Keeping Retention High for Hybrid Workers in 2023

The Covid pandemic forced businesses of all kinds to embrace remote work or risk going out of business. 

Since then, most companies have adopted a hybrid working model. But it’s a situation we’ve been thrust into, not one we carefully planned and executed. 

And most businesses have a lot to learn about how to get it right.

Here’s a closer look at how to keep your retention rates high with hybrid workers – as well as a look at whether flexible working is set to remain.

Is hybrid work here to stay?

According to the data, hybrid working is a big hit with employees:

• 59% of workers prefer to work hybrid, compared to 32% who’d prefer to work exclusively remotely and just 9% who’d choose to work fully on-site.

• If given the option, the majority of workers would prefer to be in the office between one and three days a week. 

• 78% of employees have said that a hybrid work plan leads to a better work/life balance. 

And research suggests it’s good for business, too: 

• 81% of hybrid employees are highly engaged, closely followed by 78% of fully remote employees feeling engaged
• Hybrid workplaces have seen an average 12% reduction in employee turnover
• Companies can save up to $11,000 per employee when they work at least partly remotely.

Today, mandating that your employees all need to return to the office is one of the worst things you can do for your turnover rates. In fact, 71% of employees open to looking for a job aren’t happy with how flexible their current organization is willing to be,

And most organizations get that, with only 9% of companies not planning on permanently allowing some kind of remote work.

So, hybrid work is certainly here to stay. Which means the big question your business needs to answer isn’t “should we offer flexible working options” – it’s “how do we keep our hybrid employees engaged and loyal”.

How to keep retention high for hybrid workers

If you’re not thoughtful and deliberate about creating a hybrid company culture that works for everyone then it could cause more harm than good.

So, stick to these tips to keep your retention rates high in the age of hybrid work:

Make sure remote employees aren’t being held back

One thing you need to be particularly mindful of when you roll out a hybrid work model is that choosing to work from home doesn’t hamper employees’ career prospects.

On-site staff are naturally going to get more facetime with the bosses if your company’s leaders largely work on-site. It’s therefore only natural that they end up front of mind when there are promotions on the table. In fact, one study found that remote employees had a 50% lower rate of promotion after 21 months compared with their colleagues who worked from the office. 

Since 41% of workers say they’ve quit a previous job due to the lack of progression opportunities, you’ll struggle to keep hold of your remote workers if you don’t fight against the natural bias toward looking to in-office employees when it comes to promotions.

Two ways to level the playing field on this front for remote and on-site workers are to:

• Discourage leaders from spending every day in the office to prevent favoritism.
• Be aware that a bias toward on-site workers exists when you’re choosing who to promote and try not to fall into that trap.

Try Assembly to make it easier than ever to track your employees’ career aspirations – and help them achieve them. 

Play to both remote and on-site working’s strengths

Working from home and working from the office both come with their own pros and cons. A hybrid working model can help you get the best of both worlds and avoid all the downsides.

For example, people tend to get more done when they’re working from home, with 77% of workers reporting they’re more productive when working remotely. 

But the fact is: a lot of people can find it isolating to work from home long-term, with 24% of people saying their biggest problem with remote work is loneliness.

On top of that, 45% of people think meetings with ten or more attendees are worse when done on video call rather than in-person. 

You can solve all these problems at once by encouraging teams to regularly meet up in the office for team meetings. This will give everyone a chance to catch up and allow them to plan their next steps more effectively than they would over a video call.

Give remote employees a voice 

It’s common for your teammates who choose to mainly work from home to feel like they have less of a say in how your company does things than their colleagues who usually work from the office.

Keeping your remote workers at arm’s length from discussions that affect their day-to-day work is a surefire way to alienate them – and drive a rift between “people who work from home” and “people who work from the office”. And that’s bound to leave your remote employees less engaged with their work and looking for another job.

It’s therefore crucial that organizations with a hybrid workforce run regular employee pulse surveys, then compare the results between employees who choose to work remotely with those who prefer to mainly work from the office. If there’s a big difference between how each set of employees is feeling, that's a sign you’ve got some serious work to do if you want a hybrid work culture that’s built to last. 

Book a demo of Assembly today to get access to all the tools you need to empower your hybrid employees with a voice in one place.

Look out for burnout

A lot of employers worry that their teammates will slack off when they’re working from home. In reality, you’re likely to have the opposite problem – your remote employees burning themselves out. 

Don’t believe us?

25% of remote employees say their biggest problem with working remotely is that they struggle to unplug from work. And remote employees work 10% longer than their office counterparts – or about four hours more each week.

So it’s no wonder that 69% of remote employees say they’ve experienced burnout at least once while working from home. 

To prevent your remote teammates from burning themselves out, make it clear to them that they should mute notifications and stop checking their email once their workday is done. Fail to do so and your retention rates could seriously suffer – not to mention your engagement levels.

Try Assembly to get the tools you need to easily track and improve burnout levels across your business.

Don’t fall into the presenteeism trap

70% of remote employees continued to work while they were ill during the pandemic.

Which sounds great, right? Your staff taking fewer sick days surely does wonders for your productivity levels.

But presenteeism – when employees keep working while they’re sick – actually costs the US economy $225 billion a year.

A teammate isn’t going to get much useful done when they’re forcing themself to work through an illness. And not taking time off to rest and recover when you’re not feeling well is a surefire recipe for burnout, meaning the long-term productivity costs to productivity can be steep.

So, be sure to encourage your employees to take sick days when they need to. Ask managers to encourage their reports to take sick leave if they spot that they’re under the weather. Looking after your staff like this will not only boost productivity in the long-term – it’s also bound to increase employee retention. 

The final word

The data doesn’t lie: flexible working is here to stay. Follow the steps we’ve laid out here to solve the employee retention challenge in the age of hybrid working.