Hybrid is here to stay: 5 ways to support a flexible work model

By: Reinier Aerdts, Hemang Davé and Chris Kirkpatrick

Return-to-work mandates made headlines earlier in 2024, stoking conversations among some of our customers about how best to balance demands for flexibility with concerns about data security, sustainability, organizational culture and more.

We think the best way forward involves implementing a balanced and flexible employee working model by prioritizing the following:

Establish a hybrid model

IDC found that many organizations have already begun to experience how flexible work models help to attract and retain talent. The survey found that over 83% of companies said they offered high flexibility work models. Seventy-five percent of these companies reported significant productivity gains due to increased flexibility.¹

Adopting a hybrid IT model that empowers both remote and in-office working allows employees to enjoy the benefits of both arrangements—facilitating in-person collaboration but also allowing for the flexibility of work-from-home. This approach can also enable teams to advance corporate Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (ID&E) initiatives by accommodating a broader range of accessibility needs, including those that may be challenging to implement in an office environment.

Invest in digital workplace technology

Investing in advanced digital workplace technologies, such as end-user experience monitoring or workflow orchestration tools, can help drive enhanced employee experiences and support seamless collaboration and communication. This is true whether employees work from home or at the office.

Organizations might consider a number of strategies to help prioritize how to invest appropriately.

First, to prevent future issues, it is important to understand how employee dissatisfaction and productivity loss manifest across different work styles. Once this baseline of oversight is established, your team might consider assessing the current technical environment using monitoring tools; improving employee feedback mechanisms; deploying sentiment analysis tools and investing in advanced Digital Employee Experience (DEX) technologies.

Boost cyber resilience

In a recent Kyndryl study, 54% of organizations reported that remote work puts a strain on their security teams. To ensure that your flexible work model does not further compromise your organization’s security posture, we invite customers to consider a four-pillar framework for cyber resilience:

1. Anticipate risks and maintain compliance Risk and regulatory landscapes are moving targets. Managing both involves adopting proactive measures. When it comes to compliance, for example, think about working together with your risk and compliance teams to understand how new or evolving regulations will affect your organization. Conduct a gap assessment to help solve compliance challenges within your hybrid work structure.
2. Protect critical data and infrastructure
   IDC notes that while different geographies have slightly different barriers to the effective deployment of flexible working models, they all have one thing in common: their top concern was trusting employees to keep corporate and client data secure—and the risk of exposing this data to hackers.¹ Make sure data security remains central to your overarching strategy by educating employees on security and security practices on an ongoing basis.
3. Withstand advanced cyber threats
   In the aforementioned Kyndryl study, 54% of large organizations experienced a disruptive cyberattack within the past year, with nearly a quarter facing up to 10 attacks. In other words, the event of a cyberattack is not a question of if but of when. Acknowledging this reality is critical to building a successful cyber resilience strategy with a focus on impact tolerance and rapid, phased recovery.
   
4. Recover quickly from unplanned outages
   Joint research from Kyndryl and AWS found that 77% of organizations surveyed struggle with security and other risk-mitigating team alignment, and that 72% lack clear business continuity roadmaps. To get your own team ready to respond quickly and effectively when the time comes, consider a minimal viable company approach to help prioritize actions before, during and after a cyber incident.

Focus on sustainability

Promoting remote work within the flexible model can help reduce a company’s environmental impact and support broader sustainability goals. This benefits both employees and communities.

By reducing the need for daily commutes, for example, companies automatically lower their carbon footprint. Additionally, remote work can lead to less demand for office space, reducing the need for real estate and the associated energy costs for heating, cooling and maintaining office buildings.

Centering on environmental sustainability involves not only making advancements but also raising awareness of these advancements within your organization. According to a recent Kyndryl report, only 33% of organizations ensure their staff is fully informed about sustainability progress, roles and KPIs.

Effective communication in this area is not only vital to the success of corporate sustainability itself but also to aligning with the environmental consciousness of the workforce, particularly among younger generations.

Measure employee experience

Supporting and empowering employees, especially those new to the workforce, is crucial to the effectiveness of any working model. To achieve this, actions must be taken to create a connected experience that enhances satisfaction, productivity, engagement and well-being within your organization.

Establishing this supportive and socially sustainable work environment will involve ensuring that the lived DEX is satisfactory and frictionless. Experience level agreements (XLAs) are key to safeguarding this priority.

By focusing on employee IT experiences, XLAs help organizations and their executives implement an integrated approach to holistically connect and measure key indicators and ensure they are aligned to critical business and customer outcomes. This is done using journey mapping, which determines key touchpoints and pain points in the employee digital experience, offering insights necessary to enhance employee productivity and satisfaction, including identifying additional training when needed.

Reinier Aerdts is a Client Technical Leader at Kyndryl; Hemang Davé is a Client Technical Leader at Kyndryl; Chris Kirkpatrick is a Director of Offering Management in Kyndryl’s Global Digital Workplace Practice

¹ IDC. “Evolving Challenges and Opportunities for Flexible Work”, doc #US52151625. August 2024.