Heading into the pandemic and adopting the hybrid working brought about many challenges, but it also provided a number of opportunities and lessons.
Showing companies that the way things had been done previously is not necessarily the optimal way.
We can tout the many benefits of hybrid work but one that is often overlooked is its potential for saving your company a significant amount of money.
Businesses quickly realized this during the pandemic, allowing them to downsize and adjust processes without sacrificing efficiency.
Spending less and greater productivity can co-exist?
Yes, it can!
And we are going to show you exactly how to reduce costs in the workplace if you adopt the hybrid work model.
Hybrid work can help lower fixed costs
Renting an office building is expensive, especially in most major cities around the world.
According to Utility Bidder, in New York City it costs £159.48 per square foot per month to rent an office building and in London, it costs £113.20.
Imagine being able to cut this cost by a quarter or even just 15%.
By adopting a hybrid work model, not every member of the team has to be in the office at the same time.
Large office space is therefore unnecessary.
Half the amount of people coming in means half the amount of office space needed.
Similarly, managing a hybrid team means that fewer resources are consumed in the office, such as power, water, heating, and office supplies.
Therefore, moving towards a hybrid work system can help your company save a significant amount of money on fixed costs that are always looming over a business.
💡Did you know?
85% of all employees prefer a hybrid work model to the traditional pre-pandemic fully-onsite one. While your main goal may be to reduce costs, keep in mind that you should do all of the following:
– survey your employees about the change
– build technical infrastructure (e.g. set-up relevant software) in place to make the transition smoother
– invest in your company culture and educate everyone about the changes
Increases employee retention
The hybrid work approach has proven to increase employee retention.
A study from Ergotron revealed that 88% of employees had increased job satisfaction when given the flexibility to work from home.
This is likely due to overall satisfaction and the improvement of work-life balance.
The hybrid work model gives employees greater freedom to make choices about how they work and align their priorities, both at home and at the office.
Therefore, employees are happier and feel that they generally have more agency.
This positive work experience helps retain employees but also can potentially save you money. Keep in mind you may need to learn how to file your employee retention credit to improve employee retention rates.
Hiring and onboarding new employees have a number of costs.
Advertising the position may cost money depending on which channels are used.
Additionally, the HR team spends its time searching for the right hires and onboarding them.
Netsuite reports that employers in the United States spend over $1 trillion on recruiting replacement talent.
There are also a number of costs that come with training new hires, whether this is because they have to enroll in certain programs or their training demands human capital, which is being taken away from other work.
The company has to incur the same costs whether the employee chooses to stay three months or three years.
Greater team productivity
A hybrid work schedule improves productivity and provides a greater work-life balance.
Data from Prodoscore showed that there was a 5% increase in productivity during the pandemic.
Many hybrid companies use a flexitime model, which means that employees can choose which hours of the day they want to work.
Of course, this often requires additional planning to ensure hybrid teams are collaborating effectively at certain points of the day, but it gives additional flexibility and freedom that they otherwise may have not had.
One might need the morning free to drop their kids off at school and another might work best early in the morning before the rest of the team starts.
Most people are self-aware enough to know when they will be most productive so giving them the opportunity to choose only increases the company’s overall productivity.
The bottom line is a happy and rested team is a productive team.
And, in turn, greater productivity and efficiency save money from being wasted paying salaries of employees who are too burnt out to work and increase revenue more quickly due to increased efficiency.
Access to a broader talent pool
One of the greatest benefits of the hybrid work model is that it allows talent to be sourced from anywhere as people are not restricted by location.
A team can be spread out globally and collaborate through remote working tools.
Playing into the previous points about employee retention and productivity, nothing provides a greater ROI than hiring the right person.
Not only will you hire the most committed people, who will be willing to stay for longer but you are also hiring the most talented. And that means they will produce the best results and garner more revenue.
A broader talent pool also means finding employees that are a better ‘fit’ for the culture and the work, also ensuring greater retention.
Hybrid work management tools that will save money
Hybrid work management is key for saving money while running a hybrid office, which can prove to be a quite complicated task.
With employees working on misaligning schedules or in different locations, collaboration can become challenging.
However, there are a number of solutions for efficiently organizing hybrid workers.
Communication and collaboration
One of the greatest challenges of hybrid work is communication.
Not being able to meet face-to-face can hinder the way in which we collaborate and communicate with each other.
For example, there is less synchronous communication when working remotely because we cannot quickly pop into a co-worker’s office and ask a question.
Instead, we have to message and wait for a reply.
However, there are some great office management tools that can help foster clear and meaningful communication.
3veta allows remote teams to meet and collaborate easily from anywhere in the world.
With 3veta you can have a full overview of your team’s availability with a shared team calendar.
Each team member can easily sync their calendar no matter if they use Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple iCloud Calendar.
No more back and forth messages to schedule a single meeting.
Furthermore, with 3veta you can host your online team meetings in Full HD.
Desk booking & hybrid scheduling
One prominent solution is desk booking, which provides employees with the ability to reserve workspaces in their hybrid offices.
Employees can then build their schedules around when they will be in the office.
deskbird is an intuitive and efficient desk booking application that allows employees to book desks for the time they will be working in the office.
Desk booking apps help companies save money as it provides a number of analytics that inform future decisions about space allocation.
Managers are able to measure how many people are coming into the office, at what times, and how much space is actually being used.
Therefore, if many desks are not being booked, a company may choose to reduce their office space, saving the cost of this space.
Additionally, hybrid scheduling and desk booking help manage hybrid offices more efficiently, ensuring greater productivity.
How to reduce costs in the workplace
Transitioning to a hybrid workplace can help you lower your costs by reducing your reliance on expensive office space, as well as the need to regularly onboard replacement employees.
As our workplaces make the shift towards hybridization, it is time to adapt using the available technology to create highly efficient hybrid working spaces while also saving time and money.
Annabel Benjamin
Annabel Benjamin is a content writer and marketer at Deskbird, specializing in topics such as hybrid work, workplace management technology, and workplace culture.