Flex office: facilitating organization and collaboration between employees in home working

January 15, 2021

Already practiced before the COVID-19 crisis, home working  has become a much more common habit for many workers in recent months. Some companies, forced to note the good functioning of this work organization, are even considering the implementation of flex office within their offices.

Flex office is about the pooling of goods that allow employees to work on a daily basis, it also includes teleworking. Indeed, the staff of a company following flex office practices will not necessarily go to their workplace every day. 

How can collaboration between employees working remotely and those present at their workplace be organized? How can we ensure that all employees continue to work under the best possible conditions? How to reorganize life at work? We explore these questions with you in this article.

Defining a policy and procedures for employee presence in the office

Have clear home working policy

Has your company made the decision to implement home working on a regular basis? It is important to make sure you take several things into account when developing the rules related to this new way of working. 

The first thing to do is to distinguish between the different functions. Which functions can telework be considered for? What are the profiles whose daily tasks cannot be carried out anywhere other than at the workplace? 

Next comes the question of the number of teleworking days granted to each employee. This number may vary depending on the position held by the employee. Another point that will need to be mentioned is whether the telework days are fixed in advance and recurring each week or whether they can be taken according to the wishes of the workers.

Finally, it will be important to establish whether or not the company decides to give a home working allowance to its employee. If you wish to contribute to these costs generated by teleworking, you may decide to provide equipment to your employees so that they can telework optimally. You may also decide to pay your employees a sum to compensate for their use of the Internet, electricity, and/or heating. 

teleworking habits rules

A new approach to work organization to enable regular monitoring 

The fact that your employees are not all in the same place represents a significant change in the way they organize themselves. They need to work together to deliver finished, quality work. How can you help them adopt an optimal way of working despite the distance? 

Daily meetings

Daily meetings are a good way to keep up to date with the progress of colleagues. During these meetings, each employee will be able to explain what they worked on the previous day and what they plan to work on that day. They will also be able to ask questions to other team members so that they can make progress on certain tasks. 

Each team has different needs, which means that the number of daily meetings may vary. Some teams only need one meeting per day, in the morning for example, while others may prefer to have two meetings during the day.

The Scrum methodology

Scrum is an agile methodology dedicated to project management, it aims to improve team productivity

This methodology consists of working following sprints. A sprint is a short period of time during which each team member will focus on tasks that have been assigned by the project manager in order to reach a certain objective.

Each sprint will be accompanied by a planning meeting during which the project manager will outline the different tasks that need to be accomplished and their due date.

At the end of each sprint, a retrospective meeting is held to share the results of the efforts made during the past period. 

Useful home working tools for a good organization and optimal collaboration between all employees

Project management and follow-up

Several tools will allow you to organize and monitor the progress of team projects. 

Trello

Trello is an easy-to-use task management tool that is used by many companies. It allows you to organize your projects in the form of tables, lists, and maps. Teams will be able to organize and prioritize their projects. Possibility to leave comments, add attachments, deadlines.

Asana

Asana is a tool for creating shared workspaces. Within these spaces called "organizations", you will be able to create projects on which you can work as a team. Creation of tasks that can then be subdivided into sub-tasks, each one assigned to a manager. Possibility to note its progress on the different tasks so that all team members have a global vision of the project and its progress. 

Monday

Monday will make it easier for your employees to collaborate and communicate. Thanks to Monday's boards, every team member has the opportunity to stay informed about everything that's happening on the various ongoing projects. The interface gives you the opportunity to share files, comment on tasks, and get a clear view of the data. 

Videoconferences

Zoom

Zoom is a video-based unified communications platform. It can be used on desktops, smartphones, mobile devices, and conference room systems.

  • Videoconferences
  • Screen sharing
  • Recording and transcription of meetings
  • File Sharing
  • Instant messaging

Microsoft teams

Microsoft Teams is a collaborative platform of the Office 365 suite. The tool allows the integration of the different applications of the Office suite, making it easier to share information. The software allows communication via instant messaging but also allows audio and video calls. Microsoft Teams allows you to create workgroups with the members of your choice. 

  • Instant messaging
  • File Sharing
  • Videoconferences
  • Screen sharing

Instant messaging

Slack

Slack is a collaborative workspace that allows you to communicate with your team using a computer or cell phone. This tool is an instant messaging platform where all collaborators can communicate with each other whether it's conversations between 2 people or many more. The interface also allows audio and video calls. 

  • Instant messaging
  • Audio and video calls 
  • Application Integration
  • Chatbot

working remotely cideo call meeting

Document sharing

Wetransfer

Wetransfer is a file sending tool that allows you to send large files. To do so, you only have to enter the email address of your recipient as well as your own. You can also send a message with your file. Once sent, you will receive a confirmation email, your recipient will also receive an email with the content to download, this content will be available for download for 1 week. 

A paid version is also available, allowing you to send larger files and store them. 

Google Drive

Google Drive is a storage space that you can access through your Google Account. In this space, you can import various files, store them, and share them with your collaborators. 

Since the files are in a cloud, you will be able to access them from any media by logging in to your Google Account. 

This tool facilitates collaborative work. Indeed, when working on documents created with the Google suite (Google Docs, Sheets, Slides) from your drive, you will be able to see in real-time the progress, annotations, and changes made by your collaborators. 

Dropbox

Dropbox is a smart workspace that allows you to share all kinds of files with whoever you want. For example, you can create shared folders in which everyone can embed their own files.

Every file embedded in the folders will be synchronized to the cloud; this means that all data can be retrieved and viewed on any device where your Dropbox account will be connected. 

Collaborative work tools

Confluence

Confluence is a collaborative work platform where each member is able to create files and organize them within the same workspace. 

Mural

Mural is a collaborative work tool on which each member can share his or her ideas in the form of a post-it. Use this tool instead of a whiteboard to organize and reorganize your ideas as much as you want. 

Corporate parking management 

BePark Software

BePark's parking management software provides simplified holistic parking management. Your company's parking is not being used to its full potential, especially since the more common practice of telecommuting.

With this platform, you'll be able to optimize the use of your parking by allowing your employees to reserve their parking space when they need it. A greater number of people will be able to use the parking lot.

The software is also the means to reflect your internal rules inside your parking lot. 

The BePark platform enables companies to: 

  • Manage the type of parking access provided to employees (preferential access, reservations, first come, first served)
  • Decide on the number of parking credits allocated to each person
  • Analyze parking data with simplified dashboards (planned/real occupancy etc.)

Conclusion

The new organization of work is accompanied by a change in habits and the tools used. We hope that the various points discussed in this article will give you a more precise idea of the tools and habits you would like to adopt to best live the evolution of your needs. 

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