8 Benefits of a Hybrid Workplace

The workplace is changing. Scratch that.

Has changed. No, scratch that, too.

The workplace is constantly evolving and changing into what the workforce and the world needs at the time.

The pandemic taught us that where and how we work should be fluid. And it’s up to organizations to make sure they keep with the times and create a flexible workplace where employees want to work.

That’s why Hybrid Workplaces are getting all the hype. This mix of traditional and flex working benefits employees and organizations worldwide.

What is a hybrid workplace?

A hybrid workplace is a flexible workplace practice that empowers employees to work where and when they want, usually by balancing their time between office work and remote work.

What are the benefits of a hybrid workplace?

A hybrid work environment encourages collaboration and creativity, working where and when you work best, instead of measuring productivity by “butts in seats.” When the pandemic forced people into remote working, the workforce stayed productive but missed office interactions. Organizations stayed successful but company culture in the digital world lacked. The answer to how the post-COVID workplace should work is hybrid.

With a hybrid model, collaboration and creativity can flow, organizations can provide a controlled, flexible environment, and everyone can benefit.

In this article, we present 8 benefits of a hybrid workplace broken down into three categories: value to the employee, the organization, and the globe. Let’s begin!

Benefits of a Hybrid Workplace for the employee…

1. Working where you are most productive

Either of these scenarios sound familiar…?

The company quarterly report is due by end of day, and you need ZERO DISTRACTIONS. Your best move is to forego the office, and that unnecessary conversation with Joe from Accounting (no offense Joe), and work remotely where you can get heads-down time and some peace and quiet.

The biggest presentation of your life (not to be dramatic) is tomorrow and you know your PowerPoint is 💯  !!

But in order to take the cake, you need to present it with confidence. You need to be in the office, in a huddle room, with your most trusted coworker-friends, so you can practice your presentation, get honest feedback, and blow everyone away.

YOU know what kind of atmosphere is the most productive for the work you need to get done. With a hybrid setup, you have the flexibility and choice to work where you need to. You can find the right workspace for the day in the office or at a coworking location or choose to work from home because you need the focus time or have to attend to personal matters during your breaks.

2. Improving your work/life balance

Burnout from juggling high stress in the office 40 hours a week and all your other daily life tasks can cost you and your organization more than you might think. In 2017, it was estimated that $125 to $190 billion a year was spent in healthcare in the U.S. due to physiological and physical problems of burned-out employees, according to Harvard Business Review.

With hybrid work, employees can use their at-home days to schedule breaks to take care of personal essentials like doctor’s appointments or getting kids to and from school. Plus, on those days, employees can save an average of 55 minutes on their daily commute meaning more time for balance.

3. More collaborative & creative places to work

The office is turning into a place employees want to go to collaborate and feel creative. Working at home has seen great productivity but also burnout, feelings of isolation, and “Zoom fatigue.”

Holding meetings, brainstorm sessions, and other collaborative activities means an increase in social interaction, engagement, and comradery.

And with many companies reimagining the workplace, including the variety of workspaces that will be offered like collaboration areas, huddle rooms, etc., employees get to experience a new way of working when at the office.

Benefits of a Hybrid Workplace for the organization…

4. Attracting and retaining top talent from anywhere

Retaining talent is vital because loyal, happy employees deliver productive results. Additionally, it costs time and money (33% more) to hire a replacement.

Attracting top talent also gets easier when you can expand your search worldwide. Having one office, one location that everyone needs to report to can narrow your search quite a bit. Plus, employees on the job hunt are looking for flexible workplaces.

Make employees want to join you and stay with you by adding flexibility to your workplace.

5. Improvements in employee engagement & productivity

Studies show when employees have flexibility and freedom in how they work, they are more engaged, productive, and satisfied.

• 81% of hybrid employees reported high engagement and 77% reported increased productivity

If not offered hybrid options after COVID-19, 66% of employees would stay but be less happy and 46% would look for another job that offered these benefits.

Employees that are able to work their jobs flexibly should be given the opportunity to do so. The good far outweighs the bad when it comes to implementing a flexible, hybrid workplace.

6. Saving millions in real estate costs

Say so long to 1:1 ratio seating. Two things to consider with a hybrid workplace:

1. Flex employees may come into the office for certain tasks on different days or at different times, so you don’t need to provide a workspace per employee

2. When you offer different types of workspaces and collaboration areas, employees don’t need a specific workspace from 9-5 each workday

With workspaces costing a company a yearly average of $10,000 each, there’s a lot of potential savings there. Let’s look at this graph.

If you make just 50% of your workplace flexible, you could see savings in the millions. And that doesn’t mean that only 50% of your workforce is able to use your office, it just means they have the choice of what type of workspace they need and when.

Benefits of a Hybrid Workplace Globally…

7. Focus on Health & Safety

With a hybrid work model, organizations have a much easier time managing health and safety guidelines. When companies began their return-to-work strategy during COVID-19, those with a hybrid plan and the right technology were able to do it quickly and safely.

Your hybrid workplace and workplace management software can:

• Implement physical distancing of your workspaces

• Manage capacity limits and follow federal guidelines

• Have employees answer health questions before reserving space in the office

• Use Contact Tracing to follow the trail in case someone ends up sick

We hope to never experience a pandemic again in our lifetime, but with the right setup, another event like this won’t leave you unorganized and unprepared. You’re able to control how your workplace is running and keep your workforce’s health and safety a top priority.

8. Reduced Company Footprint

Decrease in Gasoline Usage, Carbon Emissions, & Air Pollution – When less people are driving to work every day, gasoline usage, carbon emissions, and air pollution decrease. Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. was using 391 million gallons of gasoline a day. But when everyone was staying home during the pandemic, global carbon dioxide emissions fell by 6.4%. A massive change since emissions had steadily been rising for decades.

Monitoring Energy Consumption in the Office – When you combine your workplace management software with Smart Building Technology, you can decrease your footprint even more with lights, A.C. or heat, etc. only turning on when someone is in the building or has checked in to a reservation.

Downsizing Office Space – With fewer employees in the building at one time and space utilization analytics showing you how your office space is being used, it may be time to consider downsizing. Smaller Space = Smaller Company Footprint!

By encouraging hybrid work, using workplace resources only when needed, and even potentially downsizing office space, your company’s footprint can see a decent reduction and you can feel like a productive global citizen!

Do these benefits of hybrid work sound good to you?

Heading into a new phase of work after getting thrown the curve ball that was COVID-19 can sound like a lot. But the benefits of a hybrid workplace have been laid out in front of you and we think it’s worth it!

With the understanding of what it is and its benefits, you can head into the next step: Creating a hybrid workplace.

We created this free Guide to the Post-COVID, Hybrid Workplace where you can get all the information you need about creating and supporting this flexible workplace practice. Or feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to chat with you about your organization and how we can provide the right technology to help you manage your hybrid workplace.

Originally published here: https://agilquest.com/8-benefits-of-a-hybrid-workplace/ on February 21, 2022.

Hot Desking 101: Everything You Need to Know

What is hot desking and how can it benefit your organization? This flexible workplace practice might be what your company and workforce need!

Flexible. Hybrid. Hoteling. Hot Desking. Activity-Based… Should I go on?

These words are being thrown around on a daily now that more organizations are embracing flexibility in their workplace.

And to many, the term hot desking does not pass the vibe check.

People believe hot desking negatively impacts employees. That is sends a message saying they don’t matter and it’s just another way to save the company money.

However, we believe, when done correctly, it can save money AND benefit the employee. Hold on, let us explain!

But first, what even is it?

What is hot desking?

Hot desking is a flexible workplace practice that keeps offices, conference rooms, etc., open for employees to use when it suits them best. This practice makes it easy for employees to find a desk in the spur of a moment or grab a workspace near their teammates so they can collaborate quicker and easier.

What are the benefits of hot desking?

When hot desking was introduced to the business world in the 90s, it was… well, messy.

Executives told their workforces “We are hot desking now” and employees entered the ring to fight for their spot.

You got into work 5 minutes late and you were sitting at the desk in the corner under the blasting AC next to Tom in sales who’s great at his job (energetic phone calls and presentations in your ear from 9 to 5).

So, when people hear hot desking, they run for the hills.

But like everything, with time and a better understanding of the workforce and workplace, it’s become a beautiful butterfly – manageable, beneficial, and a great addition to the flexible workplace.

Hot Desking can help create a new atmosphere that harnesses flexibility, empowers collaboration, and produces results. Some benefits of hot desking include:

• Boosts in creativity and innovation. With an array of workspaces available, you can pick and choose and mix it up to give yourself new views and a fresh perspective daily.

• Improved communication and productivity. What’s on your agenda for the day? What kind of space would benefit you the most? You can choose where you work, whether you need to find a collaboration space near a teammate or a desk near your boss while you work through a new assignment.

• Increased flexibility. Hot desking works best in flexible workplaces because it isn’t about 1:1 ratio seating anymore. It’s about using the office when it best suits you and choosing the right workspace for what you need to get done.

• Rise in knowledge sharing. No more strict siloes by department. Go sit near coworkers you don’t see or work with often and learn more about the part they play in the company. It’s very easy to get caught up in what you and your department do. It’s helpful to see the big picture every once and a while.

• Reduced real estate costs. And, of course, organizations can implement hot desking to SAVE! When you eliminate the 1:1 ratio seating, there’s a good chance you can eliminate/downsize your real estate, too. Or, not have to upsize as you grow your company and hire more employees.

  With a flexible, hybrid workplace, your employees can use the office when it benefits them and work remotely any other time. Now, this freed up space can be used for new hires, to rent out to organizations or freelance workers, or you can start considering a smaller office once your lease is up. And the savings can be put back into employee benefits, bonuses, new workplace assets, and more!

There are many reasons a company should add hot desking to their flexible workplace repertoire. When done correctly, it can empower your workforce and save you money!

On board so far? Then, let’s really get into it.

How do you implement, manage, & support this kind of flexible workplace program?

Before you dive headfirst into hot desking, we need to think it through from start to finish.

• What does it take to implement and deploy a hot desking program?

• How will the workforce react to and adopt it?

• What needs to be set in place to make it successful from launch and beyond?

Implement hot desking with a plan and a workplace reservation software

It’s obvious now that hot desking does not have to be a bad word. We just covered all the reasons why it works. We know it, but your workforce might not. Plus, the fact that people typically don’t like change, you need to communicate, communicate, communicate just why hot desking provides value to them and the organization.

• Create hot desking guidelines to share with employees so they know what to expect and who to contact with questions.

• Start initiating the conversation before you implement any changes. Let everyone know what is coming and just how exciting it will be!

• Research and find the best hot desking software to manage your workplace. The software should be easy to implement and deploy, provide admins a way to manage the workplace & workforce with business rules and policies as well as present analytics and insights into what’s working and what could use optimizing, plus be intuitive and user-friendly so end users adopt the new software quickly.

Manage hot desking by determining what works best for your company

Maybe you want your hot desking program to be as easy as 1, 2, 3. Every seat up for grabs. Employees can claim the space or room that works best for them wherever, whenever.

Or maybe you want a little more structure.

When you are coming up with your hot desking program plan and guidelines, you may want to consider different ways you can split up your workplace so it’s more organized and makes sense to everyone. Let’s look at two options:

1. Neighborhoods. Let’s say Kevin from IT needs full concentration and 0 distractions but Linda and Sally from HR end up sitting next to him to plan the company’s end of the year retreat.That won’t work.Admins can add business rules around “neighborhoods” which means designating a certain area or floor to a specific department.

2. Quiet Areas vs. Collaboration Spaces. Back in college, the campus library was set up to have the first and second floors as designated collaboration space where you could be as loud as you want (inside voices still appreciated.) As you made your way up to the third floor, you were only supposed to speak at a whisper and only if you must. Finally, the fourth floor was strictly quiet, like if you needed to sneeze you better take it somewhere else.

   So, every floor doesn’t need to have every type of workspace. You can designate floors and areas to provide quiet, heads-down space or noisy, creative, collaboration environments so employees can choose depending on their workload.

And you don’t need to pick just one way to manage your flexible workplace.

Say you have 5 floors, floors 1 & 2 can be filled with meeting rooms and collaboration spaces for employees to grab and work at when they want the energy and buzz of people around them. Then you can designate floors 3-5 as neighborhoods. Your neighborhoods might split the floor down the middle with one department on one side and one on the other. Or you could designate the whole floor to two departments that work closely with each other, like Sales and Marketing.

The bottom line is to think about your organization and workforce culture to determine the best way to manage your hot desking program.

There’s no wrong answer.

Well, there might be, but you won’t know until you try!

And once you try, you’ll have insights from your hot desking software to optimize the program and continue to have success with hot desking!

Run a successful hot desking program by supporting your workforce

Now that the technical stuff has been taken care of, the next, most important piece to focus on is your workforce!

We hinted that change isn’t easy. You’ve come up with your communication plan around hot desking but let’s talk about what you can further provide to make this better for everyone.

Personalization

With free address seating, personalizing your desk/office is no more. Which can be difficult somedays when you just need a quick look at your kids’ smiling faces or your dog’s warm, inviting eyes to get through it. We’ve all been there. So, with no place to put these tokens of love, what is there to do?

TIP: We suggest encouraging employees to personalize their laptop desktops with pictures of the people they love! That way they always have something to look at when they are feeling a bit mad.

Plus, who doesn’t love an “awhhhh” when you share your screen in a meeting and everyone catches a glimpse of whatever cuteness is there.

TIP: Additionally, for other personal items, offering cubby holes and/or lockers gives employees a place to store their stuff throughout the day.

This makes it so your workforce can grab a snack when they’re hungry or a cardigan when they’re cold without having to lug it around with them all day.

Keep It Clean

Health & Safety is top priority, especially after 2020, so organization’s need to make sure it is easy for employees to clean their space before and after use. If you want hot desking to work, employees need to feel safe in their own workspace.

TIP: Have cleaning stations on every floor and create a clean desk policy that people can easily follow.

Provide The Right Equipment and Technology

Lastly, provide each workspace with the equipment and technology employees need, like monitors, docking stations, whiteboards, video conferencing, etc.

TIP: Use your hot desking software to label the workspaces accordingly so people can filter by what they need and grab the space that works best for them.

Your flexible workplace should make it easy for your employees to work from anywhere, in the office or remote.

With a plan in place and everyone on board, you’re on the right track to have a flexible, productive workplace and an empowered workforce. Continue to monitor and optimize your flexible workplace and follow hot desking best practices to ensure your program stays successful.

Article originally published here: https://agilquest.com/hot-desking-101/ on August 24, 2021

Creating a Hybrid Workplace

The Hybrid Workplace: Industry’s Latest Buzzword

As an employee encouraged to work from home when COVID-19 struck in 2020, I know going back to in-office work is going to be a big transition. If I didn’t work for an already flexible company that will continue to let me work from home as I please, I would be dreading the return even more.

And I’m not the only one. Survey says,

• 29% of respondents would quit their job if they weren’t allowed to work remotely. LiveCareer survey of 1,000 respondents

• 1 in 2 people won’t return to jobs that don’t offer remote work. OwlLabs survey of 2,025 respondents

Working from home gave me confidence that I could do my job from anywhere. It made me feel good that my company trusted me enough to do so. And it made me feel safe and in control in a time where that seemed almost impossible.

With that said, I do miss the interactions of the office. I miss seeing my coworkers and having impromptu brain dumps with my boss. There’s something about the office that keeps the creativity flowing and makes collaboration easy.

From Cushman & Wakefield’s Purpose of Place report, they found:

• Half of employees struggle to connect with their company’s culture during the COVID-19 induced remote work experiment.

• And only 55% of employees working remotely during COVID-19 had a “sense of wellbeing.”

The report also mentioned a 2007 meta-analysis that stated,

“workers see greater autonomy and lower work-life conflict when working remotely up to 2.5 days per week; beyond 2.5 days per week, the researchers found that there were greater harms to relationships with coworkers.”

So, basically, I am saying employees, like myself, enjoy the trust, confidence, and ease of working from home but also want the collaboration of the office.

We want CHOICE and FLEXIBILITY.

Which leads to the newest buzzword, the Hybrid Workplace.

[Learn everything there is to know about the hybrid workplace when you download this guide.]

What is the Hybrid Workplace?

A hybrid workplace is a flexible workplace practice that empowers employees to work where and when they want, usually by balancing their time between office work and remote work.

It is very similar to the practice of WFA (Work from Anywhere) with a few key differences.

Hybrid vs WFA

Hybrid workplaces still offer a centralized place for work (the office) and prefer that a portion of their employees split time between the office and remote. WFA companies tend to have smaller offices, or satellite offices and offer coworking sites, stipends for at-home office setup, etc.

Hybrid teams will likely continue to recruit talent that lives within commuting distance to the office where WFA teams can hire anyone from, well, anywhere. And same goes for current employees, hybrid employees will stay in a location close enough to the office to make commuting possible for in-office days whereas WFA employees can move anywhere at any time.

Hybrid companies are more structured; management may have more of a say when teams should be in the office. WFA means you are working remotely 100% of the time; it’s up to the employee each day to choose where that may be.

Creating Your Hybrid Workplace

Champion Team

Step 1 in creating a hybrid workplace is finding the right employees for your Hybrid Champion Team. This team will create, manage, and run your effective, successful Hybrid Workplace. How many members will depend on your company size but consider involving someone from each department so that implementation can be done quickly and more effectively by department.

With a team in place, it’s time to discuss the model and strategy that best fits your company.

Hybrid Models

Step 2 is to think about the kind of mix your hybrid workplace will have. How many in-office days should there be? Should it be specific or lenient? Some options may include,

• Taking a more remote-first approach. You may have heard the term remote-first from our pre-covid trends blog, in this case, it means employees are first and foremost connecting remotely, using the office as a meeting place for planned, specific in-person moments only.

• 3-2. This means employees are in the office 3 days a week and remote the other 2 days. Or vice versa.

• Average. This approach has your employees averaging a certain number of in-office days over a certain amount of time. For example, you may want your employees to average 3 in-office days over two weeks. 

For this step in creating your hybrid workplace, we suggest you start by taking an employee poll to get input on how many days they want to be in office vs. remote, or what kind of model they think your company should follow.

Hybrid Strategies

As you are thinking about the different ways you can structure the work week you should also think about whether the model will differ by group. This is step 3. Your policies might work better whether they pertain to the employee, department, or company.

By employee

This gives the choice to the employee regarding when and where they work. They can choose which days they want to spend in-office vs. remote. It’s the most flexible option and works better for smaller companies.

This option would need to be backed by a lot of communication and an easy way for employees to show where they are working each day so colleagues and managers can be in the know.

By department

This means coming up with different policies by teams or departments. This may be the least flexible choice of the three because the in-office days are likely the same each week so team members can be in the office together.

It may also be the easiest to manage because the office can be split into neighborhoods and the workspaces, rooms, and resources within each neighborhood can be available to different teams on their designated in-office days.

By company or location

This option gives your hybrid workplace some structure while also offering choice and flexibility to the individual employee. It would include coming up with a companywide policy that tells employees how often they can work remotely vs. in-office. It can be more strict or more lenient depending on how much structure your company needs.

For instance, by telling everyone they’re expected in the office 3 days a week and the other 2 wherever they please, employees can choose the days they want to be remote and reserve workspaces and collaboration areas for the days they are in the office.

Whichever hybrid mix you choose when setting up a hybrid workplace, it’s best to plan thoroughly and gain input from the people it will impact the most (the employees) right from the start.

[Learn how to create and support a post-COVID, hybrid workplace by downloading this guide.]

5 Companies That Have Embraced the Hybrid Workplace

1. Ford moved 30,000 employees to a remote-first hybrid work model. Employees will now do independent work at home and use the office for group projects and meetings and assignments that require in-person interaction.

2. Citigroup is embracing a 3-2 hybrid model for most of its employees. With branch workers still onsite and some roles remaining 100% remote, the rest of Citigroup’s employees will work three days in an office and the remaining two at home.

3. Google is also following the 3-2 model and will start testing their flexible workweek when they begin their return to the office in September.

4. Target is one of the first major businesses to use the pandemic disruption to save money on real estate. They closed one of their three downtown Minneapolis offices and embraced hybrid work. Employees that were at that location will now have a “home base” at one of the other two buildings and will get to choose between in-office and remote days.

5. Microsoft is returning to the office in stages and once they reach the final stage, they will finalize their new hybrid work model. Flexible roles with manager and team alignment will work from home part of the time (less than 50%).

These large companies are all embracing hybrid work but what about smaller companies?

Does a Hybrid Workplace Work for Small/Medium-Sized Companies?

As a member of a small company, I can tell you it does! Before the pandemic, we were working on a hybrid model by employee. My manager and I worked in the office together Monday-Wednesday and at home Thursday and Friday. A lot of our Product Managers followed the remote-first approach only coming to the office for weekly department meetings and collaboration exercises.

And all that was made possible because we put digital-first and used our own workplace reservation software to reserve the space we needed when we were in the office and updated our statuses when we were working elsewhere.

Up Next: The Changes and Support Your Hybrid Workplace Needs

With your hybrid strategy in mind, your next step in creating a hybrid workplace is ensuring you have the communication, training, management, workplace, and culture to support it. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered in this blog post.

If you’re in charge of the safe return, check out our back to the workplace page and download our guide to the post-COVID, hybrid workplace.

Article originally published here: https://agilquest.com/creating-a-hybrid-workplace/ on May 5, 2021

Grab the Guide to the Post-Covid, Hybrid Workplace (written and designed by me.)