March 2021 marked the 1 year anniversary since the World Health Organization announced COVID-19 as a global pandemic, and what a year it has been. As we reflected on the past 12 months, we found this particular article by George Penn on TLNT.com interesting. George’s article, “Are Hybrid Workforces Really Here To Stay?” acknowledges that looking ahead to a post-pandemic workplace, we may need to continue to embrace the hybrid strategies we have developed and grown accustomed to throughout the pandemic. However, although there are benefits of a hybrid workforce, we realize that this may not be the case for factory environments who likely require more on-site presence in comparison to traditional white-collar workplaces.
Perhaps production-focused businesses can continue to have Engineering, Purchasing, Inside Sales, and Accounting departments work remotely as they do not have to be in the building every day (or at all) to be productive. But, there may be some challenges for Management and HR who will need to measure performance of off-site employees without the traditional visual awareness provided from working on-site. In addition, Management and HR will likely need a greater presence on-site to support the production workers who are also required to work on-site.
As we look forward to a post-pandemic workplace, we would like to invite you to share your comments and lessons learned from the past year as we continue moving forward.
We welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy the article.
~ The KEC Team
Are Hybrid Workforces Really Here to Stay?
