2023 rushed in with burning questions for employers: Should we stay fully remote? Require employees to return onsite? Or establish a hybrid workforce? With layoffs wreaking havoc on employee confidence, many workplaces are fraught with tension between employees wanting more flexible work options and employers working to maintain stability amidst economic turbulence.
Within this charged environment, it’s helpful to identify companies that are either providing the right tools to create thriving, positive workplaces, or that inherently understand the nature of this time and adapt their approach to serve employees — regardless of where work is happening.
Across every industry, we’re seeing standout examples of new approaches to office policies and ways of fostering collaboration and inclusion. Here are our four brands reinventing the office return:
1. Roblox
In this era of distributed workforces and mass attrition, Roblox is energizing employees by rewarding creativity wherever it arises and empowering them with choice and flexibility. Their hybrid office strategy provides workers with hot desking and collaboration tools so they can easily
- Come in when they choose,
- Sit near teammates or other collaborators when they do, and
- Have resources readily available so they can be purposeful and productive in any environment.
Roblox also offers regular focus groups and instantaneous feedback loops to keep a pulse on employee engagement and stay close to needs and priorities. Roblox is all about decentralized collaboration at the heart of its identity.
Nabbing a spot on Fast Company’s 2022 Most Innovative Companies in the Workplace, Roblox’ workplace culture is at the forefront of the future of work and is a north star brand to watch in 2023.
2. Horton Group
As one of the largest privately held insurance companies in the United States, the Horton Group has offices around the country and leads the way in delivering complex solutions to thousands of customers. As part of their company culture, they value putting people first and creating a workplace that respects flexibility and work/life balance.
Their early move to hybrid made sense for them, and in doing so they identified a need to implement a dedicated space-management system to support their desk hoteling workflows, thus allowing teams to book the space they need, when they need it. The team at Horton chose to eliminate the administrative strain of space management by choosing an agile space management platform as their dedicated desk booking system.
As a result, employees can easily move between in person and remote setups, and plan ahead for when they’re coming into the office. The entire process is easier to manage in the back-end for the IT team as well.
“Even in a hybrid work environment, I feel connected to my coworkers and have always felt respected at work. The flexibility that Horton offers in my day-to-day work allows me to maintain a very healthy work/life balance.” —Paige McManus, employee at the Horton Group
3. Hubspot
CRM and Marketing technology company Hubspot has always had a hybrid workforce, but the pandemic gave them an opportunity to rethink the best way to manage, organize, and support their dispersed employees.
They carved out a distinct ‘Hybrid Enablement Manager’ function to help ease remote and hybrid work pain points and coordinate across three types of office options: fully remote, hybrid, and full-time onsite. Hubspot continues to focus on providing a clear framework for how people execute their job responsibilities, and giving formal processes for work preferences to help people be effective.
Hubspot offers a ton of flexibility for employees to choose a working arrangement that's best for them, and unlike a lot of companies currently suffering tensions between leadership and staff, Hubspot’s founders really believed in a remote-first approach from the start and followed that vision.
4. PVH Corp
UK retail giant, and one of the largest global apparel companies with over $9 billion in revenue, PVH Corp invested early on in providing their 21,500 employees a healthy work environment during the pandemic and continue to explore new and unconventional ways of cultivating inclusive office culture.
When the pandemic hit, they moved quickly to identify a solution and invest in tools allowing their staff a safe return to the office. Skedda provided PVH with an intuitive, hybrid work platform to help manage the use of shared office spaces. The platform allowed PVH to automate previously time-consuming staff booking processes and conditions, while ensuring important safety measures that made staff feel confident to return to the office.
Ranked as one of Fast Company’s Best Workplaces For Innovators, PVH Corp is an example of a large organization that’s also agile and creative.
Making Hybrid Work Easy
As companies small and large navigate 2023, one thing for certain is that no size fits all when it comes to hybrid work strategy. The ultimate goal is to help workplace leaders focus on their people and their business; and to do so, take the complexity out of space management.
For more insights on workplace innovation and space management, read more on Why Hybrid Work Matters. If you’re ready to start scheduling and booking desks and rooms, create your free Skedda account today.
