The Best Hybrid Work Software: Essential Tools for Managing a Hybrid Workplace

Managing a flexible workforce is a major challenge for today's operations managers. The tools you choose can mean the difference between a seamless hybrid work model and severe employee frustration.

Hybrid work software keeps your team connected and eases the shift between remote and in-office work. This keeps your teams thriving by solving three main problems.

Hybrid work software helps with:

• Reserving office spaces
• Coordinating virtual meetings
• Monitoring employee engagement

This article will explore the best tools for creating a positive hybrid workplace experience. 

How does hybrid work software support culture

According to Gallup, six of ten remote employees prefer a hybrid work model. With flexibility now the norm, we must recognize how hybrid work software aids this shift.

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Hybrid work software can improve the employee experience by allowing remote and in-office employees to collaborate.

Key benefits include:

• Enhanced Collaboration: Hybrid work software promotes real-time teamwork and open communication, ensuring teams stay connected and aligned, regardless of location.
• Workspace Management: Employees can easily reserve office spaces or meeting rooms and manage projects in real-time, simplifying the transition between remote and in-office work.
• Video Conferencing: These tools facilitate video meetings, making it easier for employees to communicate and collaborate across time zones.
• Schedule Flexibility: Teams can manage their schedules effectively, ensuring they can balance their work in a flexible hybrid environment.
• Productivity Boost: Managers can oversee operations more effectively, ensuring teams remain productive, connected, and able to collaborate seamlessly.
• Integrations with Management and HR Software: Hybrid work software integrates with management and hr software, streamlining workflow and allowing for smooth operations in areas like performance management, scheduling, and employee engagement.

Integration into daily workflows: Enhancing team morale and productivity

While hybrid work software boosts engagement and streamlines workflows, it must be integrated into daily operations. The study mentioned above shows that employees who feel connected to their team are 50% more likely to remain with their company for over a year.

Imagine your employees planning their work day. As they begin to choose in-office days, they intend to book meeting rooms and private workspaces. The moment they log in, they can see which spaces are available, who they could meet in person, and manage work schedules. The all-in-one platform allows them to navigate their day with ease and peace of mind.

Key categories of hybrid work software

Managing a hybrid team requires the right tools. These tools must meet various needs, from scheduling workspaces to employee well-being. Here are the key types of hybrid work software that will transform your team's operations and promote an engaged workspace.

Workspace management tools

A key aspect of hybrid work is effectively managing when and where your team works in the office. Tools such as Gable HQ provide advanced desk and room booking capabilities, enabling your employees to reserve workspaces as required. This approach not only maximizes office space but also promotes a more adaptable work environment by empowering employees to choose their work settings.

Communication tools

Effective communication is crucial for hybrid teams. Platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom help your workers stay connected. 86% of employees and executives identify poor communication as a major cause of workplace failures. 

Platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom help your workers stay connected virtually—whether for impromptu meetups or weekly calls. 

Slack and Teams are now the industry standard for real-time chats, enabling smooth communication between hybrid staff.

Collaboration software

Projects and tasks must progress smoothly, regardless of your team’s location. Collaboration tools like Asana, Trello, and Miro, essential for project management and brainstorming, offer a variety of advantages, including:

• Real-time Collaboration: Teams can work together seamlessly, regardless of location
• Tracking Milestones: Easily monitor project progress and stay on top of important deadlines.
• Clear Task Ownership: Assign responsibilities clearly to avoid confusion and ensure accountability.
• Centralized Feedback: Keep all project-related feedback in one place, allowing your team to take quick and efficient action.
• Flexibility and Work-Life Balance: These tools' adaptability promotes a more inclusive work environment, helping employees manage their time and improve work-life balance, which boosts satisfaction.

This automation frees employees to focus on strategy and creativity, enhancing overall efficiency. It will also eliminate confusion over task ownership, reduce delays, and ensure that feedback is centralized in one platform.

Picture a work day where every team member knows exactly what they need to do and when it’s due. Your team will become experts in responding to feedback quickly and efficiently.

Employee engagement tools

Maintaining employee engagement is critical in a hybrid work setting. While a flexible work environment is preferred, it can leave your employees feeling isolated or disconnected. 

Tools like 15Five and Officevibe are designed to monitor employee well-being, gather real-time feedback, and facilitate meaningful check-ins. These platforms go beyond simple surveys, allowing your teams to identify early signs of burnout.

If you recognize issues early, you can proactively address concerns and create strategies. This will increase job satisfaction and ensure your employees remain motivated and connected, regardless of where they work.

Security and compliance software

With remote work becoming a permanent fixture in many organizations, protecting sensitive data is more critical than ever. Security and compliance software helps safeguard your business against data breaches, which can lead to costly legal consequences, reputational damage, and loss of trust. Some examples of companies' top concerns are customer data, financial records, and proprietary information, which are often top of mind for operations managers.

Security tools protect data and ensure compliance with industry-specific regulations, such as GDPR for privacy, HIPAA for healthcare, or SOX for financial reporting. Failure to meet these standards can result in hefty fines and operational disruptions. 

When you integrate reliable security and compliance software, you can create a secure remote work environment and ensure that your business remains protected from evolving cyber threats.

How to choose the right hybrid work software

Choosing the right hybrid work software is vital for your team's efficiency and creates a seamless work environment. Given the multitude of tools, it's crucial to assess your choices according to your team's specific needs and challenges.

Here’s a guide on how to navigate this process:

1. Assess your team's needs

Every hybrid team faces unique challenges, from remote communication to optimizing office space. The first step is to identify the specific issues your team is experiencing. Are team members struggling to collaborate across different locations? Is managing the workspace becoming inefficient?

To gather this information effectively, consider conducting regular employee surveys, such as quarterly pulse surveys or feedback sessions. Tools like 15Five or Officevibe can help you monitor team dynamics and collect insights on pain points. 

You can also analyze project management data to identify bottlenecks in collaboration or workspace usage.

Once you’ve pinpointed the issues, take a data-driven approach to understanding your team’s challenges and making informed decisions that improve efficiency and employee satisfaction.

2. Evaluate software features

Not all hybrid work tools are the same. When evaluating your options, prioritize key features that align with your team's needs.

Seek out user-friendly interfaces, integration with current tools (such as Slack or Microsoft Teams), and robust data tracking and analytics capabilities. The right hybrid work software should improve collaboration and efficiency. This will streamline workflow management across your organization.

3. Ensure scalability

As your business expands, your hybrid work solutions must evolve to meet new demands. It's essential to choose software that can scale alongside your team.

When evaluating scalable software, consider the following:

• Team Growth: Anticipate how many additional users you may need to support. Look for tools that easily add or remove users without disrupting workflows.
• Budget Flexibility: Choose solutions that offer tiered pricing or flexible plans to manage expenses as you scale up.
• Feature Expansion: Think about what additional features your team might need down the line, such as advanced analytics, automation capabilities, or integrations with other tools. Selecting software with modular add-ons can help you adapt without switching platforms.
• Future Workflows: Evaluate how the software supports increasingly complex workflows. Will it allow your team to handle larger projects, more remote workers, or additional departments? Ensure the tool can accommodate these needs smoothly.

When you consider these factors, you can select scalable software that not only meets your current and future needs.

4. Consider the user experience

A smooth and intuitive user experience (UX) is essential for successful software adoption. If your team finds the platform confusing or complex, they are less likely to use it.

Use tools that feature a clean and user-friendly interface. This will enhance engagement and adoption from the very beginning. While employees may not be directly responsible for selecting the software, their ability to use it effectively is crucial for its success. Research shows that 80% of users are willing to pay more for software that offers a smooth user experience. Moreover, a poor user experience leads to 90% of users abandoning apps or software entirely.

When evaluating UX, consider how easily your team can be trained to use the software. A more intuitive design minimizes the learning curve and reduces downtime, ensuring employees can quickly adapt to the tool. 

This experience will lead to higher engagement. Long-term adoption is also a critical factor; overly complex software may be abandoned, so it’s important to choose tools that align with your team's usability needs now and in the future.

By considering key factors, you'll be in a stronger position to select a hybrid work solution that aligns seamlessly with your objectives.

Why Gable HQ stands out for hybrid work software

Gable HQ has advanced features for managing a hybrid workforce, meeting the diverse needs of in-office and remote workers.

Gable is an all-in-one suite of tools designed to enhance hybrid work environments. Its workspace management features help teams efficiently schedule and utilize office spaces, ensuring that every square foot is used effectively. 

The platform also facilitates seamless collaboration by integrating with popular tools, allowing employees to stay connected and productive regardless of their location.

Additionally, Gable provides data-driven insights that enable operations managers to make informed decisions. By tracking space usage, employee engagement, and overall team performance, managers can identify opportunities for optimization and ensure that their hybrid workforce remains engaged and efficient.

Let's explore these in more detail.

Comprehensive workplace management

Gable HQ provides solutions for hybrid teams by simplifying conference room and desk booking. It allows remote employees to reserve workspaces in various locations, ensuring that your teams have the flexibility to work wherever they need. 

With the ability to reserve meeting rooms or check workspace availability through Gable’s seamless integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams, employees can manage bookings and receive real-time updates directly within their communication tools. This eliminates the need to switch between multiple platforms, streamlining scheduling and communication.

Additionally, Gable helps companies maximize space utilization, reducing unnecessary costs. In fact, organizations have reported cutting real estate expenses by up to 50% thanks to Gable's efficient space management features.

User-friendly platform

Gable HQ is designed for ease of use, ensuring that your team can quickly adopt the platform without a steep learning curve. Its intuitive interface makes workspace management effortless, from onboarding new users to seamlessly integrating with existing systems. 

In addition to its simplicity, Gable offers advanced features like space utilization tracking, visitor management, and event orchestration, providing teams with the flexibility and functionality they need in a hybrid work environment. 

Users praise Gable's exceptional customer support, which ensures teams can rely on help whenever needed.

Seamless collaboration

Hybrid teams frequently encounter difficulties sustaining effective communication and collaboration. Gable HQ connects with communication tools such as Slack and Teams, allowing your employees to schedule meetings, invite colleagues to participate, and receive real-time notifications, all from a single platform. This guarantees that collaboration proceeds seamlessly, regardless of whether your workers are in the office or at home.

Data-driven decisions

Gable HQ's analytics dashboard offers valuable insights, enabling you to monitor key metrics in real-time. For example, you can track which remote workers use hot desking and how frequently they reserve spaces. 

The platform also provides analytics on space utilization, such as how often certain conference rooms or workspaces are booked, peak usage times, and overall occupancy rates. This data allows you to optimize your office layout, identify underutilized spaces, and make informed decisions about future needs.

Enhanced employee satisfaction

Gable HQ promotes a flexible and supportive hybrid office culture by allowing employees to choose their workspace and preferred work arrangement—whether it's a collaborative space today or a private office tomorrow. This greater autonomy boosts productivity and retention, with users reporting a better hybrid work experience.

Real-life examples of how Gable has enhanced hybrid work strategy

Augury increased bookings by 50% with flexible workspace solutions

Gable HQ has greatly improved Augury's hybrid work strategy. During the pandemic, Augury transitioned from an office-based company to a fully remote one, expanding its employee base across 17 cities. However, this shift introduced new challenges—teams struggled to find spaces for in-person meetings, and coworking memberships went largely unused. Employees had no way of knowing whether colleagues would be in the same workspace, making spontaneous collaboration nearly impossible.

To tackle these issues, Augury initially provided coworking memberships. However, they quickly realized these memberships weren’t scalable and lacked the transparency needed for effective use. Employees could have a $300 membership and not show up all month, which became a wasted resource.

Gable addressed these pain points by offering a flexible, transparent platform tailored to their distributed workforce. Augury employees can now easily find and book workspaces, see where their colleagues are going, and foster more spontaneous in-person interactions. This shift not only transformed how employees engage with coworking spaces but also turned previously underutilized memberships into highly engaged workspace solutions.

Augury’s Workplace Experience team also benefited from Gable’s dashboard, which tracks workspace usage and budget spending. The team saved 25 hours per month, and employees increased their workspace usage by 50%. Gable’s quick setup and seamless integration with HRIS and Slack streamlined operations, ensuring Augury could support its growing team efficiently without administrative bottlenecks.

What made Gable stand out was how quickly it enabled Augury to adapt. Rolling out a new workspace solution through traditional office leases would have taken months, but with Gable, Augury’s teams were up and running within weeks. 

"With Gable, I steer the ship of the workplace experience. It feels like I am the mothership since I control the budget, usage, and limits. But I can also give my employees their own smaller ships – so they have the freedom to book spaces, invite coworkers, and create an environment they need."

Tiffany Millar

Director of Workplace Experience

Apartment List increased bookings by 63% with Gable HQ

Apartment List has made great strides in its remote work strategy by using Gable HQ, resulting in a 63% boost in bookings and an 80% adoption rate.

As a company with a remote-first workplace policy, Apartment List sought to give employees access to flexible workspaces that met their diverse needs. Whether employees wanted a change of scenery or needed to collaborate in person, the company needed a solution that offered flexibility without sacrificing control. 

However, finding a platform that could manage both coworking spaces and a dedicated HQ, while also tracking budgets and employee satisfaction, proved challenging. Prior attempts to manage these needs lacked the visibility and flexibility required to maintain a cohesive hybrid work environment.

Gable stepped in to solve these issues by providing a platform that allows employees to choose their ideal workspace, whether it's a coworking space or a private office. The Gable dashboard allows HR Program Manager Nikki Chamberlain to oversee all workspace activity in real-time, tracking space usage, budget allocation, and employee satisfaction, all from one intuitive platform.

Gable’s flexibility helps Apartment List maintain a fair and supportive work environment. It ensures that employees feel empowered to choose workspaces that fit their needs while also giving the company the oversight needed to manage resources efficiently. By addressing the challenges that previous solutions failed to meet, Gable has helped Apartment List create a more adaptable and satisfying remote work experience for all its employees.

"We believe virtual-first is the future of work, and we needed a way to provide support and bring employees the flexibility they need. Gable is how we show up for our employees, empower them to create the best work arrangement, and set them up to be successful."

Nikki Chamberlain

HR Program Manager

Take the first step towards transforming your hybrid workspace

In today's changing workplace, hybrid work software is vital. It balances flexibility, collaboration, and productivity. Your teams can manage remote and in-person work while maximizing space and boosting employee engagement.

Gable HQ is a standout option, providing transparency, flexibility, and robust tools to oversee workspaces, whether for coworking, dedicated offices, or remote arrangements.

Are you ready to enhance your team’s hybrid work experience? Check out Gable HQ today and see how it can help your team thrive within a hybrid setting. Schedule a demo now to get started!