COVID-19 has changed the way the world works immensely and continues to cause dynamic transformations every single day. The way work is approached now is completely different from how it used to be two years ago. To stay safe, a lot of work has been shifted to a remote environment, and employees have started working from home. 

Hybrid work

Despite all its benefits, remote working can be exhausting for people like working mothers who are often expected to take care of their families as well as manage non-household related work at the same time. People also crave socialization and a sense of community that they felt while they worked at their offices. There are also cybersecurity challenges involved in working remotely. These complications have led to the creation of a combination of remote and offline work, popularly known as hybrid work.

Difference between remote and hybrid work

Hybrid work is flexible and offers a fair amount of mobility to employees who can work partly in their offices and partly remotely. This work system strikes a fine balance between remote and offline work. Even though hybrid work is a new phenomena, no less than 70% of companies expect to have hybrid roles long-term. It allows employees to enjoy the benefits of working remotely while, at the same time, giving them the opportunity to come down to the office, socialize, and work with fellow employees when they want to. Usually, there is a set timetable in place that dictates when an employee would have to come into their office and when they can work from home.

Hybrid learning

With a good internet connection and a laptop, hybrid working is the future for most employees. Like with every other job, learning remotely is highly important. Learning leads to increased knowledge and know-how in the field of work you’re doing and keeps you updated in your discipline. It helps you catch up with relevant trends, methods, and ways of doing your job. Some on-the-job learning is more targeted. For example, an employee learning a particular computer language so that she can apply for a promotion.

The challenges of hybrid learning

In a remote work setup, hybrid learning can be challenging. While you’re working from home, it is difficult to set boundaries and leave the workplace behind since you now live in your office. This is especially true with approaching deadlines and urgent tasks during busy times.

Finding a balance between hybrid work and learning

Hybrid learning requires a clear schedule and understanding of one’s bandwidth. There is a need for open and constant communication between the parties involved in the training or learning activities. Apart from your daily tasks, you should be able to make time to focus on learning, skill development, training, innovation, and more. Here are some of the key aspects of hybrid learning that you need to figure out before you begin:

When

Self-motivation is key, so understand why you’re learning what you’re learning and develop an interest in it. Multitasking and good time management will make hybrid learning easier to accomplish and working from home more productive.

A good way to find a balance between actual work and training and learning to get better at your work and develop your skills is to create a well-defined timetable for yourself. This timetable can be a weekly schedule, or a daily one, depending on how intense you want your learning to be. Carve out a necessary amount of time for learning so that you don’t end up feeling the high pressure of working from home. It is highly crucial to not let your tasks pile up for this to work.

Where

Another sphere that the pandemic has affected is education. Many students require assistance with assignments and streamlining their remote education.

Organizing lessons and training sessions and setting up an environment for this purpose can be tricky. Obstacles like young children, noisy neighbours, household responsibilities, and more will be present for most people working from home.

Since learning on the job can be beneficial to the company, they should be able to arrange a space where employees located in an area of the city can meet up and attend lessons, workshops and classes together. This should also be done keeping in mind the safety of every individual present as well as their need to connect with fellow employees. Travel arrangements can also be made by the company to make hybrid learning easier for employees.

How

Determining the ways to manage to learn while working has always been a challenging aspect of work. These challenges only increase when there is a remote work situation involved. Companies are constantly innovating to make virtual meetings more interactive. To understand the mediums that can be used to optimize hybrid learning, your company must try out a few different things and find a good combination among those. Some of the various methods hybrid learning can be done are through:

• Video meetings;
• Workshops;
• Podcasts;
• Webinars;
• Simulations; and more.

Apart from defining the methods of conducting hybrid learning, the company should create a structure that identifies and connects the learning content with the actual work itself. This helps employees understand the value of hybrid learning and adds more meaning to the process of learning. The company can also measure the results and success achieved from a good hybrid learning strategy and communicate it with its employees to reiterate the value of hybrid learning.

The bottom line

Employees have gotten used to working from home and enjoy this new setup. Doing hybrid learning right can create a meaningful flow into hybrid working that increases efficiency and makes everyone’s lives easier. Hybrid learning is an extremely significant facet of hybrid work, and more companies should acknowledge this. The bottom line is: hybrid working can only be successful in the long run if hybrid learning is also considered an important aspect of work.

Author Bio

Nicole Garrison is a blog writer who has written a series of work-from-home related pieces to help students and employees transition from offline to online. She offers admissions essay writing service to help struggling students. Since 2020, Nicole has been working on a guide that she hopes will make the lives of WFH employees easier. She also tries to gather as much experience as she can by providing proofreading services review. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, and reading books.