Companies today face a number of unprecedented challenges. As the digital economy continues to expand, enterprises must evolve and transform their businesses in order to stay competitive.
In an effort to remain relevant, many companies are turning to the hybrid working model. These companies combine a remote work environment with employee face-to-face meetings in order to provide employees with a more flexible work environment.
But this transition won’t be easy. To succeed, organizations need to adopt the right IT management tools.
What is a hybrid workplace?
A hybrid workplace is a combination of remote work and centralized communication. This model allows employees to choose how they want to communicate and collaborate.
Employees can choose to work remotely as often as they want, while still being able to collaborate on projects and interact with their colleagues in-person as needed.
Microsoft 365 suite
Microsoft’s latest offering — Microsoft 365 — is built for hybrid working, and integrates both remote and on-site work environments. It’s the perfect solution for managers who are looking for the right software to manage their hybrid working teams.
The software suite comes under three main categories: productivity, security, and collaboration. It’s designed to make employees more productive by enabling them to work from anywhere in the world as well as on-site workplace locations.
Microsoft 365 is designed for users to access their email, calendars, contacts, OneDrive files, and more without having to worry about data caps or connectivity issues.
The suite includes chat-based app Teams, data backup apps OneDrive, work productivity apps Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, email app Outlook, and many other tools and features developed with remote and hybrid working in mind.
Other key benefits of Microsoft 365 include cross-device support and modern security features, including threat protection, identity protection, and secure data encryption.
With Microsoft 365’s strong tools, managers will know exactly what workflows need attention by getting a snapshot of everything happening during the day.
Scheduling software
Integrating scheduling software with a hybrid work environment is essential. Remote workers need a way to communicate with one another, while providing managers and employees with a way to see what projects and tasks are available and due.
Scheduling software like Calendly or Microsoft Teams combines customer facing websites into scheduling tools which can be used by multiple individuals in order to accommodate various schedules such as just-in-time or time sheets for hourly jobs.
Easy communication
Tools and apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Skype allow for quick and easy communication regardless of each person’s location. The apps include text, voice, video, and screen-sharing, so they can be use for professional meetings with multiple people, or casual one-on-one chats.
Microsoft Teams allows you to quickly and easily communicate, collaborate, and share content with your staff in real time, either via voice calls and video calls, or via instant messages.
Teams’ flexible architecture allows users to create groups based on the needs and uses of each group. As the admin, you can create groups based on projects and workflows to ensure easy collaboration between team members.
Cloud-based management suites
A cloud-based management suite provides a single, centralized location for managing your hybrid environment. Cloud-based management suites allow you to manage everything from one virtual desk, including your virtual assets, users, and devices.
These types of suites will give you access to the right tools, processes, and systems in one central location. This eliminates complexity of managing multiple technologies with disparate data sources because everything can be managed from one place through seamless integration into an enterprise database or CRM system.
Asana
Asana is a cloud-based task management tool that helps teams collaborate on projects and track their progress. Its cloud-based architecture ensures users’ data is safe and secure, allowing them to access their tasks from any device with an internet connection.
The app’s online interface provides a centralized location for teams to track their projects, assign tasks and track progress. Users can also create projects with their team that span multiple departments, helping to foster a culture of collaboration.
Asana’s analytics tools also provide key performance indicators (KPIs) on how projects are progressing, helping teams stay on track and identify bottlenecks.
Find the right management tools
Choosing the right IT management tools for your hybrid working environment can be a daunting task. With so many options available, and so many changes taking place in the industry, it can be difficult for organizations to keep up.
The IT experts at Technology Solutions can help you find the right software to securely and efficiently manage your hybrid working teams. Talk to them today about your business requirements and discover the right solutions.
To me, it’s clear that hybrid work is here to stay for the long term or probably forever. I don’t see it going any other way and why would it? Companies get better efficiency because most employees like working from home and getting more time with their families. So companies need to invest in tools that make things easier.
With a combination of the right tools, hybrid work can lead to great results for everyone involved. It’s just a matter of testing out different tools to see what works for each company. Sometimes, it’s surprising to learn that a lesser known tool might be more appropriate for a certain company than a well known (and more expensive) tool. Always test different tools!
While I think Asana is great once I tested Monday I wouldn’t go back. It works amazingly well for our company. Asana might work very well for some companies and I still recommend it to friends and colleagues but the ease and efficiency Monday brought is unparalleled.