The way we work has changed over the past year, and the role of the traditional office is dramatically transforming. Within this changing landscape, organizations are looking for the best way to ensure their employees’ safety, engagement, and productivity. And many are turning to a hybrid work environment to achieve these aims. Today we look at how best to help your employees adapt to a hybrid way of workingwhere some staff members will be working in the office and others remotely, and ensure your business continues to be as productive as possible.  

A hybrid setup combines the benefits of remote working with the traditional office. But, as we’ll see, it’s not without its drawbacks.  

The benefits of hybrid working

While COVID-19 has played a big part in this changing work environment, there are other reasons why a hybrid way of working is attractive for both organization and employee. For example, it allows for: 

  • Greater flexibility (for both employee and business) 
  • Reduced overheads  
  • Potentially higher levels of productivity  
  • Expanded hiring criteria and access to a wider pool of talent  

 

Drawbacks of hybrid working

Hybrid working is not without its problems. Any time there is a major change in the culture or practicalities of work, issues can arise. These include:

  • Less human interaction  
  • Obstacles to communication  
  • Difficulty with tools and solutions 
  • Problems for IT (security, identity, and governance)

It’s important for any business to establish the right hybrid working setup so that their employees can continue to work productively.  

 

How to improve employee productivity in a hybrid working environment

The Microsoft Power Platform is a key solution when it comes to improving employee productivity at your organization. The platform combines, Microsoft Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI and is especially useful when optimizing your hybrid workplace. The benefits include:

  • Managing business processes in a single platform 
  • Low-code app development 
  • A reduction of third-party tools 
  • A cloud-based environment  
  • Integration with Microsoft 365  

 

Here are three practical ways your organization can set itself up for hybrid working success and the part Microsoft’s Power Platform can play.  

1. Optimize your processes

When you have a workforce in multiple locations, it’s vital that your processes are as streamlined as possible. Even when everyone is working on site, manual processes are problematic. But in a hybrid environment, they become completely unsustainable 

 How Microsoft Power Platform can help

Microsoft Power Platform provides sophisticated automation tools. These help you reduce manual workloads and allow your employees to concentrate on work of higher value. Power Automate, for example, enables you to create automated workflows that eliminate tedious manual tasks and automatically synchronize data across your organization.

2. Focus on security and information governance

When you have employees in different locations, some working remotely, some in the office, information governance is pivotalA priority for many organizations is the ability to streamline security and access and permissions best practices without adding to their IT departments workloadThe ideal situation is to ensure your data is secure and the right people have access at the right time, which then enables your business operations to work smoothly 

 How Microsoft Power Platform can help

Power BI is key to consolidating your data from sources across the company in a secure and practical way. For example, when your employees are working here, there and everywhere, on a range of devices, your IT department needs the ability to centralize its security functions. Making security a priority is a crucial step to ensuring organization-wide productivity. Power BI can help your IT team ensure the right people have the right permissions to access the information they need. It allows them to visualize, analyze, and filter recommendations and security alerts via dashboards and reports.

3. Enable easier collaboration  

For many organizations, learning to collaborate in a hybrid environment can be tricky. Traditional processes must be adapted, and employees need easy access to their data and workloads to stay productive. Solutions like Microsoft Teams are great for enabling this collaboration, but often the platform needs to be customized to accommodate unique processes.

How Microsoft Power Platform can help

By combining Teams and Power Platform, you can create low-code applications for specific business processes. For example, Microsoft Power Virtual Agents can insert bots in Teams to make it easy for your employees to answer queries and find important documents. Or you could create an app to centralize employees status reporting and tracking to enable better visibility of where employees are working from and the time they spend on specific projects. This would improve youunderstanding of how the business is working across various locations and help better decision-making through the planning, collaboration and execution of your projects. 

 

Build a productive hybrid workplace with us

Bauen Solutions is dedicated to helping you take advantage of the Power Platform and using it to create a workplace that your employees will loveWe’re experts in business intelligence, cloud applications, custom software, and mobile applications, with the experience and skills you need across the Microsoft ecosystem.

We can help you build a digital work environment that works specifically for your needs. Whether you have employees based all over the world, or they’re all in the same place, but need flexible options, we have you covered.

If you would like to know more about how to improve employee productivity in your organization, get in touch with us today.