Hybrid work has gained a lot of prominence in recent times, especially after the end of social distancing. This model integrates the home office as well as the face-to-face work, which allows greater productivity and quality of life for all employees, as well as maintaining a level of socialization among people. As a result, hybrid work is a global phenomenon and has gained preference among employees in most of the companies worldwide. According to the second part of Microsoft’s annual report on work trends, titled “High Expectations: Enabling Hybrid Work to Work”, this transition preference to hybrid work by employees who currently work remotely is 57%.
With the return to the office, a very common challenge became the management of the workspace, especially in the hybrid model, as it is necessary to reconcile the scale of people and available space in the workplace. With this content, you will know the challenges of this resumption for the office and how to facilitate your management process, through effective tools and solutions.
What you will see in this content:
- The importance of managing your company’s workspace
- Workspace challenges and how to solve them
- Work management tools
The importance of managing your company’s workspace
With the pandemic, many employees had to adapt and adhere to the home office work model, experiencing a completely different routine from the one they lived when they worked in person. Currently, with the return to the work environment, especially in the hybrid model, this routine requires a new workspace management, as it is usually a new situation for the entire company.
To manage this workspace, it takes a lot of organization and meeting the needs of employees and the company. When analyzing the effect of this management, the return is very satisfactory and below we highlight the importance of having a well-defined workspace management:
Productivity Increase
Productivity in the work environment is associated with several factors and one of them is about the functionality of the workplace. Through an organized office, the stimulus to concentration increases, making employees more productive, which generates gains for all sides.
In addition, the work model itself also impacts productivity. As per the Microsoft report, 80% of workers surveyed said they have continued or become more productive since their jobs became remote or hybrid.
Being in a comfortable environment that encourages productivity can also impact employee motivation, as they feel more productive and are able to perform a better job.
Avoid conflicts
Conflicts in organizational environments are likely to happen, but many of them can be avoided through good management. Regarding the workspace itself, to avoid these conflicts, it must be a functional and organized environment, with well-established policies. With this done, it prevents conflicts, generates good collaboration between teams and also optimizes employees’ time.
A very common conflict is in relation to the use of meeting rooms, generating friction due to lack or failure to schedule spaces, causing groups of people not to be able to carry out their activities or spend time looking for another available space. Another conflict that happens especially in hybrid work is in relation to the scale of people who go to the office, especially when there are no rules, which can generate conflicts between employees going to work and not having space or workstation (desk and equipment) available.
These are just a few examples of conflicts that may exist in the work environment due to lack or poor management of space, which highlights the importance of defining processes and rules for the hybrid model.
Schedule Optimization
As in the cases mentioned above, conflicts, in addition to generating employee dissatisfaction with the company, also generate costs. When considering the time/schedule factor as a cost and also the misuse of spaces, it is clear how failures in the management of physical space impact the company.
To make this view more practical, a common example is about the use of meeting rooms, especially when there are no prior appointments or when these appointments fail. With this, there is the cost of time in the search or exchange for another meeting room between people.
Through the management of these spaces, in addition to making better use of available resources, it also optimizes employees’ time, as they will not have conflicts or need to seek other last-minute solutions.
Reduce physical space costs
A great advantage of hybrid work is the reduction of building costs, which include rent expenses, energy, water, food waste in cafeterias, among others, given that the company’s space can be smaller to accommodate the same number of employees, due to the office occupancy scale.
By analyzing the effectiveness of the hybrid work model and the use of physical resources, the company’s management view becomes more strategic, allowing it to make decisions that can directly impact costs, such as expanding or reducing the company’s physical space or even adopting another working model.
Employee Experience (EX)
Many employees have become familiar with the work-from-home model and, when returning to the office, a good part opts for hybrid work – according to Microsoft research, this preference is in 57% of respondents who work remotely and consider a transition to the hybrid model next year.
Allied to this, another interesting fact is that 38% of global employees who already work in the hybrid model say that the biggest challenge is in understanding when and why they should meet in person at the office. In other words, there is a preference for the hybrid model, but it must be well structured in the company, bringing clarity to everyone. In this way, employee satisfaction tends to increase, as it combines a more flexible work model that works in everyday practice.
Workspace challenges when adopting the hybrid model and how to solve them
The hybrid work model is quite new for the Brazilian market, which creates several challenges and, therefore, requires an action plan for certain situations. With that in mind, we have separated some challenges that can happen in your company and how they can be solved:
Access with sanitary control
With the pandemic, health concerns became even stronger, especially with Covid-19, due to its power of transmission through the air. According to the report, 71% of Brazilian respondents said they are more likely to prioritize health and well-being over work these days, compared to the period before the pandemic.
To ensure the safety of employees, a practice that has become common is to check the temperature and health conditions or vaccination card of employees and visitors, in addition to the use of masks. These conditions vary according to government and company rules, but they should be considered important when returning to blended work, so that it generates more security and well-being for people.
Employee well-being
This challenge is imminent in any working model, but the hybrid requires some extra care as it is a newer experience. According to Microsoft research, the well-being of employees is also linked to the level of relationship with the team: people who have good relationships report better well-being – this percentage is 76%, while only 57% of those who have bad relationships report well-being. In addition, the research also shows that people who have good relationships also report higher productivity and are less likely to change jobs in the next year. Therefore, these factors are extremely important and must be considered during work management.
As a solution, it is important to evaluate the satisfaction of employees in the day to day in the company and also in relation to the way of working, understanding if the processes and the way they are being managed are to the satisfaction of the team. In this scenario, evaluate the routine of employees and the best way to match the days they need to be in the office, analyze the use of common spaces and how this is being managed.
It is also important to evaluate the equipment to carry out the work, considering what should be taken to the office and how to accommodate employees in the space – at this point, consider the ergonomics of tables and chairs and also the accessories and equipment that need to be transported between home and office. work, as they can wear items with employees.
In addition, consider other motivation and productivity practices, such as gymnastics, integration meetings, happy hours and awards. The interesting thing about these activities is that they can be done both in person and remotely.
Work schedule
How will the scale work on face-to-face days? Will it be defined by departments, tasks or projects?
Having a scale set up based on the company’s needs and priorities is extremely important, as it ensures better productivity and integration between employees, avoids conflicts and reduces costs for the company.
For this, plan with the area managers the best way to exercise this scale and create processes. In addition, it is also important to have some flexibility for employees, after all, they also need to adapt to the new routine.
Shared spaces
As seen earlier, common spaces are great ways to develop activities and integrate teams, but they can also generate conflicts if poorly managed.
In order to guarantee a better effectiveness of the spaces of the workplaces, the advance scheduling ends up becoming a very effective solution, so that everyone who wants to occupy that space can plan better.
By having this practice of scheduling workspaces, especially meeting rooms, the company is able to make better use of spaces – considering the size of the room in relation to the number of people -, making meetings more productive within the allotted time and also avoid conflicts of room change or undue occupation.
Misuse of space
A very common challenge in relation to workspace is the misuse of the place. For example, a meeting room with 20 chairs is not well utilized if it is being used by just one person or a small group, considering that there are other spaces or another meeting room that meets this demand. As a management, the misuse of this space becomes costly for the company.
Another consideration of hybrid work is not taking better advantage of other spaces that are “left over” in the environment when adopting the model, as may be the case with places that were intended to allocate employees and are now not being used. A suggestion for this is to generate interaction places or meeting rooms, which becomes more effective.
Thus, to make better use of work environments, the ideal is to allocate activities and scales of use according to the purpose of each space. With this, environments can be adapted to the best needs of the company, avoiding costs and motivating employees with a better use of the workplace.
Effective management
Another challenge of hybrid work is managing the effectiveness of this work model for your company. As this is a new situation, this monitoring requires even more attention.
To have greater clarity on the functioning of the hybrid work model, the ideal is to measure the effectiveness of both situations: home office and face-to-face, because only with this management will it be possible to make strategic decisions for next steps, such as renting another office or reducing the space. For this, it is necessary to understand the needs of employees, the effectiveness of use of physical space, the scale method used, the relationship between the home office and the face-to-face, among other important points. With this data in hand, workspace management becomes much more effective.
Internal processes
For the management of a company to work well, processes and rules are fundamental, as seen above, and they continue to prevail when adopting hybrid work, through the need to adapt to the model. The challenge is to create processes for the days of in-person work and also for the days of remote work, including linking these situations.
These internal processes can be applied, for example, in the case of the scale of employees for face-to-face work, such as having days defined by departments, in scheduling rooms, with rules according to the capacity of the place and with minimum anticipation of scheduling, in regarding the equipment that should or should not be taken to the office, on the integration with the face-to-face and remote team, especially meetings and common activities, among other situations.
With this well defined, document and make clear communication about the processes to all employees.
Work environment planning
In the case of physical space, the organization of the environment becomes extremely necessary for the good locomotion of people and also for the organization of the space itself, but this is a challenge for the hybrid model, as people and departments are circulating in Every other day.
For all this to work well, a highly recommended option is to actually design the organizational space and thus plan the environment in an effective way for everyone, considering the work tables, corridors for locomotion, meeting and rest rooms. It is also very important to take into account the external environment, such as parking.
Tools for managing the workspace
Technology greatly facilitates and helps the office management process, as it allows for more ease and practicality in people’s daily lives, optimizing time and reducing costs in other areas.
Check out some important tools that can help in this process:
Agendas
A great option to assist in booking meeting rooms is agendas. Probably the email service used in your company should have a calendar available and this is a great tool. To use it, make the room schedule visible to everyone and clearly establish scheduling rules among all employees. Great options are Google Calendar and Microsoft 365.
Worksheets
Most likely you already use spreadsheets in your daily life and, to help with the scale of employees who will go to the office, this tool is also a great ally. Define scale rules, which can be by departments, projects, positions or other ways that make the most sense for the company. Combine these rules with the number of places available in the office, in a way that helps the work of the people who are present on the established days.
As it is a manual scale, a tip is to always follow the spreadsheet and periodically evaluate the effectiveness of this scale.
Maintenance report
Another tool that helps manage the workspace is for a maintenance report system, especially for systems and equipment demands. There are options available in the market, but the company can also develop its own tool, according to its needs.
This type of tool is important for centralizing maintenance and communication, evaluating costs and optimizing time, both for requesters and agents who carry out repairs.
Access control
As discussed earlier, one of the challenges is to ensure safety also in relation to the health of employees for this period after the end of social isolation. For this, one option is to have a tool that controls access at the entrance of the company, both for employees and visitors. In addition to ensuring safety, a tool allows for more agility in this process as a whole, facilitating the day to day and also optimizing the time of those involved.
Dashboards and detailed reports
To have a strategic view of workspace management, the first step is to understand the data generated. For this, there are some tools that evaluate performance and generate reports. Great options are Excel charts themselves and also Power BI.
With this data, decision making is facilitated and becomes more assertive, generating a positive impact on the company.
Centralized tool for managing hybrid work
For a more complete management, in an automatic, practical way and with data analysis report, Skedway is a centralized tool that allows the scheduling of meeting rooms, workstations and parking spaces, also having access control functions to the building and opening calls. The differential of using this tool is due to the practicality of carrying out all these actions in a single tool and also generating reports with information crossing, which allows an analysis of the use of spaces for managers. With this strategic view of the company, decision-making implies reducing costs with other tools, optimizing employee time and evaluating the hybrid model, generating insights into employee engagement, company processes and even building costs, such as expanding or downsizing the workplaces.
Thus, the hybrid work model needs a management of the functional space so that all activities take place in a satisfactory and organized way, avoiding conflicts and optimizing resources. With this well defined, the model will be better used by employees and the company, generating benefits for all.
