The hybrid workforce: overcoming recruitment and onboarding challenges

A hybrid workforce blends remote and on-site work models to give employees the flexibility and freedom they value – and expect. In today’s world of work, candidates and new hires are assessing companies for fit just as thoroughly as companies are evaluati

A hybrid workforce blends remote and on-site work models to give employees the flexibility and freedom they value – and expect. In today’s world of work, candidates and new hires are assessing companies for fit just as thoroughly as companies are evaluating them. At a time when jobseekers have the upper hand – and where The Great Resignation of 2021 sees employees leaving jobs in record numbers – getting recruitment and onboarding right is more challenging and yet more important than ever.

Defining the hybrid workforce

A true hybrid workforce incorporates HR technology and employee experience best practices to help employees feel more satisfied and engaged, and to make businesses more resilient and competitive.

According to Harvard Business Review, the hybrid workforce gives businesses “the benefits of remote working (increased flexibility, reduced carbon footprint, labour-cost optimisation, and increased employee satisfaction) alongside the critical strengths of traditional, co-located work (smoother coordination, informal networking, stronger cultural socialisation, greater creativity, and face-to-face collaboration).”

The hybrid workforce: Changing beliefs and assumptions

Many of the traditional objections to remote work were based on the assumption that a lack of supervision and nine-to-five on-site structures would reduce employee performance. However, the pandemic provided an opportunity for organisations to challenge these long-held beliefs. And as it turned out, the deluge of data on remote and hybrid workplace performance told quite a different story.

Evidence shows that a hybrid workforce actually performs better, with greater employee retention, engagement, and even profitability. A survey of employers by Mercer determined that “productivity was the same as or higher than it was before the pandemic, even with their employees working remotely.” And Gartner reports that “at typical organisations where employees work a standard 40 hours per week in the office, only 36% of employees were high performers. When organisations shift from this environment to one of radical flexibility where employees have choice over where, when, and how much they work, 55% of employees were high performers.”

This is an article series that will explore the concept of the hybrid workforce and how it might help in overcoming current workforce challenges.

Join us for part 2 next week as we look at “Employee recruitment and onboarding challenges in a hybrid workforce”.

For more information, please visit

www.deloitte.com/mt/hr