How employers can help struggling hybrid workers

Employers transitioning to hybrid work arrangements may need to reevaluate their performance management strategies and recalibrate how they approach employees who are struggling, according to sources who spoke to HR Dive.

One of the biggest challenges may be the relative lack of face time employers have with their reports than they otherwise would have had pre-pandemic, according to Joe Du Bey, CEO and co-founder of workplace management software firm Eden Workplace. In the past, visual cues signaling distress could be easy to pick up. That same process might take a bit more effort when moving to hybrid arrangements.

“It’s not as hard to tell if someone is being productive [in a hybrid environment] as it is to tell whether they’re happy or engaged,” Du Bey said. “It’s very new to try to quantify happiness and engagement because that was something that was more intuitive to gauge in person.”

The way in which employers actually do this type of recognition may vary, said Jill Havely, global community excellence leader, employee experience at Willis Towers Watson, but she outlined a general series of considerations for knowledge workers in a hybrid environment.