Accelerating the Hybrid Workforce in Healthcare

Hybrid work is on the rise in the post-pandemic environment. According to a recent Accenture survey, 83% of employees surveyed preferred a hybrid work model that involved working remotely 25% to 75% of the time. Thirty-four percent of the respondents strongly agreed that remote work made them feel safer, possibly as a trigger effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accenture also found that 63% of high-growth companies were already allowing staff to work from anywhere. As of November 2020, 78% of respondents were planning for or had begun implementation of a hybrid work model, and 9% were introducing new ways of working. IT Support Redding excels in supporting Hybrid Workforce Solutions

A hybrid workplace is a flexible workplace model that is increasingly gaining popularity with remote work likely to stay in vogue for the foreseeable future. Hybrid offices, by design, are able to meet the needs of a distributed workforce comprising both in-office and remote workers. The place of work largely ceases to matter here. This is good news for employees who may find themselves being more productive wherever they choose – office, home or on the go. They could even combine everything depending on their unique needs. Hybrid workplaces are designed to offer maximum flexibility and support for the employees – no matter where they choose to work from. Hybrid workplaces get rid of the unnecessarily complication of scheduling in-office time vs remote time. Employees can login whenever and wherever they want to. Companies employing hybrid workplaces understand that the shift in in-office vs. remote employees is likely to stay fluid, and shift in real time depending on a number of factors. For employees, this adds the flexibility to decide where they want to work from on an ad-hoc basis that positively impacts productivity, convenience, and addresses issues such as health concerns, unstable social or weather conditions and more. Unlike the past, it is up to employers now to decide how best to suit employee productivity needs and design a work environment capable of seamless transition between in-office and remote presence. This involves incorporating flexible workplace design and technology solutions that equip workers of all nature to collaborate better and faster.

The hybrid workforce differs markedly in appearance from one industry to another. This actually depends on the extent of automation present in the work process already and how best companies can leverage the right mix of human resources to maximize productivity and efficiency in business activities and operations. The Human-Automation hybrid model of work in healthcare, for example, tries to address challenges such as human errors in collating clinical notes documentation that have led to undesirable or even adverse patient outcomes in the past. Depending on the nature of the unique challenge it faces, a healthcare organization could choose to augment human action, or replace it with a progressively higher degree of automation.

Emerging technologies across the healthcare landscape can give rise to unprecedented work/ career opportunities. The convergence of healthcare, medical science, computer algorithms, and big data will only intensify the trend. A list by Forbes on ‘future healthcare jobs to watch’ included jobs such as robotic clinical documentation scribe (a job role that makes use of an AI-based solution involving voice recognition, natural language processing and more to automate tasks) and reconstructive surgery 3D specialist (a role that can involve 3D printing of tissues to treat burn or accident victims). Then there is of course the critical digital health community worker role that can play a pivotal role in the overall health, awareness and development metrics of any community. This is likely to have a significant impact on highly sensitive areas such as maternal and child care management and Non Communicable Disease (NCD) management.

Proactively addressing the human-hybrid transition model is the most sensible way to go for healthcare organizations driving their future digital transformation strategies. This can also lead to effective management of fears about robots and AI rendering human resources redundant. Organizations will need to focus on building models that leverage talent retention and help workers effectively transition to new, digitally-empowered roles. Companies must keep in mind that their strategy must encourage new skill acquisition among human workers, achieve a high degree of buy-in throughout the executive level and the value chain and achieve a degree of balance between continually incorporating new technologies and managing the shifts in work processes that follow. IT Support Sacramento excels in providing Hybrid Workforce Management services and Hybrid Workforce Strategy for healthcare organizations.

According to a recent survey by Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, 59% of employees found it difficult to build and maintain camaraderie with co-workers in the remote work mode. The decisions that HR leaders take now will impact all future collaboration, innovation, and productivity as well as working relationships and mentorships. Healthcare roles where organizations have added travellers as temporary employees and convinced employees to come out of retirement during pandemic are likely to witness a big impact as well.

The Deloitte report also found differing productivity and WFH experiences depending on generational differences. The experience of millennials is likely to differ markedly from baby boomers. There is also the added complexity of effective performance reviews without face-to-face interaction. There are also gender differences involved. Women reportedly fared much better than men at remote work and had an easier time building camaraderie, and collaborating.

Burn-out and overwork continues to threaten the stability of the healthcare industry as the effects of the pandemic continue to linger. Employers must find effective ways to manage their employees’ mental and spiritual health and well-being and help establish healthy life-work boundaries. Managing A Hybrid Workforce can be a piece of cake with Apex IT Consulting Services.