As the pandemic starts to ease and the world slowly starts coming back to life, businesses breathe a sigh of relief. Staff are no longer required to work from home, people are visiting stores again, and everything is gently returning back to normal. However, not everything is as peaceful as it seems. After a fight for survival over the pandemic, businesses are now being faced with a new challenge that they were never prepared for: getting their teams back into the workplace with COVID still in circulation and trying to do it in an organized manner.
Hybrid working, however, is a blessing for some companies. The idea of employees coming into the office on some days and working from home on others is excellent for keeping numbers in the offices down, and it also means that businesses can expand and employ more people than an office can hold.
Businesses all over America are slowly beginning to see the advantages of hybrid working. Here is how you can change your business to cater to it correctly.
Use the Correct Software
Using the right software is great for businesses with employees working from home and from the office. Hybrid working, therefore, is no different. But this is a lot more than simply using Microsoft suites and an intranet. You are going to need specialist software to get the best results and ensure that your employees can still achieve their usual standards whether they are in or out of the office and that they are not swaying between good and average output.
With that in mind, here is some software that should help you.
- Team Management Software – Team management software helps effective communication. It can be a great way to help your business to continue to run smoothly when workers are in and out of the office. It can help people remain on task and focused within their roles, which is, needless to say, something that needs to happen when you can’t keep an eye on them in the office. This can be a great way to increase their understanding of their jobs and the project they are working on as a whole, as well.
- Review and Approval Software – This is really good for making sure that you are getting the absolute best out of a product. It helps with production and keeping in contact with your client, no matter where you are. It can also help teams work together smoothly on the same project, which can be incredibly useful when it comes to delivering results to customers on time. However, when choosing this software, there are many features to consider, and if the software doesn’t meet your expectations, you should most definitely try another.
- Cloud Software – Using the cloud is one of the best ways that you can help your hybrid workers. They can access your companies cloud from wherever they are and can get to work immediately. Best of all, the cloud is incredibly flexible, meaning that you can get up to date on files and edit what you need to at short notice. This can be a huge help to your business and the way that it is run. You can also invest in cloud protection and security services, meaning that you can access additional services to what you already have, giving your files some added security against cybercriminals trying to get into your company cloud.
Other Helpful Tips
Software is a huge part of hybrid working. However, there are some other ways that you can help your hybrid workers really get the most out of working both from home and in the office.
Here are some tips on how you can do this.
- End-user training – End-user training is something that is extremely useful when you are working both from home and from the office. It can be a really useful tool if you are worried about some of your workers making silly mistakes, such as opening phishing emails or falling victim to social engineering attempts. It can be a good way to help keep your employees safe and keep them protecting your business and clients, too.
- Hot Desking – As mentioned before, hybrid working allows a company to expand beyond the limitations of its office. This allows for something called hot desking. This allows multiple employees to have one desk, which is used on a rota based on when a certain employee is in the office. This is incredibly useful for a business that might not have enough funding to cater to the number of employees they have taken on or even those who live too far away to make the commute daily.
- The Right Tech – Using the right tech is really important for hybrid workers. Especially when it comes to items like laptops, laptops can be the saving grace for any business owner and their hybrid working staff. Laptops are lightweight, transportable, and easy to store, meaning that your workers can keep their work laptops at home easily. They can also be a cheap investment, which can help your business save money. Laptops are also really dependable too, and with good care, they can last over five years, which can be incredibly useful if your business has a high employee retention rate.
A Few Final Thoughts
The pandemic has brought many challenges to businesses. Now it brings another, which might even be a blessing in disguise. It can be hard to wrap your head around, but hybrid working can have its upsides more than its downs. It allows companies to expand further through hot-desking; it can be cheaper for companies and help protect them.
It also means that they can invest in new and better software, which can be used in and out of the office and on a non-location specific basis. Hybrid working brings a lot of benefits to the workplace; however, it can be a bit awkward to cater for it.