People Ops Guide: How To Combine Your Office Space With Flex Spaces

In 2022, People Operations and HR professionals will face a few unique challenges: tackling The Great Resignation, designing top-notch employee experience strategies, and perfecting their hybrid workplace.

As a matter of fact, in a recent survey, 40% of HR specialists said managing the hybrid workplace is their top priority in the upcoming year. We can understand why People teams feel that way; on the one hand, hybrid and remote work are game-changers for employees, but on the other, they bring a myriad of processes for companies to adapt to.

When managing a hybrid workplace, HR and People teams have a few specific things to pay attention to:

• Maintaining the company culture in a distributed environment
• Keeping employees engaged, productive, and happy
• Leveling out the playing field and doubling down on providing the same access and opportunities for employees in every location

Keeping the office and introducing flex spaces

If you’ve been reading about this topic, you know that with hybrid work, there are many different setups to choose from - the best being the one that works for your employees. If you’re thinking about why a company would want to keep both office spaces and introduce flexible workspaces, a few scenarios support that decision.

In some companies, the workforce is distributed, but many employees are still located in big cities. In cases like these, it makes sense to keep existing offices in big cities and introduce flex spaces in all other locations. In other cases, companies have one HQ location they want to keep but transition to flexible spaces in all other locations.

It is possible to run a hybrid workplace that has both offices and flex spaces, with a few critical points taken into consideration.

Providing flex spaces in multiple locations

The primary task for Workplace managers is to provide flex spaces to all employees located in cities where the company doesn’t have office space. This way, you will be ensuring that every employee, regardless of their location, has the same access and opportunities as their peers.

A workplace strategy is the key component of a well-designed employee experience. It entails not just workspace provisions but also taking into account employees’ different needs based on their departments and roles. For example, your distributed workforce may need different workspace configurations (like hot desks, meeting rooms, and dedicated spaces) at different times to do their best work.

You can go about providing workspaces in multiple locations in a few ways. Either take the traditional route of manually searching for spaces with real estate brokers or go with a flex space provider that will help you take care of multiple locations all in one place.

A clear overview of all workspaces

If you’ve decided that your workplace strategy has both offices and flexible workspace options for employees, it is helpful to have a clear understanding of where you have which options available.

People and Workplace teams should streamline their operations and manage and control all workspaces from a single platform. For the sake of transparency, employees also need this information to be clear and available to them at any time.

The ideal solution for both employees and the People Operations teams is to have a single platform where employees can see all available workspace locations (including the office spaces), check their availability, and book their workday. An integrated solution reduces the People and Workplace professionals’ workload and manual efforts, making their lives easier.

Gaining workplace insights

With the hybrid workplace, People teams gain insights they didn’t have before, and they can see, analyze and understand their workplace better. Insights into how employees use spaces and why, which teams often work together, and every employee’s productivity and satisfaction levels - all this data can help Workplace and People teams transform their strategy and make informed decisions.

Having all this information at your fingertips is transformational for People leaders and employees alike, as it is likely to be the first step towards an exceptional employee experience.
And the best part? With the right partner, you can get the same level of insight for both flex spaces and your offices!

Streamlining HR and People Operations

Finally, the crucial element of managing a hybrid workplace that has both flex spaces and offices is enabling the People and Workplace managers to do their work without adding to their workload.

If you opt to manage the hybrid work environment manually, it will burden your HR operations department with time and money investments. Choosing a single solution to provide spaces, manage their usage, and gain insights is a gamechanger for all People and Workplace professionals. It is guaranteed to enable them to focus on employee experience instead of procurement and technicalities.