Colleen Perone September 9, 2021 
As we currently face the great resignation, one factor to consider to retain and attract top talent is adopting a hybrid work environment. We’ve found that a hybrid work environment is a valuable benefit to our team members, so we are sharing our insights so your organization can save thousands of dollars going forward. We get granular and dive into the benefits of adapting to the new post-pandemic work environment.
Keep Top Tier Talent
The first and most important asset within your organization that needs acknowledging is your talent. How do you address the concerns of the team while maintaining success through the roller coaster ride of the last 18 months?
One idea is to send an anonymous poll via SurveyMonkey to the entire team asking questions to gauge the concerns of returning to the office. You can then create an informal policy based on the results that addresses the team’s feedback. Their safety should be your priority, otherwise, you risk losing them to another organization or worse a competitor that will take additional steps to address their concerns.
Retaining your top talent means adopting a hybrid, flexible work environment where employees feel safe working from home and/or only occasionally working onsite at your office. If you are set up to work remotely, what harm is it to your company if a few of your employees move out of state for what they think is a better way of life?
At Bop Design, we implemented a policy that allowed employees to relocate anywhere in the United States. We didn’t want to lose valuable employees due to their family concerns while enduring a pandemic, so we adapted our policy to provide them options.
Save Thousands on Overhead and Time
What happens when you find out your team would feel safer working from home indefinitely?
Adapting to this new hybrid landscape can save you thousands of dollars of needless overhead costs like rent and parking. If you are coming to the end of your current lease, you can downsize, renegotiate a lower rate, request more amenities be included, or request a shorter lease going forward. Working out of a shared office or meeting once a month in a large conference room at a WeWork or Regus is significantly less than office rent and can be flexible to meet your company’s and employees’ needs.
Travel time to and from clients would often take an entire day of work for our team members. At the beginning of the pandemic, with all the shutdowns here in California, all in-person meetings were instantly taken off the table and valuable time was reclaimed. All meetings became a custom Zoom link and there was no looking back. You are likely using some form of video conferencing now, whether it’s Google Meet or Microsoft Teams to stay connected to team members and clients. Congrats, you are now saving valuable time and resources taking all calls via a video conferencing app rather than spending hours of employee time getting to a client’s office for an hour meeting.
It is also worth mentioning that your organization can significantly reduce its Carbon footprint by implementing an indefinite work from home or no in-person meetings policy.
Tools of the Hybrid Trade
For every pain point you encounter working remotely, some other B2B organization has developed a software solution. At Bop Design, we had to adapt quickly to the new norm and realized just how much we had relied on in-person communication about projects. In light of this, we elected to switch the team from Basecamp to Forecast as we needed a more robust project management tool. The switch enables us to communicate more efficiently and effectively regarding the nuisances of designing, copywriting, and developing B2B web designs.
We also use a telecommunications business app that allows our team to answer our office phones from our mobile phones, so we never miss a call. Any voicemail a team member receives also gets delivered as an email in both text and audio, so clients never feel out of touch.
Additionally, we utilize DoorDash Teams for our monthly virtual lunch and learns, so every team member can order their own lunch. Our employees aren’t less valuable because they aren’t in the office Monday through Friday, so we found a way to continue to reward them no matter where they are working.
Finding Balance
We want our team to feel connected to our organization, valued, and appreciated. You should want the same for your employees, especially if you want to keep the talent you have worked so hard at cultivating.
Finding a balance between working from home and having a family can be a struggle, but if you are mindful of what is happening in your employees’ lives, you can help support them. You can do that by asking, listening, and addressing their concerns. If most of your team does not feel comfortable returning to the office, then don’t make any of them. Adopt a hybrid work environment that keeps your talent happy and from leaving elsewhere, show them how valuable they truly are and everyone wins.
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