When you look closely at the nature of work ethic, you understand that where you work does not actually matter.

True, a place of work can have a temporary effect on your productivity: workplaces with high noise pollution, weak phone data networks, or a large number of unruly children might slow down your progress.

But that is only a temporary effect; you will eventually find a solution to these minor issues and churn out high-quality deliverables even in an unconventional workplace—whether it is at home or in a co-working space. Natural curiosity towards one’s own work usually powers most people through the day, and given the necessity of hybrid work that COVID-19 has lain upon us in the last 23 months, we have quickly adapted to the new rules of the daily survival game.

We are using both the office and the home to build our livelihoods. And as the pandemic subsides and more people transition back to the office, we are looking to keep this new normal alive, challenging the necessity for full-time office work.

We now know that the places where we work do not define our potential.

All Over the Corporate World, People Want Hybrid

Take a look at the changed corporate habitat:

• In a Microsoft Work Index Survey published in March 2021, 66% of the leaders surveyed said their company was considering designing workspace for hybrid work mode, 73% of Microsoft employees wanted flexible work options going forward, and 66% of them wanted more in-person, face-to-face collaboration post-pandemic.
• In a Mercer survey released in May 2021, 87% of the American respondents either have a strategy for long-term flexible working and are implementing plans, actively developing a strategy for long-term flexible working, or intend to increase longer-term flexibility in the near future. 60% of the respondents also wanted the workplaces to create a more supportive culture for flexible working.
• In an IPSOS Essentials Syndicated Study conducted in July 2021, 57% of the urban Indian respondents were said to have expected employers to continue a flexible work mode for the future, and 51% said they missed seeing their colleagues in person.

Last year, Andrew Bosworth, the VP of Facebook Reality Labs, predicted this rise of this new particular workplace paradigm: “The future we envision for work allows for infinite virtual workspaces that will unlock social and economic opportunities for people regardless of barriers like physical location. It will take time to get there, and we continue to build toward this.”

It is still important to know why this change is coming about.

The catalyst was the pandemic but the cause was deeper. There were remote working needs always latent in the working population. And these needs were rewarded by the rise of remote working technologies in the form of free and paid cloud solutions, operating functions like team collaboration (Asana, Trello, Slack, Teams), customer relationship management (Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot), and much more.

Here, we outline 3 social and organizational aspects that are being improved by hybrid work mode.

• Employee Health & Wellness: The work-life balance has had a revolutionary change in the last 23 months. People are recognizing the mental health benefits of spending time with family members. Commute times are also reduced, which not only trims down timetables, but also carbon emissions. Spending only a partial week at the workplace gives people time, during remote work days, to cook, walk, run, and play with their children. This is all infinitely enriching to society.
• Employee Productivity: With the reduction in commute times and the greater freedom in clothing, free time, and workspace, people are finding the balance to focus on core tasks. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, working from home for at least 2 days a week has improved productivity. Employees began to explore and understand their own preferences, which resulted in knowing how to manage their time better.
• Access to Global Talent: The best talent goes where the best opportunities lie. And in the flexible, new economy, the best talent prizes the opportunity to use their talents without the restrictions of physical distance and a fixed working place. Companies are finding out that the best way to ensure a diverse, all-inclusive workforce is to hire professionals from across the globe, permitting them either fully remote or partially remote job requirements.

How does our company, VAMS Global, come into the equation?

We uphold this new paradigm of hybrid work mode on our visitor management system. We ensure that these workforce-empowering factors are being supported in your workplace. We also ensure that your management of the workplace is made easier. Here are 3 features we display to ensure that:

Visitor Management System Advantage #1: Regulating People Flow

There are several visitor analytics VAMS offers your company to help you understand your workforce’s behavior, as they flow in and out of your doors.

One of the most important to the hybrid work mode is headcount. In the process of social distancing over the last year, people in the workplace began to understand that they didn’t need to overpopulate the space to get work done. While they value the social aspect of work, they also needed privacy, and the crux was to strike a balance between “me” spaces and “we” spaces.

What VAMS can do is record each visit in the workplace and calculate the number of people inside, giving managers and employees a fair idea of how crowded the office is. This headcount can be used to make policies and ensure that there is a healthy number of people inside. Other aspects of people flow soon followed suit. Our visitor management system can admit groups of visitors at one time,

Visitor Management System Advantage #2: Ordering Workplace Chaos

If you open your doors to unauthorized visitors, you are opening a Pandora’s Box of chaos. To prevent this, when visitors enter the workplace they can be required to enter the purpose of their visit into the VAMS interface. Using this information, your company can ascertain who is in the workplace and why, sorting out the different jobs going on around. This transparency can prevent theft, vandalism, and troublemaking—and it can accelerate workflows to the benefit of the company.

In other instances of chaos, such as inclement weather, a construction accident, or workplace hazard, a visitor management solution can also send out emergency alerts to all the individuals linked to its system. While not yet in deployment, we can further develop this system to receive “I’m okay” messages from the employees and other office inhabitants.

Visitor Management System Advantage #3: Health Benefits

Last but not least, comes the health-related features that VAMS offers. Every returning employee wants to know their workplace is a safe haven, well-protected against virus transmission and other contagious illnesses. Due to the wealth of health information gathered on governmental databases, our visitor management system can cross-check a visitor’s vaccination and COVID status before they come in—on apps such as Aarogya Setu and CoWIN.

We can also digitally deploy Health Screening Questionnaires to their emails and smartphones before they leave their house, and request them to scan their body temperatures and mask-wearing faces as they stand at the doors. All this gives your employees confidence in your management and social responsibility.

The Wholesome Workforce of Hybrid Mode

We are social animals. We thrive on the natural gregariousness that we have missed through the last 23 months. But we also are aware of the benefits of doing put-your-head-down, individual tasks at home. We know we can improve productivity in the walls of our home, when given privacy and space.

Thus, as we look to the new paradigm, we can be sure flexible work arrangements will reign. And this will create a more wholesome workforce. Employees are looking forward to bonding and connecting with their colleagues on a face-to-face basis. And they are also going to ask for more freedom in terms of remote work, from their employers, striking an excellent work-life balance.

Employees are taking back power, defining productivity in a wholesome way as well. Productivity won’t just be calculated in terms of deliverables and hours, but inclusive of the time spent collaborating, learning, and in the workplace-related wellbeing that drives career advancement for every employee, no matter their status.

“Even if remote work turns out to be less productive on some metrics than others, reducing carbon-based emissions or improving work-life balance could make up for it,” wrote Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz in their book ‘Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking into Breakthrough Growth.’

Work concepts are changing. The future is balancing the equation between family and life in a healthier way. And bespoke visitor management solutions like VAMS will help balance the aspects of control and care in your workplace itself, creating a brighter future.

Remember that the place does not define the potential of your work. The people do. Success is written in the lines of the people, not the place.