The Hype of the Hybrid on Work Culture Compatibility

Introduction

Covid-19, a significant catastrophe over the past two years, has hampered the socio-economic growth of people all across the globe. Economies have sudden fall, and the governments and the corporate world were struggling to stay afloat. The world has experienced a rather sudden transition from tight labor markets, sustained growth, and scarce talent toward high job instability, growing unemployment, and worrying recessions (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2021). Companies worldwide are in a dilemma to develop a constructive plan of conducive work culture, keeping in mind the safety and interest of the employees without jeopardizing the company’s overall growth. Increased job instability, exposure to new modes of working devoid of proper training, domestic compulsions, other financial and non-financial unsteadiness due to the pandemic are fewer difficulties that employees face. Work place culture plays a major role in this context and bring many benefits to both the employees and the organization as a whole. Workplace culture refers to beliefs, attitudes, practices, rules, norms and customs. Ideal workplace culture focuses on activities that generate and demonstrate trust. A strong form of essential values that all employees respect and practice help to build the positivity and effectiveness of a workplace environment. (Beno, 2021). But as of now, as many companies navigate returning to an office in some shape or form, team members are likely contending with vastly different situations. Some have limited or no childcare or are managing their kids’ online school; some have health issues that preclude them from returning to in-person work; and some are eager and excited to get out of the house and head back to their cubicles (Knight, 2020). The ever-entangling option of selecting between “On-Site Work Culture” and “Work from Home Culture” has given rise to a new phenomenon called Hybrid Work Culture which amalgamates the pros and cons of both the work cultures to strike a balance between both the Worlds. To make this transition successfully, hybrid work arrangements need to be designed with individual human concerns in mind, not just institutional ones. That requires companies to approach the problem from four different perspectives: (1) jobs and tasks; (2) employee preferences; (3) projects and workflows; and (4) inclusion and fairness (Gratton, 2021). Though a bit successful in foreign lands, this newborn system in India is at a teething stage. It needs to have a better cognizance and acceptance from the perspectives of both - the employer and the employee.

The traditional or the everyday work culture is the 9 am to 5 pm working in a physical space with all the employees of the same company. Once a person enters this stage in their life, it only hustles from thereon. The traditional work environments show higher levels of satisfaction with desk/chair, privacy, storage and general facilities (Appel-Meulenbroek,2015). Where this wasn’t enough, the Indian working-class was presented with another much-disliked hurdle, “Change”. The role of worker is commonly enacted at a place of work and during specified hours from Monday to Friday, while nonwork roles are typically enacted while one is physically located outside of the office during the evening and weekends (Allen et al., 2014). Earlier. working in the office from 9 to 5 used to be the norm, with companies allowing limited flexibility in where or when employees worked. The pandemic has upended that model, as managers recognize that many employees can work productively anywhere, anytime (Gratton, 2019). A study by the International Workplace Group found that 80% of workers would turn down a job that did not offer a flexible work schedule for one that did, and 76% of workers said they’d consider staying at their current employer if they could work flexible hours (Zucker, 2021).