What skills does your mobility team need to be successful in a "hybrid" work environment?

As workplaces evolve, and with so much data predicting that "hybrid environments" are the work model for the "new normal," it begs the question whether employees are geared to properly manage being both at work and at home during their work week. Are there any new skills, techniques, systems and/or approaches that will benefit them, helping them to adapt and be successful? This Fast Company article suggests that a "distributed workforce is bound to impact day-to-day operations, and leaders and their teams may need new habits and systems."

The article kicks off by sharing some insights from Jeff Schwartz, founding partner of Deloitte Consulting’s Future of Work practice and author of "Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work."  I absolutely love his take on where he sees things going:

“The tools that would have taken five to 10 years to develop and launch took five weeks or even five days. Now as we think about what it means to go back to the office, we can’t use an old map to explore a new world. COVID has not been detour. It was an onramp to a new way of working.” 

So what do employees need in this "new way of working" going forward? There are many different articles coming out on this topic, and we will pull some of them into this post to consider. We know that many companies are working on their work model plan and we expect that 6-12 months from now we will hear even more on companies "fine tuning" or revising things, but for an individual employee navigating the new hybrid work model, here are a few thoughts.

First, in this work environment, the ability to integrate work and life rather than "balance" them will be essential. The pandemic has provided the flexibility to move tasks around in order to deal with personal responsibilities. I am seeing the New York Times (and others) share that "Zoom fatigue" (a widespread feeling of burnout from virtual meetings that has emerged during the pandemic) is real and that some companies are mandating Fridays as "Zoom free." So do employees need to be better at limiting their work hours and do companies need to be better and minimizing the number of video conference meetings? Sounds like it.

Terms like “liquid” are being used to describe the blurred lines of what the workforce of the future will look like. Companies need people with soft skills and technical expertise. Self-awareness, empathy, versatility, adaptability, emotional intelligence, resilience, initiative and grit are all human "soft" skills and traits that will need to combine with technical training and knowledge, digital competency skills and data analyzation skills. It will be this combined set of skills and traits that will help employees evolve and be successful now and down the road. Employees will need the ability to upskill, reskill and continuously hone existing capabilities.  These employees will be "future ready." 

According to this article in Global Trade Magazine, for those in global mobility, "The good news is that global mobility professionals are well equipped with the right blend of skills and knowledge to meet the changing needs. Because mobility sits at the intersection of talent acquisition and retention, compensation and benefits, tax and immigration, payroll and other HR functional areas, the role has become increasingly critical to business success."

For those of us in the mobility industry, is it time to go back and reconsider all of the elements in the job description so that we have teams that are able to imagine, create and manage "future-ready" mobility programs?