Why a digital HQ is critical for hybrid success

If you’re wondering whether employees are warming to the idea of returning to the office full-time, recent trends paint a compelling picture. Despite some companies pushing for a full-time return, many employees are opting for flexible arrangements, even when faced with potential career limitations.

This might seem surprising, but the data tells a clear story:

• Gallup reports over half of remote-capable employees expect and prefer hybrid work.
• Our own research found 54% of respondents agree that “going to the office feels like a waste of time.”
• These return to office (RTO) detractors in our study are against going back to in-person work for two big reasons: commuting feels like a waste of time and they prefer the flexibility of remote work.

Whether organizations see flexible work options as a positive or negative, there is evidence that hybrid work is good for company culture. The Gallup report also states that hybrid workers demonstrate higher engagement, better overall wellbeing, and lower turnover risk than fully on-site workers who are remote-capable.

The bad news? Disillusionment can easily take hold without a solid digital workplace strategy in place to keep engagement and culture thriving.

How traditional and digital stack up

1. Communication

The Gallup research mentioned earlier also uncovered that the number one drawback for organizations when it comes to hybrid work is decreased communication. If information is power then having the right information – personalized and available in all the right moments – is truly transformative.

Traditional HQ communication

Information is often shared via in-person and all-hands meetings, bulletin board postings, and internal emails or newsletters. Typically everyone gets the same message, regardless of what job they do or what information they need or desire.

Many companies traditionally set up intranets in an effort to digitally centralize access to important information. These spaces can eventually become saturated with information, making them function more like hard-to-navigate digital filing cabinets.

Digital HQ communication

A centralized digital workplace replaces one-size-fits-all comms with real-time updates, push notifications, and in-app newsfeeds, all in one place.

Personalization is a huge advantage here too. For example, Appspace can target specific segments of your workforce and customize content based on a person’s role, department, or individual preferences. This makes it easy for employees to cut through the noise and keep their comms timely and relevant.

2. Collaboration and teamwork

When we asked full-time employees working at companies that offer hybrid and fully remote options what draws them back into the office to work, a top-three answer was that the office environment fosters better collaboration.

Sure, sometimes there’s no substitute for in-person connection. But a centralized digital workplace offers lots of cool features that help people connect and get work done efficiently.

Traditional HQ communication

Casual coffee or watercooler run-ins can lead to breakthroughs and a-ha moments that move work forward. Pulling team members into meeting rooms for brainstorming sessions and problem solving are also everyday occurrences in the office.

All of this free-flowing in-office collaboration is too often accompanied by a productivity log jam: coordinating calendars and finding a free meeting space can turn into a whole project in itself!

Tracking down the right experts to collaborate with can also be time consuming in a physical environment, requiring expert-level detective work and networking.

Finally, once in-person collaboration is underway, it can still involve passing around hard copy docs or sharing through email chains, leading to delays, miscommunication, and version control issues.

Digital HQ communication

A digital workplace gives users the freedom to create public or private collaborative spaces. By organizing them around departments, projects, or other interests employees can ask targeted questions to get expert insights without the need to be face to face.

A centralized directory also makes it easy to quickly find the experts you need. Employees can quickly search a list of colleagues, getting visibility into their interests, skills, and any content they’ve authored. It’s an efficient way to instantly find the experts who can contribute to projects in meaningful ways.

Easily share documents, presentations, and files with the right colleagues and keep everything together in dedicated Communities. As efficient as it is to do things digitally, sometimes a project demands being in the same room as your colleagues.

Appspace solves this by identifying who’s in the office, making it easy to reserve a meeting space, and inviting teammates from your desktop or the app well before you arrive at the office.

3. Company culture and engagement

Workplace friendships increase productivity and job satisfaction. It’s not hard to make the leap to why. When we know and like the people we work with, we’re more willing to help them out, communicate effectively, and ensure everyone has what they need to succeed.

On paper, having everyone in an office together is the clear winner for fostering connection and friendship. But close physical proximity to colleagues can also lead to more work interruptions. This can negatively impact productivity, given that it takes around 23 minutes to get back on task after being interrupted.

A centralized digital workplace offers lots of features employees can use to connect, celebrate one another, and form meaningful relationships. Bonus: everyone has the power to turn off notifications to support deep focus without time-sucking interruptions.

Traditional HQ communication

There are organic opportunities to get acquainted with your coworkers when working side by side. Traditional HQ tactics also include planning all-hands meetings, team-building activities, and special events to bring employees together and build camaraderie. A

downside to traditional HQ culture-building is that many of the above activities exclude frontline workers who don’t work in the office. Giving kudos to teammates also requires employees to take the initiative by giving a live shout-out at an event, sending out an email, or using other siloed tech – like a dedicated team or all-employee Slack channel.

Digital HQ communication

The newsfeed in a centralized digital workplace democratizes access to the important and celebratory information that can connect your people more deeply to your culture. For example, if your CEO has some hot-off-the-press company wins to share, pushing out a quick video to the newsfeed means everyone gets the same update at the same time – from the back office to the front lines.

The Quick Posts feature in Appspace allows team members to provide updates, share events, publish polls, and shout out the contributions of their colleagues and teams.

Teammates can add reactions, comments, @ mentions, and shares, which makes engaging with the content feel as intuitive as the social media apps we use every day in our personal lives.

4. Access to tools, resources and benefits

When there are too many potential paths to the tools and knowledge your teams need, inefficiencies can creep in. Connecting and automating workplace tools increases employee effectiveness across the board.

Traditional HQ communication

Employees log in and out of different tools to access things like payroll, benefits, help centers, and more. Sometimes critical information is buried in an old-school intranet or, worse, only available in a printed booklet that HR keeps in a back office.

In-office workers may resort to tracking down someone from HR or submitting a ticket to IT to get unstuck. Frontline employees have less time and freedom to track down the answers they seek.

Digital HQ communication

Referenceable materials are centralized and easily searchable by all in a digital workplace. For example, Appspace uses Pages and Stories to organize and share items that are updated regularly, like company policies or how-to guides.

Appspace can also be accessed through the mobile app, on the desktop, or even directly in Microsoft Teams. And Appspace integrates with tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Webex making it easy for employees to take care of business right inside the tech they already use.

Unite the physical and digital workspace

All signs continue to point to a future where employees have a strong appetite for remote and hybrid work options. This is great news for frontline workers too, because it means more organizations are dedicated to building work experiences that are friendlier and more accessible for all.

Appspace has a centralized digital workplace that democratizes access to information, resources, culture, and connection.

See how it works by checking out the free interactive demo.