Before jumping on the advantages of the hybrid work model in the context of Nepal. You need to understand first, what is hybrid work? How is the company looking at a hybrid work model? And, also you need to understand the current situation in Nepal as well. Is hybrid work productive and effective in our scenario? 

What is hybrid work?

Hybrid work is a flexible working model where employees work partly in the physical workplace, and partly remotely – at home or from another workspace. In general, it's the gist of it, when you both work at the office and at home. Now, there are a couple of ways companies can do this, and it's going to be dependent upon your role, what you're doing, and the company's needs. Few IT companies had already practiced it before the Covid-19 pandemic but it was not a popular working culture during that time. Due to the rapid technological changes and the technological infrastructure has been developing aggressively so hybrid culture is growing and popular now. But it is not applicable to all businesses like manufacturing and industrialization & production units. 

One study by Accenture found that 58% of respondents had already been hybrid working during Covid-19. These people reported better mental health, stronger working relationships, and less burnout than people who worked entirely on-site or entirely remotely. And 83% said that they felt a hybrid work model would be the best one going into the future. The research shows clearly that people started preferring Hybrid Work Model.
 

If we talk the current major issues running in Nepal are listed below:

• High inflation rate
• Depleting Forex reserves and high imports
• Declining in remittance
• Liquidity crisis 
   

These major issues indicate the dark side of Nepal which will come sooner in the future like last time happened in Sri Lanka, and it could occur only if the government bodies aren't able to take effective actions. Recently, the government announced a 2 days public holiday in a week. And also a few days ago, commodities like the price of oil got increased; the salary of government employees also got increased by 15% which shows the high inflation rate of the year. These issues and the steps taken by governments are highly connected with the hybrid work model. 

Advantages/Pros of hybrid work in the context of Nepal

Now, hope you have a clear image or understanding of the Hybrid work and the current situation in Nepal. Such concepts will also help to make you understand the pros of hybrid work in the context of Nepal. In this blog, we’ll break down the benefits of hybrid working into three broad categories: those that benefit individual employees, those that benefit the organizations they work for, and those that benefit society or the country in general.
 

Hybrid Working Benefits to Individuals

• Improved Employee Well-being

People with experience in hybrid working tend to say that it gives them more freedom and autonomy over where and how they work and that it allows them to spend less time commuting. Together, these changes have had the effect of improving the work-life balance of many hybrid workers and of making them generally happier.

• Effective Increase in Income

In premise work, many people were spending an average of Rs200 to Rs500 a day – sometimes more – commuting into the office. For an entire year, this could amount to thousands of rupees spent on commuting costs alone. By allowing people to work from home much more often, hybrid working helps knowledge workers minimize their commute costs and thus effectively functions as a tax-free increase in disposable income. They will less consume imported commodities like oil (petrol, diesel) which can reduce the depleting Forex reserves and high imports. 

Hybrid Working Benefits to Organizations

• Reduced Real Estate Costs & raised adaption of new applications or Technologies

To begin with, organizations or firms that are willing to accept hybrid working might reap significant financial rewards. Simply put, organizations would not need to provide things like desks, chairs, tables, computers, etc, in a workplace for each and every one of their employees and this could save a lot of money by reducing their office footprints. Real estate costs can be exorbitant mainly in areas like metropolitan cities and building rent.

When employees do their work from home then they must be familiar with the new applications like Zoom, Teams, teleconferencing, effective use of new gadgets, and so on. it could be the opportunity for employees to get new skills that upgrade their knowledge in this modern era. 

• Improved Worker Productivity & bigger talent pool

Organizations are likely to gain from their employees' enhanced mental health as a result of hybrid working. Happy and well-balanced employees are significantly more likely to be more productive. (Many recent studies have found that when people work remotely, their productivity rises.) Usually, we used to say that customers are everything for the company because when consumers consume the products, the company gets benefited and generates income. But some of the authors believed that employees are most important for the company because when employees are satisfied and happy they automatically get motivated and complete their work more efficiently and effectively which increases productivity overall. Different tech tools like Zoom, Team, Google meet, and other webinars tools help organizations to communicate and delegate the task to the team similarly discord, slack also helps organizations to collaborate with the task team. Tools like GIT and …… help IT companies to share the code from different locations to develop one complete software. That means that one nation and one city do not necessarily depend on the potential polls to complete the task. Now they have the accessibility to source the talent pool from all over the globe to complete and deliver quality tasks to clients.

Organizations that have a hybrid working model will be able to hire from a much wider range of locations, which helps to attract new talents. An organization situated in Kathmandu, can hire very experienced and talented personality people from any place in the country and also internationally. Few Nepalese software companies, accounting, and financial consulting firms, and Non for profits organizations are here and they are operated from different locations in the world like the USA, Finland, Canada, Japan, Australia, and many more. In the long run, it will create more jobs for talented polls and candidates can also get an opportunity to work on their own interests.

Hybrid Working Benefits to Society & Country

• Environmental benefits

Hybrid working has the potential to have a very positive environmental influence. The requirement for large office buildings is greatly reduced when fewer employees attain the office each day. Smaller offices not only save money on rent but also minimize pollutants in the workplace and society. And, if fewer employees are obliged to report to work every day or travel internationally or nationally for business, pollution-related to traveling (motors bike, buses, tempo, cars, aircraft, etc.) is expected to decrease. It also decreases the imports of commodities which helps to increase the Forex reserves of the country and limit the inflation rate as well. 

• Increase the Employment Rates 

Hybrid employees will get the opportunity to apply for positions based in a wider range of locations, and enterprises will be able to employ a much larger pool of candidates, therefore job advertisements for hybrid roles will be filled much faster than those for solely office-based tasks. Hybrid employees are also able to do multiple jobs for several firms and generate huge income. Huge income leads to an increase in purchasing power and savings for the future. It means the supply of money in the market gets increased which ultimately reduces the liquidity issues.

The advantages of hybrid working in Nepal are numerous, and this is the approximately perfect time for businesses to reconsider their workplace strategy. In this current situation in Nepal, taking this step, will perhaps advertise the company and record the name of the first company that implemented a hybrid work model and benefited all. It will minimize the paperwork/ paper and also support the development of good IT infrastructure. 

By Rajnarayan Shah

Recruiter at Jobs Sniper Pvt. Ltd.