It took a devastating global event to move us away from the mindset that everyone has to be in the office in order to work productively and accountably. In early 2020, we moved – literally overnight – to online meetings and remote work as the pandemic raged. Organizations invested in tools like Zoom and Teams and the work never stopped. Workers made adjustments, and now, according to an ongoing study people who work from home at least some of the time report being more efficient working remotely. At my organization, we have the option to go into the office as often as we wish, or not at all. I go in two to three times a week because I enjoy different working environments and engaging with the smattering few that occasionally make it in. But I actually uttered these words the other day in response to an inquiry about meeting up at the office: “I can’t come in today as I have too many meetings and projects to work on and can’t afford the time it takes to commute and the usually welcomed distractions in the office.” I could only get the work done that day if I worked from my home office – anecdotal evidence of increased efficiency and productivity working remotely.
As the pandemic recedes, many organizations are adopting a permanent hybrid working model while preparing to face larger decisions in the not too distant future as office leases expire. What does a hybrid working world look like? Organizations can’t simply shift the same on-site working and leadership approaches to a hybrid environment, they have to be intentional about creating a productive and meaningful and nurturing remote workplace. Another study showed that failing hybrid models are location-centric, attaching on-site requirement. More successful, is a “hybrid-flexible model that incorporates other key elements of human-centric work design — that is location flexibility plus the practices of intentional collaboration and empathy-based management… Human-centric work design goes further than hybrid-flexible to include opportunities for intentional collaboration and empathy-based management.”
Nonprofit organizations need to make sure they care for those who care for others. People that work in the nonprofit sector are deeply mission driven and often sacrifice their own well-being in pursuit of the greater good. It’s up to leaders to ensure a nurturing and supportive environment which becomes more challenging when working remotely. In Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work, Dr. Gardner and Mr. Matviak write about enhanced diversity and inclusion through collaboration but note how that has gotten more difficult with remote work: “The virtual workplace inevitably slows and complicates the development of interpersonal relationships, which even in a normal work environment can be difficult to develop among people with differing backgrounds. Trust, including both interpersonal trust and competence trust, is an essential element of effective collaboration, but it becomes far more difficult to develop and maintain when the social interactions of the tradition work environment are gone.” It’s incumbent on nonprofit leaders to be intentional about building a thoughtful and dynamic remote or hybrid work environment and not to simply rely on existing or traditional on-site practices.