A survey by the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit group comprised of CEOs across industries, shows that 71% of employers plan to adopt a hybrid model; of those employers, 63% will require employees to be in the office just three days per week.

Those desires — of employees and employers — present logistical challenges.

San Francisco-based investment management software specialist, Juniper Square has reimagined its workplace into three hubs, with physical offices in San Francisco and Austin, and a third hub in the cloud — a central online space where remote workers share work and collaborate.

Alex Robinson, CEO and co-founder, Juniper Square serves as the general manager of its cloud hub. He believes it is critical for leaders to rethink their cultural and work norms to be digital-first. “By making digital the default mode, you level the playing field for employees and ensure that everyone has the same access to information, regardless of location.”

Juniper Square is being rigorous about documenting and re-establishing those norms as many employees return to the office. For example, it has established a standard for collaboration hours — 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific time — so everyone has a shared understanding of when meetings will happen. “We’ve set expectations that all meetings need to include a Zoom invite and can be attended virtually,” added Robinson.

Kissflow, a workflow software company with offices in India, the U.S. and the Middle East, gathered extensive feedback from employees before developing its “Remote+” hybrid model. Teams can choose one week a month to go into the office and work from anywhere for the remainder. “We have rolled out our digital workplace platform which supports both synchronous and asynchronous communication so that no one feels left out of discussions,” said Suresh Sambandam, CEO, Kissflow.

The company uses its platform in conjunction with Google Workspace. “The digital workplace platform helps keep the work in context so that we can have conversations and manage tasks from the same place we do the rest of our work,” said Sambandam. “This also means no-one is left out.”

Being a good communicator is an essential skill as a leader, and embracing some of the plethora of digital tools can help to connect with a distributed workforce. “It’s important you ensure everyone is always in the loop with what’s going on – and that they are ok,” said Laura Weldon, creative director at Studio.LWD, based near Blackpool in the North West of England.

The company uses a mix of tools to schedule projects, including Toggl Plan and Trello, which allow everyone to check the status of a project, along with Slack for team communication and Zoom for …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron