Four tips to make the most of hybrid work

By Chris Taylor

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If you ever question the value of hybrid work, just have a chat with L Parker Barnum.

The managing director of creative agency Mythology splits his week: three days from his home in New Jersey with two days at the firm’s office in Manhattan.

His verdict: The arrangement makes him more productive, not less.

“Avoiding the commute alone gives me back 3.5 hours a day, three days a week,” Barnum says. “That’s more than 10 extra hours a week – half of that spent working and half spent splitting household responsibilities with my wife and taking care of the kids."

And now there is proof that hybrid work can be a positive force for employees and companies: A research paper co-authored by Stanford University economist Nicholas Bloom, recently published in the journal Nature.

The study – the largest of its kind, looking at the effect of work-from-home policies – finds that the benefits are multiple: Productivity is not harmed, promotions and career advancement are not affected, and employee retention improves significantly.

“Productivity and performance were unchanged. It saved office space, and critically, (employers) saved millions on recruitment," says Bloom, who tracked 1,600 employees at the firm Trip.com to compile the results. "For the company, it was massive.”

For example, the cost of replacing an employee and training a new one was estimated to be $30,000. Thanks to flexible work options, employees are less likely to leave, with departures falling by a third.

“There may have been a stigma about remote work pre-pandemic, but I don’t think there’s a stigma anymore,” Bloom says. “Many big companies now typically have employees coming into the office three days a week. Hybrid seems to be where it’s at.”

Of course, there are potential pitfalls to working from home part-time. Here are four tips to make the most of hybrid work arrangements:

PRACTICE EXTREME COMMUNICATION

The danger of being off in your own location is that when you are out of sight, you are out of mind. If you are not physically in the office, you could miss out on big projects or not be the top choice for promotion.

So always err on the side of overcommunication.

When working from home, “I don’t disappear where no one can find me,” Mythology’s Barnum says. “If I’m not on a Zoom, I’m texting. I’m on the phone. I’m still in touch."

Have side chats with colleagues to catch up and find the right moments to be on camera, Barnum advises.

"I’m always communicating with bosses about what my day, my week, my month look like,” he adds.

ESTABLISH PERFORMANCE DATA

One thing that will help wary bosses be OK with remote arrangements and help employees demonstrate their value: a robust system for reviewing employee performance.

“When people are working from home, you obviously can’t tell what they are doing every minute of the day,” says Bloom. “So you need to have sales targets, deliverables, performance evaluation data – whatever the metric is, you need to get that done.”

BE WARY OF GOING FULLY REMOTE

Bloom’s positive findings are based on working two days from home. If you are out of the office every single day, you cannot necessarily draw the same conclusions.

“Fully remote is what CEOs really complain about,” Bloom says. “With promotions, if you are coming into the office three days a week, that’s probably enough."

Promotion rates, however, fall by half when employees work four days a week or more from home.

COORDINATE SCHEDULES

A critical strategy is that your in-office days should coincide with others on your team.

If you are going in on a Monday, but your colleague goes in on Tuesday and your boss goes in on Wednesday, the scattershot approach could have adverse effects for your team and your own career prospects.

“The bad side of remote work is that it’s harder to mentor people, to train employees, to innovate and share ideas at meetings,” Bloom says. “Coordinate the days you come in, so you actually get to see your colleagues.”

As for Barnum, he has some advice for leaders who are stuck to the 9-to-5 work model.

“People are perfectly capable of working from their homes, from coffee shops, from co-working spaces," Barnum says. "If you’re hiring great people, then you should trust them to do their jobs.”

(Reporting by Chris Taylor; Editing by Lauren Young and Jonathan Oatis)