5 Ways to Manage the Inclusive Hybrid Workplace

Workers around the world are getting competing instructions right now: come back to the office! No, stay out of the office! But, still, come back to the office! It’s not surprising. With the Delta variant continuing its surge, and vaccination levels in some countries not near the levels needed to contain the pandemic, managers find themselves in a bind — trying to continue the emergency remote work swerve they made last March into something sustainable.

That emergency swerve took another sharp turn last June with the renewed (or, for some organizations, brand new) focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Companies that had to reckon with moving an entire workplace online, now had to reckon with transforming a workplace culture that for too long had been exclusionary to many.

Which means we are at a crossroads again. Return-to-work hasn’t happened as swiftly as some may have thought, and it will never return to what it was two years ago. Instead, there will be people who must return. There will be people who want to return. There will be people who will return some days and work remotely some days. And there will be people who paid $1 to buy a villa in a whole other country and they are never coming back.

Welcome to the hybrid workplace.