected to hiring criteria:

• 50% will look for workers who are remote,
• 45% may consider workers with fewer years of experience,
• 44% are willing to look at candidates with non-traditional industry experience,
• 44% open to considering those with non-traditional skill sets, and 
• 37% show willingness to meet those without a college or university degree.

Best practices for leaders in a hybrid environment

The Index called attention to some practices that may be effective for leaders operating in a hybrid environment, some of which are:

1. Listen to your employees to ensure that you're designing hybrid work configurations that play to their strengths, take their preferences into account, and enable the work to get done in a safe, secure, seamless, and flexible way.
2. Empower your leaders to take the helm of guiding your team on the journey to more inclusive and collaborative work experiences. Incorporate people-driven practices, team rituals, and behaviors to help your teams thrive in a hybrid work model.
3. Leaders need to learn and practice a new craft of inclusion and engagement:
   1. Provide clarity in tasks by answering questions.
   2. Be proximate and listen to employee feedback on work to better assign work based on strengths.
   3. Recognise good work.
   4. Give attention to growth opportunities for each individual.
4. Elevate the levels of trust and transparency within your teams and the organisation as a whole by playing to peoples’ strengths and being open to what works best for each individual and team. 

Leaders who stay close and are proximate to their team members are more likely understand the individual circumstances and preferences of each person, allowing for curated hybrid configurations that will play to individual strengths while also being attentive to employees' wellbeing, noted the report.

Image / Cisco

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