A Gartner survey on June 5 of 127 company leaders, representing finance, legal and compliance, real estate, and HR revealed that 82% of respondents intend to allow employees to work remotely some of the time.
Nearly half (47%) said they intend to allow employees to work remotely full time going forward, the research firm noted.
For some organizations, flex time will be the new norm as 43% of survey respondents reported they will grant employees flex days, while 42% will provide flex hours, the firm added.
“The pandemic brought about a huge experiment in widespread remote working,” said Elisabeth Joyce, vice president of advisory in the Gartner HR practice. “As business leaders plan and execute reopening of their workplaces, they are evaluating more permanent remote working arrangements as a way to meet employee expectations and to build more resilient business operations.”
When it comes to safety measures, respondents were nearly unanimous in planning to limit face-to-face meetings (94%) and providing protective equipment such as masks and hand sanitiser (91%), survey results indicate.
In addition, 83% of respondents said they intend to limit or sequence employee attendance at the workplace, according to Gartner.
“The question now facing many organizations is not how to manage a remote workforce, but how to manage a more complex, hybrid workforce,” said Joyce. “While remote work isn’t new, the degree of remote work moving forward will change how people work together to get their job done.”
The issue of productivity
As employers move toward a hybrid workforce, the productivity of remote employees is a frequent topic of conversation.
However, just 13% of business leaders voiced concerns over sustaining productivity, Gartner pointed out.
While 61% of business leaders have implemented more frequent manager-employee check-ins, 29% report not taking any measures to track productivity remotely, survey result indicate.
Maintaining corporate culture
Among the challenges of managing a hybrid workforce, 30% of business leaders are most concerned with maintaining corporate culture, said Gartner.
According to the results, 13% of respondents reported concern over creating parity between the remote and in-office experience while 13% also are concerned about providing a seamless employee experience.
