08 Mar
How can Intranet help in building the hybrid workplace?
Pandemic has led the businesses to adopt remote work culture which no one has ever imagined. Organizations were forced to switch to work from home using the available collaboration tools overriding the traditional work style. Though it was a challenge initially, employees got accustomed to the new working patterns, flexibility to work round the clock, and comfortable working. Also, INAA studies show that nearly 83% of workers feel that the opportunity to work from home would make them happier in their job. Most of the businesses started the remote culture as an experiment and eventually made it a reality.
Currently, companies are strategizing hybrid work involving both remote homes and work from the office. Most of them are ready to get back on track with a phase-wise return, considering safety as the utmost priority. The traditional style of working, on the other hand, has its benefits too. It’s a proven way for effective collaborate, maintain work-life balance, in-person meetings, etc., for ages. Like a coin has two faces, both the work cultures have their pros and cons. Organizations are more inclined towards hybrid work considering the global impact and change brought in by the pandemic. Businesses can leverage the benefits of both styles of working parallelly to bring the best out of the workforce.
What is Hybrid Workplace?
The hybrid workplace model is an optimal mix of remote and working from office premises. It is an outcome of the chaos of pandemic restrictions that offers flexibility and envisages productivity. This workstyle enables one to enjoy the ease at home with the collaborative features of the traditional workplace. Employees enjoy the liberty and autonomy to decide when to work and where. It allows them to fit work around their lives rather than structuring work around office hours. Also, this style of working enables to hire a pool of talent globally where employees may even work in different time zones during their productive hours. Besides prioritizing employee convenience, a hybrid workplace is economical as organizations can save a lot in office maintenance and infrastructure costs. There are fewer interruptions in this working style which leads to a smooth and hassle-free workflow. One can have a good work-life balance by no longer having to bear the cost of a time-consuming commute and have an employee-friendly workplace. The whole idea to implement a hybrid workplace model is the future of how enterprises are going to function in the long run.
What does the workforce want?
According to the survey by QuestionPro on behalf of Stanford University, 55% of US workers want a mix of office and remote working. Also, a recent study says that 62% of Google workers do not want permanent work from the office. They want to work at home or office at their convenience.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, says he does not see 100% remote work in the future.
To fit into different opinions and requirements, companies are ready to embrace the hybrid workplace model.
Benefits of Hybrid Workplace model:
- Flexibility: Hybrid workforce model will enable the employees to work in the office or home as they see fit. Employees do not have to log in for stipulated office hours instead they can work during their productive hours.
- Commute issue: Commuting to work every day is excruciating. A hybrid workplace model adds flexibility where employees no longer have to rush to the office by a stipulated time each day. Reduced stress levels, traffic, and congestion will be an added advantage to the employees.
- Online Recruitment: Recruiting offline is no longer mandatory. Employees do not necessarily have to be chosen from a specific geographic location as the hybrid workplace model offers the workforce to work anywhere at their convenience. Organizations with an optimal mix of office and remote work will have a larger pool of talent as they will not be hiring professionals from a specific location.
- Build a resilient culture: Hybrid Workplace preps organizations to build a resilient culture for any future lockdowns. Organizations having a remote workforce already can quickly adapt to full remote collaboration if the situation demands.
How can Intranet help to build a Hybrid Workplace Model?
With so many intranet features, it has become an essential part of an organization to evolve into new ways of working. Organizations around the globe use intranets for better engagement, communication, increase knowledge management, innovation, efficiency, and resilience. Modern intranets take this one step ahead to uphold the essence of the hybrid workplace model.
- Connects employees globally: Modern Intranets are the best aid for hybrid workplace culture. Connecting with the employees scattered across the globe, commuting in, and working remotely with various remote collaboration tools within the software is no longer a problem. Also, while working, an employee needs to have the right set of productivity apps to engage and collaborate from anywhere.
- Centralized digital workplace: Intranets with centralized experience will be a boon to the employees. Remote collaboration tools and business applications are integrated into one place to provide easy access to the employees working from home or office. They can access business-related materials, company policies, news, rich content, and much more located at the front from anywhere across the world. Intranets will ensure a smooth and easy experience for the skeletal staff and also for the remote workforce.
- Improves communication: Intranets are one of the best solutions for organizations to boost interdepartmental communications. It not only focuses on socializing but ensures that employees are well informed about their company updates, policies, and recent announcements. It is the best platform for dispersed users to drive internal communication, collaboration, and improve the social experience as every employee has access to the intranet platform from the device of their choice.
- Ideation platform: The biggest challenge for a hybrid workplace model is to gather ideas. Also, there is no such specific place or time for the employees to have their eureka moment. Since employees are scattered, it is equally important to put forward their ideas at that instant. Modern intranets have an ideation platform where employees can post their ideas, discuss and comment on the existing ones to unlock collective knowledge. It is an ideal platform for the hybrid workforce to start a discussion, collect and share their ideas.
- Easy Onboarding: Onboarding employees and making them feel valued is a challenging part of the employee lifecycle. Intranets make the scattered employees feel connected and experience the company’s culture by serving as a host to a wide range of training, introductory videos, blogs, etc. It also explains organizational core values to the employees leaving behind a great impression on the work culture.
- Virtual Watercooler: Intranet allows the employees to take a break from their tight work schedules and offers a platform to get indulged in non-work-related chats with their colleagues irrespective of their location. Whether it is about the weekend plans, catching up a topic on sports, or even the weather? It is important to know your colleagues in a more personal way that strengthens relationship and helps yourself to relax for a while, without the focus being on work. Water-cooler moments are highly beneficial, it keeps the employees happy, engaged and fosters a positive company culture.
Summing up:
The pandemic has empowered us to re-structure the work culture and the opportunities to optimize it. The hybrid workplace model is a mixture of office and remote work, allows employees to choose a comfortable style of working. It is highly economical as organizations save a lot due to a reduction in infrastructure and maintenance costs. Intranets fill the void by keeping their employees posted with news, policies, announcements, and enable discussions, etc. Intranet ensures the hybrid workplace model unfolds at a natural pace that drives engagement and productivity.
We, at Acuvate Software, are focused on helping our clients to communicate, collaborate and share knowledge effectively through our digital workplace accelerator solution, “Mesh 3.0”
Mesh 3.0. ready to deploy, digital workplace accelerator platform brings the best out of Microsoft AI technologies. It uses modern intranet features that include:
- Personalization and recommendation– This brings up all relevant information, documents, updates in reference to employee’s activities, job profile, interests, etc.
- Centralized Information Hub: It acts as a one-stop store to access business-related documents, news, company policies, updates, success stories, rich content, and also it ensures greater visibility to the individual talent and skills within the department.
- Cognitive Search: This intelligent search uses the Microsoft Azure platform to bring highly relevant search results.
- Idea management: Mesh comes with a platform where employees can put forward their innovative business ideas and it also enables them to add a suggestion, comment, discuss the existing ideas.
Want to know more about Mesh, please feel free to get in touch with our AI and digital workplace expert to get a personalized demo.
Download the Return to Workplace Checklist eBook, to know about the return to workplace strategy.
Poonam Chug is AVP - SaaS Strategy & Business. She has worked in various areas, right from designing and executing sales & account management strategies to reengineering digital workplace solutions. With her determined focus on our mission and progressive approach, she has achieved customer delight in the space of AI, Knowledge Mining, Content & Collaboration, Virtual Assistants, RPA and more. Backed with a deep understanding of customer needs and technology, she leads the SaaS business unit with an upshot of maximizing revenue while ensuring customer satisfaction.
Poonam Chug