As businesses implement back-to-office plans, more workers are expressing their interest in flexible work arrangements. In a survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore, half of respondents said that flexible work arrangements should be the new norm at workplaces. In fact, some respondents even said they would consider quitting if they were asked to return to the office on most days.

To retain their workforce and to get the best out of them, businesses should consider hybrid work arrangements, where some employees work from the office and others remotely.

But when employees are distributed between offices, homes and other locations, their productivity and that of the business as a whole, can take a hit. One study of 10,000 skilled professionals at a large Asian tech company found that the productivity of those working from home fell by up to a fifth. They were working longer hours, but their output fell, partly because they were just having more meetings.

How can businesses enable hybrid working arrangements without compromising on overall productivity? Here are some useful tips and best practices.

Schedule only essential meetings

When some employees are not working from the office, managers may feel the need to check in on how they are doing at home. This can be counterproductive as it may take time away from their actual tasks.

A good practice is to have one organisation-wide video call every week and restrict other meetings to only when necessary. It may also be worth exploring initiatives such as “no-meeting days”, say on a Friday, so employees can focus on getting through all their tasks. 

Encourage focus time for those working from home

Distractions can be a major productivity killer for those working away from the office.

One of the drawbacks of hybrid arrangements is that employees may find it hard to focus on tasks when others working on the same project are based in the office. 

Apps like Pomofocus and Tomato Timer that encourage focused work for short sessions of around 20 minutes each can be helpful as a start. Omnifocus and Toggl are other similar apps with more features for project management and team planning. Some organisations are also taking this further by having employees join together in a virtual coworking session, using tools like Focusmate.

Make it easy for employees to be reachable

Keeping your entire team aligned and communicating seamlessly can be a challenge when they are distributed between locations. Employees in the office may use the landline as a habit while those at home could be using their personal mobile phones. Some may also prefer to write short text messages, while others may be comfortable speaking on the phone.

Switching back and forth between these platforms and devices can lead to miscommunication, delays, errors and a drop in productivity in the long run. For example, a customer service officer working from home may have to simultaneously respond to messages from management, call on-field sales officers at their mobile and the landline of other team members in the office. This becomes even more challenging for some employees who have to commute between locations during work, like sales executives do between client meetings.

A unified communication platform can resolve this by bringing together all work-related communications in one place. Singtel Teams UC Direct Connect does exactly this, by allowing employees to make or receive landline calls with their office numbers using the Microsoft Teams app on their mobile phones or tablets. This allows calls from Teams users to others, including PSTN calls, without the need to set up a separate IP PBX system.

Allow for smooth collaboration at work

In an office setting, collaborating on projects used to be relatively straightforward. If for example, a team of five was working on a project, they could discuss project updates face to face, talk with each other before editing documents and show where certain files or folders are located in person. Getting together for meetings for quick discussions too was just a matter of announcing in the office.

In a hybrid setting, team members may be using their own preferred apps or tools for each, or they may have different versions installed on their home computers. They may even have to switch back and forth between applications, one for email updates, one for organising files, one for listing their tasks, and another for editing documents. Even for arranging meetings, they may all have their own preferred video conferencing applications.

To avoid delays and inefficiencies resulting from these differences, it is crucial for businesses to make collaboration seamless by choosing one single platform for collaboration. Here too, a solution like Microsoft 365 Business can be helpful, as it brings together email, document editing and spreadsheets, video calls using Teams as well as OneDrive storage of 1 TB onwards. If you add Teams UC Direct Connect to this, you will also be able to make PSTN calls from the familiar Teams interface.

Break down knowledge silos

When there are too many tools for employees to use, finding the essential info can be time consuming. For example, to prepare quotes with costs and timelines for a client, a sales executive might have to look up info about the client, the latest pricing sheets, timelines of previous projects and other key company decks. In an office setting, it may not be that difficult to find everything as the personnel in charge of each of these pieces of information may be at an arm’s length.

But when some workers are away from the office in a hybrid setting, it can be time consuming to collate everything. Having all this information stored in one central location accessible remotely by all employees helps them avoid delays and be more productive, no matter where they work from. This could be a centralised folder in Microsoft Teams, or OneDrive, with categories for general company info, clients list, costs and finance related aspects as well as past projects. 

Hybrid work arrangements can be extremely beneficial for businesses that want to give their employees more flexibility. But this doesn’t have to come at the cost of a drop in business productivity. With the right communication and collaboration tools, SMBs can retain and motivate their employees while also driving productivity and growth.