Mastering Change in Hybrid Environments

From operating costs and employee collaboration to energy efficiency and enterprise planning, how will worktech transform the hybrid workplace? Comprehensive research from Eptura’s Workplace Index report surfaces how enterprises are keeping pace with rapid change, and it offers a glimpse into their outlook on technology investments, operational initiatives and achieving measurable value.

Integration, analytics & collaboration

Across all industries and operational functions, leaders are focused on the same three top technologies. Operational leaders from different business areas say they intend to implement data analytics, integrated workplace solutions and collaboration software in the coming months.

These technologies are pivotal in enabling better collaboration among employees, optimizing building and facility costs and managing the uptime of revenue-generating assets. Data analytics stands out as a critical tool for businesses to predict future facility and asset management outcomes, plan space and maintenance scenarios and automate space booking processes, thereby unlocking deeper value from their operations.

Key drivers of transformation

Eptura’s 2024 Workplace Index report highlights that more than 50 percent of businesses are either already or moving toward implementing an integrated platform to connect technologies spanning their built environments. In today’s complex landscape, several factors are affecting the surge in worktech adoption.

First, businesses are embracing digital connectivity to solve data silo problems brought on by years of managing different systems, teams and locations in isolation. Organizations’ building, asset and people data are disjointed, so getting the information needed for automating bookings based on individual preferences and requirements or optimizing maintenance schedules based on utilization can be unnecessarily difficult.

Now, the fast-paced nature of the hybrid work environment has created even more urgency for leaders to connect all these individual systems, creating a seamless flow of information. Integrated worktech helps leaders boost operational efficiency and cut spending by surfacing insights on human behavior, space utilization and asset health so they can make more informed decisions.

Today, leaders are looking for software that allows them to maximize the use of their office space effectively to support connection and collaboration in the hybrid workplace. With artificial intelligence (AI), advanced booking software can assign appropriate work areas based on the workflows of their team members.

Globally, organizations have reached a hybrid work equilibrium, following a period when the number of people going into the office and the frequency of in-office attendance increased following the COVID-19 pandemic. Eptura’s research indicates that the time people spend working in the office has started levelling off at around three days a week. There are some industry differences: Business services/legal (at 3.28 days) and energy/utilities/transportation (at 3.21 days) see the highest average number of in-office days per week.

At the same time, the mid-week mountain — a trend in which Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays have become the most popular days of the week for in-office hybrid work — has continued to persist across all regions with no discernable differences among industries. Managing this requires ever more sophisticated data analytics and predictive collaboration software. Now more than ever, businesses need reliable, accurate employee experience metrics to truly understand the relationship between human behavior and office utilization.

Despite these trends, there are several challenges leaders face when managing change and measuring its impact to drive their transformation efforts forward.

Overcoming limitations & barriers when implementing new solutions

Despite the clear benefits, the transition to a digitally connected workplace is fraught with challenges. Due to varying characteristics among industries, geographies and hybrid work policies, the primary objectives leaders set when embarking on a digital transformation journey may differ — but all respondents from the Eptura Workplace Index agree that managing change is the biggest barrier they face when it comes to achieving their transformation goals.

According to leaders surveyed for the report, managing change effectively and measuring the impact of new technologies are more challenging than implementing a new solution. About 62 percent of operational leaders identify success measurement as their primary challenges, underscoring the need for robust change management programs and clearly defined metrics to assess the success of digital initiatives.

With digital adoption still on the rise, global executives are seeing their worktech investments come under increased scrutiny. Without the ability to show and articulate the value gained from their investment decisions, it is much more difficult to tie digital spend to how the workplace operates and how the organization envisions the future.

Finding the right way to demonstrate ROI and defend plans for adopting a new technology is getting easier with integration and advanced data analytics capabilities. And as organizations achieve real-time visibility and gain access to valuable insights, answering important questions about various aspects of the workplace gets easier, too.

Getting operational goals over the line depends on the ability to plan more thoughtfully by monitoring performance across employee experience, buildings and facilities and asset management. As information flows more freely across the workplace, it becomes easier to evaluate key operational concerns such as building performance, asset age and maintenance history, labor hours, working patterns, utilization trends, operational costs and inventory.

Defining and measuring success in the hybrid workplace

Findings indicate a significant correlation between effective use of office space in hybrid models and incremental revenue increases, highlighting the economic benefits of well-implemented hybrid work policies.

Employee-led policies project the highest value on in-office collaboration, while company-mandated hybrid workplace policies project the least value. However, success looks different for each company. Businesses will have to overcome their own unique challenges when implementing new solutions. While those with employee-led hybrid work policies say they find it more difficult to understand best practices, businesses with company-mandated, manager-led hybrid policies say they struggle with identifying and communicating vision and strategy and selecting suitable technology vendors. Fortunately, by anticipating these hurdles, leaders can adequately plan and prepare, making the path to success more manageable.

Assessing digital connectivity

The report also puts forward a model of the digital connectivity journey, outlining the steps organizations can take along the way and exploring the goals, limitations and challenges associated with each stage.

• Initially, organizations start with manual processes and move on to a single digital solution, focusing on gaining immediate operational efficiencies.
• As they progress forward, multiple digital solutions are bundled, leading to more streamlined management capabilities and reduced software costs.
• The third stage involves using a unified platform that integrates all their solutions, enhancing cross-functional capabilities so data is more easily accessible across teams.
• The peak of the digital connectivity journey is the ecosystem stage. Here, organizations can use technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and digital twins for additional benefits, such as predictive analytics and sophisticated modeling for optimal outcomes.

Data reveals that the metrics businesses use to measure success change as they move across different stages of a digitally connected workplace. As businesses move from one stage to the next, the ability to measure new and different data points provides a clearer picture of their operations. That makes it easier for leaders to show how implementing technological change has benefited business.

There are different ROI values at different stages of a digitally connected workplace. Data reveals that businesses are using different metrics at different stages, benefiting as their data analytics capabilities improve. With the ability to track new and different data points, a clearer picture of their business operations emerges.

Future outlook and strategic recommendations

Digital connectivity is at the heart of transformation efforts.

Collaboration software and data analytics help businesses understand how employees interact and work together. Technology, like intelligent booking solutions, makes it easier for employees to find and reserve spaces to work effectively.

With AI, intelligent bookings learn behaviors and help connect people through personalized suggestions.

Hybrid work dashboards offer data on working styles and remote work distribution. This helps leaders optimize hybrid work strategies based on employee preferences. When combined with access control and visitor management, businesses can gain insights into building utilization and predict future space requirements.

Digital twins give businesses the ability to test the best use of space through scenario planning. This helps them deliver the desired employee experience cost-effectively.

By understanding the stages of digital connectivity, embracing key technologies, and overcoming implementation challenges, organizations can enhance their operational efficiency, foster a better employee experience, and ultimately achieve a competitive edge in the hybrid work era.