Editorial

What’s needed in a hybrid work model

It’s fair to say that, by and large, working from home has been a success. There has been no apocalyptic decline in employee productivity, which some naysayers projected at the start of the pandemic. Rather, with all the advancements in digitalization over the past 18 months, employee productivity seems to have improved – or at least evolved to meet modern expectations.

Insurance organizations around the world are slowly announcing their returnto-office plans for when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Many companies are promising hybrid working models, with a split between working from the office and working remotely. While it’s great that insurance companies are offering more flexibility, it’s important for employers to set strong boundaries – and stick to them – if they want a hybrid model to be successful.

One key boundary revolves around working hours. Many employees feel like they’ve worked longer hours throughout the pandemic. That doesn’t mean everyone is sitting at their laptops from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. every day just for the sake of it. Rather, people are working in stints with regular breaks for caregiving activities, household chores and so on. While they might not be working longer hours in a straight-through shift, they are likely working more hours in total because their days are disjointed and their productivity comes in shorter bursts.

This is not sustainable in the long term. If insurance employers are going to maintain some amount of remote work, they need to ensure that employees are set up to achieve their daily tasks in a set (and healthy) amount of hours.

Employers can’t forget the lessons learned during COVID-19. How many of you discovered something about a colleague through a snapshot into their life on a Zoom call? Perhaps they’ve got kids running around in the background, or they’re caring for elderly parents, or they’ve got very little space for their remote work setup. Those every day, real-life distractions are often priorities for people, and they’re not going to disappear when COVID-19 is eventually brought under control. If insurance organizations want to operate under a hybrid model, they need to remember that their employees are juggling those priorities with their work responsibilities, and they need to make sure they’re able to do so comfortably and effectively.

Those everyday, real-life distractions are often priorities for people, and they’re not going to disappear when COVID-19 is eventually brought under control

The team at Insurance Business America www.ibamag.com MAY 2017

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor Paul Lucas Senior Editor Bethan Moorcraft

Journalists Surina Nath, Ksenia Stepanova, Mia Wallace, Danny Wood

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