Goals of increased employee productivity and cost savings are a no-brainer in today’s digitally transformed business landscape. As Rodney Zimmel from McKinsey Digital observes, the whole point of digital transformation isn’t exactly to become digital. It’s actually to drive value for the business. And that value comes from understanding clearly how to move from a physical workspace to a hybrid or a digital workplace platform. 

Embracing a digital workplace is crucial for businesses looking to increase productivity, enhance collaboration, and reduce costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a key accelerator of the perceptive shift to the digital workplace.

Read More: The Definitive Guide to Perfect Digital Workplace Solution

In this blog, we’ll discuss the 8 key considerations you need to make while you make the much needed transition to a digital workplace. From the benefits to caution areas, to potential pitfalls – we have the rundown.

1. The Covid-19 pandemic as a watershed movement: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for businesses to shift to a digital workplace, leading to improved efficiencies, cost savings, and a more agile workforce. According to a study by PwC, companies that adopt digital workplace technology experience a 67% increase in productivity. Additionally, Gartner estimates that the digital workplace market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.6% from 2020 to 2027, reaching $45.7 billion by 2027. Deloitte reports that businesses can save up to $11,000 per employee annually by adopting a digital workplace platform. With the rise of automation and artificial intelligence, businesses need to embrace digital transformation and stay ahead of competition. Failure to do so could result in a loss of market share and diminished profitability.
2. Investment in tools and technologies: To enable a successful digital workplace, businesses must invest in the right tools and technologies. This includes video conferencing, instant messaging, project management software, cloud storage, and more. These tools enable employees to communicate and collaborate, regardless of their location or time zone. Additionally, digital workplace tools and technologies offer companies the opportunity to enhance the employee experience, leading to better retention rates and improved employee satisfaction. Access to online training and development programs, as well as digital resources and tools for wellbeing, help employees to feel valued and supported by their employers. A case in point is Accenture, which has implemented a platform called “Collaboration 2.0.” This platform offers employees a range of tools and services to simplify and enhance collaboration and communication, including instant messaging, video conferencing, and document-sharing capabilities. Accenture has reported increased productivity and employee engagement as a result of Collaboration 2.0.
3. The need for continuous upskilling and training: As businesses shift to digital workplaces, it’s essential to upskill and train employees to use the latest technologies effectively. This can be done through online training, workshops, and mentorship programs. Upskilling employees can also boost morale and improve job satisfaction as employees feel valued and equipped with the skills to succeed in a digital workplace. A key example to highlight this is AT&T, which created a Future Ready Employee initiative aimed at providing ongoing upskilling and reskilling to workers while providing them with new career development paths. As a result, they have improved employee retention by 14% and accelerated digital transformation.
4. Cybersecurity as a crucial tenet: As businesses shift to a digital workplace, cybersecurity becomes a crucial consideration. Cyber threats such as phishing, ransomware, and malware can wreak havoc on a business’s operations, leading to data loss and financial losses. To maintain business continuity, it is important to stay wary of cyber attacks that can bring business operations to a complete halt, causing a loss in productivity and revenue.  Educating employees on cybersecurity best practices and investing in strong cybersecurity measures, such as password management and two-factor authentication, is critical in mitigating these risks.
5. Remote work as a key cost-effective driver: Remote work has become increasingly popular in recent years, with the pandemic intensifying the trend. Remote work offers many benefits, such as cost savings and increased productivity. However, managing a remote team can be challenging, requiring strong communication and collaboration tools and a clear structure for managing tasks and deadlines.
6. Change management: Shifting to a digital workplace requires a shift in thinking and behavior, which can be challenging for some employees. Change management is critical in managing resistance to change and ensuring a smooth transition. This involves involving employees in the process and providing them with the support and training necessary to adapt to the new reality. Training employees to get up to speed with the latest tools and technologies is key to successful implementation of a digital workplace platform. The risk of working in silos is also cut to a great degree if there is a cohesive change management plan that drives key resources toward a co
7. Generative AI and the future of work: The future of work is set to be increasingly digital, with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality playing a significant role. Businesses must continue to invest in digital tools and technologies to remain competitive and harness the potential benefits these technologies offer.
8. Processes and best practices: To successfully shift to a digital workplace, businesses must adopt best practices. This includes creating a digital transformation roadmap and involving employees in the process.
   1. Create a clear digital transformation roadmap: Develop a clear roadmap that outlines your goals, timeline, process, and milestones. This will ensure that everyone in your organization understands the direction of the digital transformation.
   2. Involve employees in the process: Employees are key stakeholders in the transformation process, and their involvement is crucial for the success of the project. Get them involved in brainstorming sessions, focus groups, testing, and feedback.
   3. Secure buy-in from leadership: Secure the buy-in from senior leadership to ensure that the transformation receives the necessary resources and support. This will demonstrate the importance of the project and its impact on the organization’s growth.
   4. Evaluate and choose the right digital tools and platforms: Carefully choose the digital tools and platforms that fit your organization’s needs and culture. Ensure that the tools provide the required features and functionality to achieve your goals.
   5. Train and support employees: Ensure that your employees have appropriate training and support throughout the transformation process. Provide training for new tools and processes to improve their adoption and comprehension.
   6. Measure the success of the transition: Regularly review the progress of the transformation using metrics that are relevant to your goals. Assess the results and adjust plans where necessary to achieve intended outcomes.
   7. Ensure data security and privacy: Implement appropriate data security measures to protect data and comply with applicable laws and regulations.
   8. Simplify processes and eliminate redundancies: Use the transformation to simplify processes and eliminate redundancies. This will optimize the use of resources and reduce costs.
   9. Foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement: Encourage innovation and continuous improvement in your organization by creating a culture that promotes creativity, experimentation, and learning.
   10. Communicate effectively: Communicate the transformation plans and progress consistently and openly with all stakeholders, partners, and employees. This will ensure that everyone is aware of the efforts and the benefits of the transformation.

In addition to this, the implementation of best practices needs to be reviewed to get a tangible measure of success. Therefore, defining key performance indicators against very specific goals is crucial in ensuring the transition is successful.

Read more: Role of a Digital Workplace Platform in Hybrid Workplace

In conclusion, the shift to a digital workplace is essential for any business looking to remain competitive in an increasingly digital world. The benefits of enhanced collaboration, increased productivity, and cost savings are significant, but the transition requires careful planning, investment in the right tools and technologies, and upskilling and training employees. 

To know more about how InfinCE can take your business to new heights, connect with our experts today!

Despite the soaring popularity of virtual meetings since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers point toward the concern that virtual meetings aren’t as effective as the traditional, in-person meetings. 

“Part of the problem might be that we’re worse at taking turns in virtual conversations than in physical ones.” (Stanford University, 2022)

“The number of meetings grew by 7.4% between June 2020 and December 2021, but the meetings were typically of low quality.” (University of Cambridge Judge Business School, 2022)

Many employees are annoyed with the amount of time lost due to technical issues, delayed meetings, irrelevant agenda, off-topic discussions, unpreparedness, and loud background noises. These challenges, however, cannot deny the fact that virtual meetings are here to stay. Gartner data shows that by 2025, 50% of all enterprise virtual events will be held on the video meeting platforms commonly used by organizations today, proving that video meetings are not likely to disappear from our workplace anytime soon.  

What does it take to run an effective virtual meeting that facilitates collaboration, engagement, and communication between in-office and remote teams? 

Common Challenges in Hosting Virtual Meetings

The use of virtual meetings in workplace can raise several concerns, some of the most commonly cited issues are discussed below:

• It can be difficult to pick up on non-verbal cues such as body language and gestures in virtual meetings. For instance, the meeting host or speaker may not be able to gauge whether other members of the meeting are puzzled, distracted or have lost interest.
• Video meetings can lead to Zoom fatigue, a unique kind of exhaustion that occurs when people participate in video meetings for an extended time period. The constant need to focus on screens, lack of breaks, and the difficulty in understanding non-verbal or social cues lead to fatigue and reduced productivity.
• Technical glitches that you have no control over, such as server or internet connection outages, microphone failure, audio problems, crashing of shared applications, or the trouble of logging into a virtual meeting. 
• Many people prefer face-to-face, in-person interaction instead of virtual team meetings. Remote team members may not get enough time to bond with each other and build formal relationships. The result can be a lack of mutual trust which, in turn, can impact your team’s productivity.
• Scheduling virtual meetings could be a challenge when you want remote teams working from multiple locations and different time zones to join the meeting at a reasonable hour.

Best Practices & Tips to Make Your Video Meetings More Effective

1. Turn your camera on during virtual calls

In a prolonged remote work environment, your employees get only little in-person face time with their colleagues, supervisors, or managers. Keeping the camera on during virtual meetings will make your video conferences more accessible, exciting, and intuitive for participants. 

By observing the facial expressions and body language of the participants during a video call, you can pick up contextual cues that are often lost over audio calls or text-based modes of communication such as chat or email. Encouraging your team members to turn on their cameras during video meetings can make them feel more connected, engaged, and productive.   

2. Use interactive tools to increase engagement

Utilizing interactive tools like polls, surveys, quizzes, and breakout rooms during virtual meetings will allow participants to get involved as if they are all in the same space.

Breakout rooms are one of the most popular features in InfinCE video meeting platform that helps create a dynamic virtual meeting experience. Meeting organizers or hosts can use the breakout rooms to divide participants into smaller groups for focused discussions and effective collaboration. 

InfinCE video meeting software allows you to create and launch polls/ quizzes during a virtual meeting and gather the responses from your participants. You can frame customized questions for your polls and see the results in real-time to make informed decisions or next steps. 

Using the Raise a Hand feature in the InfinCE video meeting platform, a participant can notify the meeting host that they want to discuss a point without disrupting the flow of the meeting. All these tools promote better participation and collaboration and provide valuable feedback to the meeting organizers.

3. Allow short breaks between each meeting

Back-to-back virtual meetings can be stressful and decrease your ability to focus and engage. Participants should be encouraged to step away from their screens and take a short break in between successive meeting schedules. It prevents stress from building up. 

Here are a few tips to make your moments of respite successful:

• View breaks away from your computer will help shift your mind and re-energize before joining the next meeting.
• A short meditation break or a simple physical activity such as a stroll will help you feel refreshed and recharged when you start your next meeting.
• Before scheduling a video call, do check if you really require a meeting to discuss the issue or if it can be solved through email, live chat, or document collaboration. 
• Make your meetings more intentional. Create and share an agenda ahead of time, think about who attends the meeting, start and stop on time, and transition to a five-minute recap at the end of the call. 
• Raise your hand, polls and quizzes, breakout rooms, and other interactive tools are great ways to keep your participants involved and elicit creative and strategic conversations.  

4. Find the right balance between virtual and in-person meetings

Despite returning to normal after the pandemic, virtual calls continue to be a staple of the daily business routines. Though virtual meetings cannot completely replace face-to-face meetings for good, they are likely to remain as a part of our working lives as most businesses adjust to a hybrid way of working. 

Here are a few tips to balance both in-person and virtual meetings:

• Choose the meeting type based on the topic or context. If you’re reaching out to a client for a quick check-in, a virtual meeting would suffice. If you want to discuss a major portfolio change or strategy adjustments, it’s better to meet in-person, if possible.
• Schedule virtual meetings and invite participants ahead of time to best manage your time and theirs, especially when you’re collaborating with remote teams located in different time zones.  
• Gauge the complexity level of the issue you’re going to discuss. If you’re tackling a thorny problem that’s difficult to comprehend or is emotionally complex, it’s better to go for an in-person meeting. 
• Finally, choose the meeting type that would be more inclusive. Consider your participants’ availability (proximity) for an in-person meeting. Check if they have a tight schedule that makes it difficult to find a common time for an in-person meeting. In this case, scheduling a virtual meeting can ensure maximum participation and inclusion.  

The Final Word

In the post-pandemic era, the workplace could mean different things for different people. With the erratic work arrangements across companies, individual teams, and industry segments, workers need video meetings more than ever.

The real challenge for employers now is to foster true collaboration in a hybrid workplace setting by balancing remote and in-office employee experiences – and a video meeting platform is the key to achieving that. 

With InfinCE, your organization can experience all the benefits and features of a modern digital workplace. Enable your team to work together from anywhere, using any device with our comprehensive virtual meeting software. Get started today.

Connect with our experts today or Request a Free Demo!

Unprecedented changes over the last couple of years have dramatically changed the way we work. Combine this with amazing technological advancement and what we have is a rather welcome change – that of mushrooming digital workplace platforms. 

Encompassing all things that employees use to go about their everyday work and collaborative tasks, digital workplace platforms typically help manage internal communications, HR tasks, and other communication needs to ensure smooth functioning of a remote workforce. 

From instant messaging apps to high-end social networks, digital workplace platforms have been gaining popularity for all the right reasons. Key factors that drive this are the market availability of new tools, technologies that are advancing by the day, and employees’  demand for greater freedom and flexibility and of course employers’ goals to offer an improved employee experience. 

In this blog, you can discover how InfinCE’s unique pricing model sets it apart as a go-to digital workplace platform.

The Conventional Pricing Model for Digital Workplace Platforms 

Typically, a conventional pricing model works as a set standard price that is built keeping the average customer in mind, precluding potential custom needs of each customer. It is built with a one-size fits all approach that seeks to address market needs as a whole rather than unique needs of every customer. This makes it economical in terms of pricing as it does not particularly factor in specific buying circumstances of customers. A conventional pricing model for digital workplace platforms does not take into account dynamic price sensitivity, or product market segmentation. 

1. Lack of customizability: A traditional pricing model for digital workplace platforms can come in the way of flexibility. It takes a cookie-cutter approach to problem solving and does not cater to specific business needs of an organization. The guiding principle to remember while you set pricing for a digital workplace platform is to realize that it’s not for yourself, but for your target customers.

2. Not anchored in customer value: A traditional pricing model for digital workplace platforms ranks low on sophistication and therefore ignores important factors such as bundling and differentiation. Since remote work platforms need to be agile, flexible, and easy-to-set up, they need to be priced appropriately.

Read more: Is Remote Work Culture Hindering Your Company Productivity & Growth?

The Benefits of a Unique Pricing Model for Digital Workplace Platforms

1. Flexibility and cost-effectiveness: One of the essentials that you should look for in a digital workplace platform is its ability to be flexible. Competitive pricing that offers a trial version before a customer signs up for a remote work platform for a long period of time is helpful to understand fitment and purpose. This flexibility allows you to avoid lost sales due to high prices or missed opportunities due to low prices.

2. Scalability: Since it is based on real-time value, a unique pricing model helps companies scale up or down quickly as and when their needs change. This pricing strategy allows businesses to adapt very quickly to the changing demands of the business landscape without losing much in the process.

3. Improved ROI: Because of the personalized approach it takes to pricing, a unique pricing model for remote work platform helps increase profits by a significant margin. It is customer-focused and tailored to fit the wants and needs of your specific customer.

Use Cases of Unique Pricing Models for Digital Workplace Platforms

Unique pricing models particularly work for those companies that are looking to make their business operations more agile. Since it is guided by a usage-based model, a unique pricing model helps companies the liberty to pay according to how they prefer to use the remote work software. Some of the companies that have gone this route are tools and technologies. 

Working with a trusted IT services provider that has a unique pricing model helps ensure that end-to-end requirements are taken care of – from equipment maintenance and on-site configurations to training and support for your in-house team.

How to Choose a Digital Workplace Platform with a Unique Pricing Model

Criteria to consider when evaluating different digital workplace platforms: The most important criteria to remember while choosing a digital workplace platform is to see how it ranks on scalability and flexibility. Since modern day business needs are ever-evolving and growing, the digital workplace platform must have a server configuration that suits your business requirements and can be scaled up or down, per your business needs. Secondly, 

Tips for choosing the best platform for your business: Based on your unique needs and business challenges, it is important that you factor in the following parameters while opting for your remote work software’s pricing model.

• Cost-effectiveness
• Flexibility
• Scalability

Read more: Top 10 Digital Workplace Platforms Your Company Can Choose From

Conclusion

Choosing the right pricing strategy is important for a business to scale their IT resources up or down based on their needs, while keeping overhead costs at bay. InfinCE, along with customizable pricing options has features to effectively operate and progress in the digital era. Enabling data security, business continuity with private IT infrastructure, instant communication channels, productivity tools and more, InfinCE makes a perfect partner to stay ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about InfinCE today. Request a free demo!

Is a Digital Workplace platform what your company needs to turn employee resignations into employee retention in today’s modern workplace? 

In today’s changing business environment, organizations must rank employee experience to improve retention rates and attract top talent. This involves creating a workplace culture that supports and values employees, providing opportunities for learning and development, and implementing processes and technologies that make it easier for employees to do their job. By strategizing employee experience in the modern workplace, organizations can improve employee retention, foster a more positive work culture, and drive business success. 

A study by Gallup shows that 48% of US employees are on a job hunt. One-third of new employees quit after about six months, according to statistics. It has been recognized that 44% of employees are stressed at work. It is vital for companies, both big and small, to focus on employee retention to maintain a stable and productive workforce. This can involve offering competitive salaries and benefits, providing opportunities for professional development and career advancement, and creating a positive and supportive work environment. 

By focusing on employee retention, companies can reduce the costs and disruptions associated with high levels of turnover and create a more positive and productive work culture.

Read more: Why Does Employee Well-being Matter in a Hybrid Work Model?

How employee experience contributes to employee retention

Research shows that in August 2022, attrition stood at 29% for the companies that put an end to working from home. In comparison, the companies that allowed remote work or hybrid work models saw only 19% attrition. According to Statista, 72% of people looking for a job believe that work-life balance is an essential factor to consider. 

Employees who do not have a work-life balance tend to burn out more quickly. Employees struggle to have a great work-life balance or even overall EX (employee experience), leading to rising employee resignations. On the other hand, for companies shifting to remote or hybrid models, tracking employee tasks and performances, providing regular training, maintaining transparency, developing trust & build a positive work environment are challenging. 

Here’s more to understanding how ineffective work environments can lead to dissatisfied employees, which can deeply impact the entire organization’s growth and performance.

1.  Lack of effective communication

The relationship between employer & employee is very fragile & can be only maintained via constant two-way communication. This makes employees feel more engaged, motivated & productive. To deliver a promising employee experience, organizations should focus on effective communication channels like video meetings, internal chats, conferences, etc.

2. Connected workplaces are turning imperative 

When employees are involved and connected, they feel valued and tend to be more productive. Maintaining transparency on project progress, sales performances, and other key metrics can help improve employee experience and strengthen their relationship with the company. Businesses can rely on custom dashboards to centralize & customize information to ensure everyone is working towards the same goals and objectives.

3. Ensuring employee well-being in hybrid work culture

When work culture is constantly changing, employees may feel uncertain about their roles and responsibilities, leading to confusion, frustration & decrease in productivity. Statistics show 46% of employees seek mental health benefits in a new job. Shifting to a digital workplace can help improve employee experience and work efficiency in hybrid and remote work cultures through seamless communication and build a culture of trust & focus with transparency.

4. Motivation & career alignment

Employees who feel supported and motivated are likelier to be engaged and motivated to do their best work. Creating a positive work culture and supporting employees’ professional growth can increase job satisfaction and retention. Offering regular training programs, mentorship, coaching, and career growth opportunities and creating supportive growth & learning environment can help employees feel valued and invested in work.

Read more: What is a Digital Workplace: A Complete Guide!

How a digital workplace contributes to improved employee experience

Digital workplaces improve connectivity, be it human-to-human, human-to-machines, or human-to-data. In today’s digital era, where work is impossible without tools, apps, and other technologies, digital workplaces ensure one can leverage them from anywhere, within any work culture. Moreover, maintaining transparency, tracking in real-time, and accessing information securely, get simpler with digital workplaces. For companies trying to stick to hybrid and remote work cultures, digital workplaces can make work collaboration and communication much smarter. Here’s more on how digital workplaces can help tackle workplace challenges and keep employees productive, motivated, and happy!

1. Improved work collaboration

In today’s digital era, you need more ways to stay connected and collaborate at work. A digital workplace, with multiple communication channels, chat facilities, and video conference options, enables employees to reach out faster to the right person, leaving no communication gaps that might hinder work or work relationships. Digital workplaces also come with a pool of productivity tools that allow employees to work together from different locations and track tasks in real-time so everyone stays on the same page at work. Improving work collaboration alone can help employees feel involved and valued at work and strengthen the employer-employee relationship.

2. Improved transparency 

The most effective way to make employees feel valued is by maintaining transparency. Keeping everyone on the same page on several matters of your project or company could get tricky, especially if employees work remotely. But digital workplaces that facilitate intuitive dashboards enable seamlessly keeping your selected employees informed on the respective projects, performance metrics, or company policies. This way, no employees would feel left out on important announcements or updated company targets and goals.

3. Keeping employees engaged

Keeping your staff engaged and motivated all the time is challenging. Along with company goals, most employees look forward to achieving personal career growth as well, the lack of which leads to resignation. With digital work platforms or workplaces, companies can seamlessly integrate training platforms to monitor employee performances and provide regular training to help staff feel encouraged and have clearly defined career paths. Such platforms and apps can also be leveraged to offer regular exercise or mind training programs for employees to keep them active, healthy, and stress-free, regardless of the work culture.

4. Bring your team together

With work cultures shifting rapidly, depending on tools and technologies at work has turned imperative. But when different employees work on separate tools and disparate systems, keeping everyone on your team together gets tricky! Digital workplaces not just bring people together but also tools and technology, enabling seamless integration and centralized management of productivity tools. What’s more effective than having one platform to store and centrally manage all the tools, tasks, and data of your entire team or company?

Read more: The Best Ways to Improve Your Digital Workplace Management

Is InfinCE the right Digital Workplace Platform for your company?

If your company is focused on achieving operational efficiency and growth through a dedicated and future-ready workforce, then InfinCE is your digital workplace platform! InfinCE makes it seamless to keep employees productive, motivated, skilled, and ready to tackle the changing workplace scenarios and challenges. Besides effective management, instant communication, enhanced work collaborations, and a pool of productivity tools, InfinCE is top-notch when it comes to data security and business transparency. Here’s a quick rundown of what makes InfinCE the ultimate digital workplace platform!

• A cloud-based, all-in-one digital workplace platform that allows you to manage multiple workflows effortlessly.
• Offers seamless  IT management from one place while ensuring the safety of data rendered.
• Custom dashboards to quickly keep track of important metrics.
• Application marketplace enabling seamless integration of third-party tools. 
• Free Guest User options.
• Business Phone System, keeping business contacts and communications smarter.
• Employee Directory, enabling everyone in your company to stay connected regardless of departments. 
• Secured and centrally managed IT Infrastructure.
• 24/7 customer support.

Besides the above-mentioned top features, InfinCE can make your brand instantly recognizable with white-label service. Establish boosted credibility and brand consistency with a custom domain, custom business email, custom branded software, personalized workplace solution, and more such white label services from InfinCE that will help provide your clients, customers, and employees an enhanced experience. 
So wait no more! Connect with our experts today, or request a Free Demo to learn more about InfinCE!

A digital workspace is the virtual equivalent of your individual workstation. It is an integrated technology framework that leverages evolving technologies to enable you to work online by providing and managing a hoard of features like apps, data, task management functionality, desktop delivery, etc., on any device, anytime. Global Workforce Study 2021 by BCG and The Network says 89% of the respondents expect their jobs to be partly remote when the pandemic ends. So, remote work is here to stay, fully or partially. 

The pandemic caused businesses worldwide to quickly adopt digital workplace solutions to prevent disruption to their workflows. What started as a move triggered by the force of circumstances later proved to be so highly productive and beneficial that most forced adopters became strong advocates of digital technologies. Adopting a digital workplace solution is the first step toward creating a digital workspace. 

Read more: 6 Tips To Guarantee Data Security in a Digital Workplace      

Essential features of a digital workspace    

1. App and desktop virtualization to provide seamless access to your remote workforce
2. Secure and hassle-free access to SaaS apps in one place
3. Easy and seamless file sharing
4. Content collaboration tools to let teams create, edit, review, and post content that can be accessed by the right people
5. Automated workflows that save time and man-hours
6. Unified endpoint management of all devices by a central management console 
7. A single sign-on that provides your employees quick and secure access to data and apps  

You can improve the productivity and efficiency of your remote workforce by choosing the right kind of digital workspace with task management functionality that matches your business needs. Hewlett Packard Enterprise defines a digital workplace as “ a virtualized form of the traditional, in-person office environment, where many elements of collaboration and productivity are performed through some combination of digital applications, cloud computing, and other technology”. 

A digital workplace solution leverages cloud technologies to integrate all the apps and services required for the internal operations of your business on a single platform so that your remote teams can seamlessly access and share data in a secure environment. Companies create unified environments to enable seamless collaboration among their systems.  

So, what is a unified environment?

A unified environment or platform is an efficient, effective, collaborative, and scalable ecosystem consisting of people, systems, and data that work in unison to meet business goals. It enables seamless collaboration among teams and offers secure data access, independent of device and location. 

Salient features of a unified platform  

1. Secure and hassle-free exchange of data between systems and apps.
2. Seamless collaboration among teams across geographies.
3. Central and controlled access to data across all access points.
4. Scalable to accommodate the changing needs of your business. 
5. Enhanced security and protection against data breaches. 

Thus, unified platforms have multiple features that help employees improve productivity and meet goals. The pandemic-induced lockdowns and new health protocols have paved the way for increased adoption of remote work among businesses worldwide. The BCG Employee Sentiment Survey 2020 reports that 75% of the 12000 surveyees are able to maintain or improve productivity on individual tasks, while 51% confirm being able to maintain or improve productivity on collaborative tasks. As working from anywhere is becoming the new pattern of work, companies are increasingly embracing digitalization to overcome the challenges of an ever-evolving business environment.  

Read more: Ensuring Digital Wellbeing With The Right Digital Workplace Platform!

So,  how does a unified environment promote remote work? 

1. Provides a central hub for all business processes, thus eliminating the need to switch between apps to get work done. Multiple modules are integrated on the centralized platform, which can be accessed on dashboards.
2. Allows users to create their own workflows sans coding. Workflows can be reconfigured or changed to meet changing business objectives.
3. Offers flexible integration of apps and data. Data updates are synchronized across all tools, thus breaking silos to enable all pervasive integrations.
4. Uses dashboards for smart reporting. Smart dashboards simplify data analysis and help track and report KPIs and other metrics.  

Digital workplace solutions thus bring together people,  processes, and cloud technologies to deliver secure, efficient, and enriched employee experiences across multiple devices and geographies. They come endowed with a host of features to help your remote teams work smarter for your business growth. 

A smart digital workplace solution will have an extensive suite of collaboration apps to help you connect with your teams faster and smarter to meet your goals. It will help you streamline communication through a series of channels like email, live chats, easy file sharing, individual and group audio/video calls, etc. Above all, you can centrally control your entire IT assets from one place and manage your information assets with ease and security. You can even leverage private business IT infrastructure custom-built to meet your end-to-end needs for enhanced security. 

If you are looking for a digital workplace solution that unifies all your business tools to increase your employee productivity, InfinCE would be your answer. The curated marketplace on the platform includes apps from multiple vendors to meet all your business needs. And what’s more, our experts can guide you through adding custom apps to the platform to increase productivity and improve the experiences of your employees. Whether creating documents, handling emails, scheduling events, or managing tasks, InfinCE’s vast library of productivity tools will help you accomplish your day-to-day activities easily and raise your workforce efficiency. 

Get in touch with our experts or take a demo to know more.   

The advent of IT fundamentally changed the way businesses operate. It empowered companies with hardware and software capabilities to manage information overload better, and their workforces upgraded their skills to manage digital devices to fast track their work. As workplace demographics changed and expanded, big companies began to increasingly digitize their business operations to stay competitive and successful, thanks to the emergence of cloud technologies. When Covid19-induced lockdown disrupted workflows, small and medium-sized companies started digitizing their business operations to remain competitive. The last two years saw on-premise systems replaced by cloud-powered technologies at a much faster pace than ever before, and digital workplaces have come to spearhead the digital transformation of businesses. 

So, what is a digital workplace? A digital workplace is a virtual workplace setting wherein your employees across all departments get to stay connected as and when they want, across geographical boundaries, on devices of their choice,  and access all data and information relevant to get their work done. The cloud-backed tools of the digital workplace platform have the capabilities to enhance your employee experiences.

So, what is employee experience? Gartner defines employee experience as “the way in which employees internalize and interpret the interactions they have with their organization and the context that underlies those interactions”. In short, it is an employee’s perception of his job. HBR Analytic Services defines employee experience as “how hard or easy it is for employees to do their best work, taking into account technical, cultural, and physical touchpoints”.

So, why is employee experience important to businesses? The digital revolution has made companies realize that engaged, collaborative, and productive employee experiences are vital to delivering excellent customer experiences. Companies have discovered that the best way to build good customer experiences is by building good employee experiences. Communication and collaboration enabled by digital workplaces are vital to building good employee experiences. Sharing data across departments and geographies has paved the way for employees to build fruitful business relationships beyond their immediate workgroups or teams. Good employee experiences create good employee engagement.

Read more: Five Myths Around Hybrid Workplaces Demystified

Your digital toolbox will have all the tools and technologies required to help your employees stay connected, thus seamlessly easing their workflows. Pandemic-induced lockdown and remote work have redefined the way companies let their employees work. The introduction of digital workplaces has caused the line between employees’ professional and personal lives to blur, enabling them to leverage the tools available on their digital workplace platforms to seamlessly communicate and collaborate with their dispersed team members virtually. A good digital workplace leverages cloud technologies to integrate all applications required for business communication and employee collaboration like email, enterprise social media tools, virtual meeting tools, CRM, file storage and sharing, HRM, etc. InfinCE is the right partner for your company’s digital aspirations, with all the applications available on a single platform!  

An efficient digital workplace like InfinCE can improve your employee experience in more ways than one! Here is how:

1. Offering an efficient remote working environment.

The Talent Tech Outlook 2022 Study says 82% of employees prefer working from home. Remote work gives employees the freedom to set their own schedules and manage their work from whichever place they like. In addition, most employees consider the time saved by avoiding daily commutes a big blessing. InfinCE is a one-stop technology solution that has efficient office tools to bring your workforce together no matter which geographical location they work from. The platform enables secure storage and quick sharing of documents too. Thus, improving your employee experience by leaps and bounds. 

2. Providing instant communication and effective collaboration tools.

InfinCE has an extensive suite of collaboration apps that eases communication and collaboration with your company’s in-house and external contacts. While remote working is undoubtedly an aspect that enhances your employee experiences. 

3. Offering your business a unified, centralized platform to access all its applications.

Businesses need to use multiple apps to manage their daily operations. InfinCE has a curated applications marketplace with a growing list of apps to choose from, providing a wide range of solutions, including CRM, CMS, and HRM, hosted in secure environments. You have the absolute liberty to choose the applications you deem are right for your business operations. Seamless integration of multiple apps on a single platform eases business operations and improves employee experiences.  

Read more: How A Collaboration Software Can Improve Productivity

4. Boosting productivity.

With InfinCE, your employees get to connect to a  custom workspace that displays information based on your preferences through flexible tiles. A branded workspace easily connects your employees and aligns them to your organization’s core values, which raises engagement and productivity. The platform has multiple productivity tools to organize and manage your data and work. Its advanced data protection features enable private storage and secure sharing of your valuable data. InfinCE is a cutting-edge digital workplace that can help your business streamline its work very efficiently and effectively. Better employee experiences lead to increased productivity.

5. Providing single sign-on accessibility.

A single sign-on provides access to all your business software and productivity tools from anywhere. 

6. Offering device independence and ensuring work continuity.

InfinCE lets you enjoy the freedom to access your entire business software from anywhere through any device and allows you to continue working from exactly where you had previously left off. The device independence feature will definitely serve to improve your company’s overall employee experience while ensuring your work continuity.  

7. Providing absolute data security.

Your data enjoys absolute privacy and security on secured private virtual servers. Advanced firewalls and encryption/password-based access controls add to the security protocols of your data. Getting to work in a virtual environment that keeps your data safe and secure is an aspect that enriches your employee experience. By adopting an efficient digital workspace like InfinCE, your business can enhance its employee experiences in many ways and nurture a work culture wherein your employees would always want to do their best and improve their performances. InfinCE endows your company with the right kind of capabilities to achieve the true digital culture, thus helping its employee experiences scale new heights, leading to increased productivity and improved customer experiences. 

Read more: Why is It Necessary to Safeguard Data Privacy in Project Management?

In the digital ecosystem, employee experiences determine productivity, which shapes customer experiences. When you choose InfinCE to spearhead your digital transformation, you get access to the platform’s numerous features, which would serve to improve your employee experiences.

Get in touch with our experts to know more about how InfinCE can enhance your employee experiences. 

We live in a hyperconnected world, one that is bogged down by excess information and multiple tasks. Task management software is needed to cut through this chaos and help a company move ahead with its projects and priorities. 

What is Task Management Software, and why does your enterprise need one? 

Task management software monitors all tasks in a project, phase by phase, right from the planning to the reporting stage. An effective task management software facilitates this process, but its role goes far beyond simply managing time or prioritizing tasks. 

In today’s AI-driven world, task management tools enable companies to automate workflows, organize deadlines, and plan multiple tasks. These are tools that give a company its edge over its competitors. Using automation, task management software can eliminate tedious and mundane tasks.  

Why do companies need task management software? According to this report, 66% of companies that use task management software conclude projects within their budget. These companies also save 28 times more money than those that don’t use these tools.  

Task management also goes beyond routine resource planning and project estimation. It helps teams build strategies to boost productivity, work efficiently and stick to deadlines. It also extends to delegation because there are so many moving parts to this process. 

Task management tools are even more important in a post-COVID world. The pandemic forced companies to shift to remote or hybrid work environments. The future of the workplace is hybrid. This has increased the need for online collaboration tools. Remote work has scattered employees across locations and work shifts. A company’s task management software also doubles as its information hub, the center of each project’s multiple activities and tasks. A common and comprehensive platform is needed to integrate multiple activities in real-time.   

Read more: The Need for Seamless Business Integration in the Digital Era

How to choose an ideal task management software for your company?

When choosing a task management software for your company, you should outline your processes and goals. Of course, these priorities may differ with each company. But there are four criteria you can focus on choosing the right task management software to get an edge over your competitors.

1. Understand your task management needs as a company

Make sure you understand what exactly your company needs from task management software. What challenges do you encounter when it comes to organization and productivity? Are the employees not engaged enough due to the lack of a seamless communication system? Is there much disorganization among employees? Identify the pain points and current problems in the way your employees work. You can then work on finding the task management software that solves all these problems for you. 

2. Look for software with the best collaboration tools

When it comes to task management software, collaborative tools and capabilities are critical to the functioning of the company’s teams and the execution of their projects. In a world where remote and hybrid work cultures are here to stay, you should choose task management software that helps your employees work on the same page. In today’s market, innovation steers a company ahead of the others. Innovation needs collaboration is multifaceted and fundamental ways. Look for task management software with excellent and intuitive collaboration tools, including enhanced data security to prevent data breaches. InfinCE, for instance, has a comprehensive suite of collaboration apps. 

Today, companies have real-time collaboration or multiple employees contributing to the same report from different locations. Unlike traditional collaboration, real-time collaboration tools should be varied and multifaceted. They should enable and simplify complex real-time interactions. 

Read more: How A Collaboration Software Can Improve Productivity

3. Check for superior project planning features  

Look for task management software that allows you to plan your projects efficiently and also offers real-time updates on activities and collaborations. With project planning features, you can get updates about every task from start to finish. This also extends to how many features the software has when it comes to structuring each project and its subsequent tasks. The software also needs to make room for flexibility. The task management software should be agile and efficient.  

4. Choose software that syncs with other tools 

How well does your task management software integrate with other tools, including your company’s existing set of tools? It is important to choose software that is compatible with other productivity tools – task management apps like calendar apps, emails, spreadsheets, chats, and more. This is crucial because if you don’t check to make sure how the task management software functions with your existing software, you will have to dismantle or replace your existing software. 

One problem that a company could face when it comes to collaboration tools is installing third-party apps. Switching between them constantly when collaborating between teams or employees in different locations is cumbersome. 

Look for a collaboration platform that gives teams access to all productivity tools and apps under one roof. This helps you stay organized even as your tasks pull you in different directions.   

Read more: Why is It Necessary to Safeguard Data Privacy in Project Management?

Here’s why InfinCE has the edge over other task management software 

InfinCE is an all-in-one project management software that has all the above features and even more. It helps companies streamline tasks, automate processes and boost coordination among team members. It also provides the right productivity tools and collaboration apps to manage hybrid and remote workplaces. 

Here are a few things InfinCE offers that set it above other task management software. It uses a lot of visual cues, and this is an incredible way to enable seamless communication among teams and employees. You can visualize business performance on custom dashboards through prebuilt tiles and see all important metrics in a single view. When used with automation to optimize workflows and reduce repetitive tasks, InfinCE gives companies a competitive edge that uses its diverse set of tools.

Experience a free instance of InfinCE to get a bigger picture of this platform.

Every workplace has its ecosystem. As a result, all of its aspects are constantly evolving. Employers today understandably want to establish a safe digital sanctuary for employees who have returned from the pandemic.

Because of the expanding technological adaptations, the digital workplace has limitless options. It contributes to a highly coordinated and running facility solely focused on providing a safe ecosystem and giving new experiences. Disruptive science, high-tech gear, and machine learning with AI are guiding workplaces toward a powerful digitalization that revolutionizes the way organizations operate.

A quick glance at the top digital workplace trends to expect in 2022.

Read more: Transform your Data Sharing Practices to Win Customer Trust?

1. Hybrid or Remote Work

Flexibility in how, where, and when individuals work is no longer a differentiator; it’s standard practice. Employers who do not provide flexibility will continue to see higher turnover, as employees seek roles in organizations that provide a value proposition more aligned with their objectives.

Organizations can benefit from data privacy with virtual private servers, robust firewalls, encryption/password-based access controls, concierge service, easy scalability, and reduced costs with InfinCE’s cloud architecture. Organizations may rapidly set up a business domain, website, mail server, and business apps without coding. Employees can gain access from anywhere using any device and continue from where they left off, presenting the organization with enhanced flexibility.

2. Four-Day Work Week is on the Way

According to LinkedIn’s Annual Big Ideas Report, industries will embrace the four-day workweek in 2022. This practice has already gained traction on a global scale, with organizations making the switch. (According to LinkedIn News, trial results reveal better employee well-being, work-life balance, and productivity.)

3. Employee Well-Being Prioritization

Organizations are increasingly concentrating on work-life balance, and employee mental health. This is likely to continue until 2022 especially as the epidemic causes more stress and burnout. Prioritizing employee well-being can also imply giving additional employee benefits, increased flexibility, and sign-on bonuses.

With InfinCE’s Collaboration Apps, employees can engage and connect, forming a professional bond that promotes teamwork and a sense of belonging, making way to a happier workplace experience.

Read more: How A Collaboration Software Can Improve Productivity

4. Focus on Centralized Communication

With teams dispersed across geographies and time zones, centralized communication will continue to surge to the top of the priority list to combat communication overload and miscommunication among team members. As a result, many large corporations are increasingly pursuing centralized communication platforms and improved work management.

With InfinCE, you can centrally oversee your complete IT infrastructure – server, storage, and staff. As well as create access controls for your files and apps using a single login, giving your organization superior insight over your authorized resources. In addition, you get to enable seamless business operations with InfinCE by accessing contacts with a click, live chats, one-on-one video calls, and frictionless video meetings.

5. Automation

Technological options include automated visitor management, capturing guest contact information, tracking and scanning visitors for COVID symptoms, recordkeeping, and even notifying hosts of visitors’ arrivals. According to a report published on fortunly.com, the total work hour completed by humans will decrease by 13% as they will be done by robots, or in simple terms, automated. As a result, automation will stay and govern the sectors in the future decade.

With InfinCE’s productivity tools, you can provide your employees with a plethora of ready-to-use productivity tools – documents, spreadsheets, and presentations – to manage business data in a variety of formats, securely share your documents with any person, team, department, or collaborators outside your organization via a simple link, and elevate your organization’s credibility and maintain a favorable brand image among your customers with personalized business email. Additionally, InfinCE provides custom dashboards driven by a selection of tiles. All this and more results in automating your workplace to a large extent.

Read more: All You Need to Know About Dashboards and Data Security

6. Shifting the emphasis from Roles to Skills

According to Gartner, in the post-pandemic era, the attention of employers will move from job roles that require a collection of “unconnected and disparate talents” to “specialized skills” catering to specific business demands and difficulties. This is mainly due to companies realizing that roles are more closely linked to a post in an organization’s hierarchical system. In contrast, talents are tailored directly to business goals and difficulties.

7. Geography and Location will be irrelevant

The sole benefit that the pandemic brought was the acceptability of remote jobs. The propagation of the virus led the globe to believe otherwise. As a result, even when businesses reopen, remote working is thriving and adopted by many organizations.

InfinCE allows your organization to benefit from hassle-free remote working, making distance unimportant. Get real-time insights into the CPU, memory, and storage utilization of your office and application servers’ OS, Files, and DB with Server and Storage Monitoring.  InfinCE allows you to automatically update these boundaries when they exceed their present capacity, ensuring optimal resource use at all times.

8. Employee Monitoring, Productivity, and Behavioral Analytics

Employers are increasingly investing in technologies geared to monitor and track their employees’ activity to increase productivity and efficiency. For example, platforms now enable firms to monitor employee behavior across email and technologies like Slack to gauge productivity.

With capabilities such as productivity tracking, reports, and behavior analytics, our platform, InfinCE offers you insights into your employees’ activities. Using this data, the organization can schedule further training for individuals who require it, boost productivity, and identify and control bottlenecks.

9. HR Transformation Using Technology and Data 

By 2022, more firms will have transformed their human resources departments by leveraging indirect sourcing and talent acquisition data analytics. HR professionals can also use data to determine why employees leave their companies and reduce turnover. In addition, people analytics or insights drawn from data related to worker talent are assisting companies in uncovering critical information about organizational performance and individual employee requirements. 

Custom Dashboards help increase business efficiency. InfinCE provides custom organization, department, team, and personal dashboards for increased visibility and efficiency.

InfinCE presents your organization with a growing library of tried-and-true business software solutions, some of which are free to use. In addition, this carefully curated InfinCE Marketplace offers your company a wide range of open-source and commercial business software alternatives from several software suppliers.

Read more: 5 Ways Today’s Workplace Has Transitioned Digitally

10. The Great Resignation will pursue

Employees are resigning in unprecedented numbers, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. As a result, many teams and organizations have made employee retention a primary goal. As a result, the “Great Resignation” will be present until 2022.  

How will these trends impact the workplace culture?

The realities of these trends will get piled on top of longer-term technology transformations, continuous DE&I journeys, and persistent disruptions and uncertainties. We believe these trends can hugely impact the workplace culture in the following ways: 

• Leaders will be proponents of conflict resolution. Their jobs will focus more on bringing things together than just being functional champions. 
• New-age technologies and breakthroughs that come faster than expected will emphasize the importance of having a digital mindset and transformation. We will need to be flexible and troubleshoot our current and future needs. Organizations will be made or broken by their ability to innovate. 
• Building new processes and practices to support the Hybrid workplace will be necessary. We will require a shift in both people’s and leaders’ mindsets. Managers who believe in one-on-one physical connections will need to adapt quickly because professional interactions will now be in virtual mode. 
• Organizations will have more feet on the ground and thinner central resources. The skills hired for locations will be sharper because they will need to establish their support systems. 
• Well-defined career prospects and progress will be a source of attraction and retention. People will start prioritizing training and upskilling to define their market value and existence. Every organization will need to prioritize workplace competence and performance. 
• Managing the new style of working and living puts strain on individuals. Managers must be more alert and respect this transition. As a result, engaging on a deeper level will benefit both.

InfinCE is capable of meeting your diverse needs in the best way possible. InfinCE provides everything you need to assist various digital office operations, from corporate chat tools to data management software. With InfinCE, your organization gets to enhance the workplace by offering a streamlined experience, cheaper costs, and effective deployment and change management.

Take an InfinCE Demo to explore the business gripping features for effective workplace management.

Today’s workplace is a sharp deviation from what it was a decade ago. The pandemic has significantly contributed to accelerating the need for change, almost setting a blueprint for the future of work in the long haul.

While the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be dominating headlines all over again now, with new variants posing newer threats to everyday life, regular workplace functioning has taken a beating. Considering the vagaries of this scenario, the much-awaited return to the office in physical work environments seems like a far cry.

Amidst this continuously evolving workplace landscape, organizations worldwide are adopting innovative tools and technologies to keep pace with the dynamic challenges that are characteristic of today’s remote working model.

As we debate how a hybrid model will dictate the post-pandemic workplace, one thing is for sure – the current day workplace is highly digital, offers more flexibility than in the past, and is in a constant state of flux.

Let’s take a look at the many facets of the workplace that have undergone a significant transformation over the past few years and how they have had an impact on overall workplace productivity.   

1. Employee-oriented workplace policies

Human resource managers have their tasks cut out with today’s digitally empowered workforce. Both employers and employees today value transparency and frequent communication and are looking forward to embracing an open culture that shuns hierarchy. A recent McKinsey report states that organizations that have clear open policies and approaches, and streamlined communications have employee well-being and productivity rise.

An interesting observation is that organizations with a clear mandate about post-COVID-19 work arrangements have a significant uptick regarding employee-reported feelings of support. There is a three-fold increase in terms of a feeling of inclusion and an almost five-fold increase in individual productivity. 

From this, it is clear that a cookie-cutter approach to workplace policies is no longer a sustainable solution. 

2. Increased agility in work environments

The traditional on-premises work model would typically include a standard set of tools such as Microsoft Office suite, a company-wide email network, and an internal communicator application. Today, all of this has undergone an interesting makeover. With the advent of the cloud, we are heading towards an entirely cloud-based system that is equipped with smart tools for better collaboration, increased accessibility, enhanced openness, and embracing agility on the whole. 

The physical work environment has slowly yet steadily pivoted from a fixed location model to a co-working or collaborative workspace. It is supported by the superior technological prowess of IoT and other smart capabilities. In addition, immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) show increasing readiness for mainstream business adoption, particularly for conferencing and multi-hosting events. Leveraging the power of IoT and other immersive technologies with their limitations is an important step in determining how successful a remote workplace can guide employee productivity. It remains to be seen, although it offers the scope for immense potential at face value. 

Read more: How A Collaboration Software Can Improve Productivity

3. Rapid skill enhancement/ upskilling via virtual learning

The pandemic has taught us enough lessons on how it is important to be well-equipped to handle change when things come to a grinding halt. Drastic changes in workload allocation with resource crunches have led to an acceleration in the creation of new roles. In such a scenario, it’s essential for today’s workforce to reskill themselves to fit themselves better and contribute effectively to overall organizational changes. In a Feb 2020 McKinsey Global Survey, 87 percent of executives reported going through skill gaps in the workforce or expected them within a few years. Reskilling and upskilling can be path-breaking because they help employees acquire cross-functional acumen, making it seamless for them to work across different business functions. In the same vein, it is seen that the remote working environment is ripe to facilitate on-the-job learning and self-learning activities.

4. Embracing holistic development with a focus on health and safety

COVID-19 has sounded alarm bells concerning employee health and safety. Therefore, dialogue and discussion in that direction have been on the rise, rightly so. Health and legal experts have mandated the need for on-the-job medical screening as a prerequisite to working in offices in the future. To that end, several global organizations are willing to extend support to employees during the pandemic and in the long run with perks such as providing access to mental health resources and childcare coverage. 

5. Sustainability and carbon footprint will assume prime focus

Largely touted as the practice run for the next crisis, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic has set the stage for organizations to factor in environmental sustainability as a crucial goal. At the same time, they draw up their business objectives. Companies such as Microsoft Corp., Facebook Inc., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050. Building an environmentally sustainable workplace model must go beyond achieving individual goals such as minimizing carbon emissions. It should be a collective mindset that addresses a mosaic of related issues in tandem and fundamentally becomes the core facet of organizations’ business models.

Read more: Moving to Hybrid Work Culture? Here’s What You Need to Consider!

How does a comprehensive digital orchestration platform like InfinCE come into play while we build a future-ready workplace?

As the hybrid workplace model comes under the spotlight and is here to stay, we can confidently say that technology will play a crucial role in its success. So every organization looking to make a mark at the global level can set itself up for success if they consider digital disruptions the first step toward thriving in their respective industries. Digital tools for friction-free business management can make employee interactions and customer interactions seamless across all types of environments, thus enhancing productivity several notches higher.  

An all-under-one-hood enterprise platform such as InfinCE can arm you with the competitive edge you need to have in today’s dynamic work environment. Replete with a wide array of features such as Calendar and Task Management, Intranet and File Exchange channels, Collaborative Document and File management, etc. InfinCE allows you to up your game with digital transformation, reimagined!

Get in touch with us to know more about InfinCE.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed enterprises to adopt different work from home policies to keep their business operational. Yet after a prolonged remote working routine, organizations are now facing new challenges to reopen their offices. Most of it is due to the mixed emotions of employees returning to the office. It brings rise to the concept of a hybrid workplace – an approach that combines remote work policies with the usual office work culture.

In a hybrid workplace, employees have the flexibility to choose from working remotely or from the office in line with their job requirements and preferences. Many big enterprises have already started planning the best model for their hybrid workforce and determining how it would benefit their business and the employees. In fact, a strategic approach is crucial when adopting a hybrid work culture as reports from Boston Business Journals highlight that employees would rather turn down their raise (up to $30,000) in favor of working remotely.

Read more: Shifting to a Digital Workplace? Here’s What You Need To Know!

Enterprises Need to Embrace the Change

Companies need to realize that employee expectations have drastically changed over the past 18 months of working remotely. If they look ahead to attract and retain employees moving forward, they need to carefully draft their hybrid work model to fit the needs of their employees as well as the business. It requires redesigning the work policies, culture, and offices for the hybrid workforce.

A recent survey from the shared workspaces provider, WeWork, says  “75% of employees would give up at least one workplace perk for the freedom to choose their work environment.” Also,  around 50% of employees would “prefer to spend three days a week or fewer in the office, and when they do go in, they want to be there 5 hours a day or less.”

According to Quendrida Whitmore, SVP and head of community at WeWork, “The pandemic spurred a seismic shift in how we think about work. Employees prefer the flexibility to work where they want — at least a few days a week — and most companies of all sizes embrace hybrid work models.” However, adopting the hybrid workplace culture goes way beyond just providing flexible work options to the employees. It involves a tactical approach to ensure optimal employee engagement and overall productivity.

Read more: What is Hybrid Cloud Identity and Why It Matters for Your Business

5 Tips to Ensure Hybrid Workplace Success

To restart, companies need to think about using technology to facilitate employee management and drive expected operational efficiency. The hybrid workplace is expected to stay, so you need to ensure that your organization is ready to adopt it right and navigate the challenges effectively. Here are five tips that will get your hybrid work environment going.

1. Create Proper Channels for Communication

One of the most common challenges in remote work is to ensure good communication lines for employees. A hybrid workplace will not be devoid of this problem either, so you need to make sure that you have well-defined channels for communication between different departments as well as remote and on-premise employees. A robust team management suite like InfinCE can be a godsend in this scenario.

InfinCE ensures that your employees can easily interact with the relevant people with multiple options for one-on-one and group communication. What’s more, InfinCE also makes it much simpler for your employees to access the required information and business data to perform their jobs more effectively.

2. Set the Company Expectations and Goals Upfront

When managing a hybrid workforce, you need to ensure that your teams are on the same page and moving forward as expected. In a flexible work environment, it can be challenging to make sure that everyone on the team knows the metrics and team goals they need to achieve. This can, in turn, affect the overall productivity of the company and lead to an exhausted workforce.

InfinCE provides a unified dashboard to announce company news and pass the information to all the teams in real-time to resolve such challenges. It ensures to keep your remote and in-office teams aligned with the company goals and timelines to deliver their best performance.

Read more: All You Need to Know About Dashboards and Data Security

3. Collect Feedback to Make the System Better

Managers and supervisors give regular feedback to their teams to ensure they address specific pain points and improve their performance. Similarly, collect feedback from employees on the hybrid work culture. It is important to ask how your employees feel about the hybrid work environment to improve the system and tweak the processes as required.

An all-in-one team collaboration platform like InfinCE helps everyone in the team stay on the same page with constant communication, feedback, performance transparency, and goal tracking abilities.

4. Provide the Required Training to Your Employees

You will need to reimagine what skills your employees need to ensure optimal output in a hybrid workplace. The success of your hybrid workplace approach will heavily rely on how familiar your employees are with using digital technologies for work management. It can range from the ability to make decisions to collaborating virtually within different departments.

You have to reassess the skills of your team and create training programs to address the gaps effectively. InfinCE facilitates collaborative and democratic training and development through easy access to top LMS platforms. Allowing seamless integration, InfinCE lets take advantage of effective tools that help drive a skillful workforce and productive workplace.

Read more: How Can Organizations Profit More from Collaboration Software?

5. Integrate the Hybrid Work Culture into Recruiting

A major advantage of having a hybrid workplace is that you get the flexibility to hire candidates from anywhere across the world. The flip side of it also implies that employees can consider job offers from anywhere and join companies that best fit their needs. However, it creates a challenge when recruiting in-demand skills. Hence, you need to define employee engagement and support thoughtfully to attract new employees.

It goes true for retaining current employees as well. If you fail to integrate the brand value in your hybrid workplace culture, employees may start to look out for other opportunities. InfinCE helps integrate top CRM systems to help ease the onboarding process as well as keep staff motivated and engaged.

Do Not Rush It

You need to accept whether you are ready for a hybrid workplace or not. It is essential to have open interactions with your employees to determine whether they are willing to return to the office or prefer remote work. Likewise, you also need to evaluate the workforce capacity and rank your decisions on that. If only a few employees want to return to the office, it would be wiser to rethink reopening and draft the right working plan to suit your business needs.

InfinCE is a promising digital workplace collaboration platform that can easily bridge the gap between work from home and work from the office. InfinCE can easily transform your IT infrastructure into a digital friendy ecosystem at minimal budgets, establishing a convenient hybrid workplace model. To know more about how to get started with InfinCE, reach out to our experts or sign up here.