Almost everyone is moving towards a hybrid workspace. After all, people have tasted the sweet fruit of being in a distributed work culture. Nonetheless, they are not completely ready to give up their office space yet.

No doubt, remote working is one of the biggest changes that companies had to embrace last year. And now a year into the pandemic, most businesses are yet to understand the art of balancing teams that are working from home with at-office squads. It can be difficult for both the parties in the beginning, but you can surely make it work by choosing the right hybrid workplace tool.

Here is where hybrid workspaces are coming into the picture. Most companies now have employees working in semi-remote and hybrid settings. Many hybrid teams are successfully replacing hundred percent onsite teams.

When businesses adopt a hybrid work culture, they get the comfort and safety of working from home without losing out on the support and camaraderie that usually comes from being at a physical workspace. To accelerate the pace of this change, most companies — including Google and Microsoft — are successfully rolling out initiatives to strengthen this practice. The bottom line is that seamlessly going hybrid is on the agenda of many workspaces. However, as a business leader, you will have to find the right hybrid workspace tool to accelerate this shift.

Finding the right tools to help your business embrace the hybrid work culture is challenging for sure. However, if you are asking the right questions about these new-age tools, then you will successfully adopt them to improve your work culture.

We have compiled a few questions that you should ask before investing in hybrid workspace tools.

Question #1: Does your new tool support asynchronous communication?

One of the biggest challenges associated with the distributed work system is relying excessively on synchronous communication. It is said that the most efficient distributed teams rely mainly on asynchronous communication. While evaluating hybrid workplace tools, you must check whether they have a notification system. In common terms, it is known as the “do not disturb feature”. It is widely acknowledged for offering team members the ability to maintain a great workflow with minimal chances of information loss. You must ask the service provider whether the hybrid workplace system supports top-quality searches, as it is a must for your employees to access essential communication threads. 

Question #2: Does the new hybrid tool come with cross-functional capabilities?

While managing a hybrid workplace system, it is not only important to focus on the work efficiency of one particular team. Another essential aspect that cannot be missed is the cross-functional working. Every team is different, with  its unique priorities. In addition, the teams also vary in the amount of cross-functional work they handle. Hence, it is very important to carefully consider the prospective tools about conducive working with other-related teams. Also, enquire about the functionality of the system for varied stakeholders such as engineers and salesperson both should be able to reap maximum benefits.

Question #3: Does this new tool have integration capabilities?  

Another very significant question to ask before finalizing an ideal hybrid workplace tool for your company is to check on the integration capabilities. A big pitfall associated with workplace technology is context switching. Those working remotely will relate that in this scenario the chances to succumb to the notifications are high. It is also researched that about 70 percent of the received emails are opened within six seconds. Every time a new notification about a received email is shown, we need to move back to the inbox and this loses the context. Even the researches vouch that on an average the human brain takes around 64 seconds to reorient the brain and resume original work. Hence, it is very important to look for hybrid tools that support wide interaction ranges. 

Wrapping it up

Moving ahead with the changing times is an indication of a healthy workspace. Always make sure that you make an informed choice and do not skip asking the above-mentioned questions to make a great and dependable selection. The right hybrid workspace tools will power the way your distributed workforce operates. 

However, in your search for the right hybrid tools, you should not fail to factor in the human side of technology implementation. Remember, whenever you are deploying a new tool, you will have to invest time, money and other resources in change management as well. It is worth the effort to invest in documenting best practices, establishing new norms, and introducing new-age learning and development. You can even ask for technology vendors to get the required assistance. Only top-rated tech vendors will help you support your hybrid workspace with cutting-edge tools that set teams up for progress.