Business isn’t just a game of profit. People are at the core of any successful organisation, and ensuring they have everything they need to run the company like a well-oiled machine doesn’t just come down to the size of their pay packet. Their emotions, attitudes towards their jobs and employers, as well as their office experience and work-life balance are also crucial for maintaining a thriving business. And at the centre of all that is Human Resources (HR).
Working together with Facility Management (FM) and Information Technology (IT), from strategy to operation, an organisation’s HR department does far more than simply managing the employee life cycle and administering employee benefits. One of the most important HR responsibilities is to ensure employees stay healthy as well as engaged, which means optimising their working environment for wellbeing.
In this blog, we’ll discuss Planon’s perspective on the role of HR, our experiences, focus and strategies behind a hybrid working model and how - by incorporating the right tooling - we’ve been able to adapt to a hybrid working model ourselves, while continuing to operate a smooth running and efficient HR department.
Planon already had a partial hybrid working model in place before Covid hit, so this period was less turbulent for us than it could have been. If anything, as the fundamentals were already in place, it just accelerated the implementation of our strategy. Most of the company was already digitalised and hybrid-enabled. Still, the integration of HR did need specific tooling - and time - to ensure a fully functioning hybrid environment. And this meant that combining employee wellbeing, engagement, and performance was challenging.
What’s more, it’s become clear that hybrid working isn’t only a matter of digitalisation. When businesses have to set up a completely new hybrid work environment to thrive, the responsibility for the workplace becomes a joint effort between HR and FM, with IT on hand for support with tooling and digitalisation.
At the same time, HR has an ongoing commitment to the role of ‘lifetime employability, a model which ensures people are healthy and fit for their job at all times during their entire career, leading to more sustainable employment.
Lifetime employability is vital when it comes to running a successful business that not only retains staff but has their trust and dedication. This is about responsibility, for both the employer and the employee, ensuring people at all levels stay relevant and fit for work at all times. But how is that achieved?
Hybrid working is one of the main elements, offering employees flexibility to choose the most appropriate workspace based on their activities and commitments. This supports the work-life balance , allowing them to live a healthier, more balanced life while also optimising their performance. It’s about trust, and the flexibility on both sides keeps everyone happy.
At Planon, we’ve set up a healthy hybrid workplace model that covers working at different remote locations - even during travelling – as well as health and wellbeing aspects. We encourage employees to make conscious choices that have a more sustainable footprint, such as not travelling into the office every day. But we also created sports facilities and a beach bar in our office to promote more healthy lifestyles and enable social collaboration. By doing this, employees are more likely to be efficient and productive, which is good for the organisation and also for themselves.
Here are eight ways Planon has adopted a healthy hybrid model and maintained a smooth-running HR department:
We believe every organisation can adopt these, or equivalent methods, to achieve a successful hybrid working model where HR plays an important role.
