Hybrid work arrangements continue growing in popularity across the globe. While they offer lots of benefits, they come with a few small challenges. Chief among these is management, which can be difficult without a dedicated tool—like WebWork Time Tracker.

In this guide, we’ll explore how you can set up WebWork to take advantage of hybrid work at your business. We’ll cover everything from the requirements of these arrangements to which of the app’s features can make management easier for your firm.

What You Need to Set Up WebWork for Hybrid Work

Let’s begin our guide with the requirements of using WebWork for hybrid work arrangements. More specifically, we’ll cover what you’ll need for hybrid working in general, as the tracker itself doesn’t need anything special. There are only two requirements, and they’re pretty easy to satisfy: a device and a place to work.

A Work Device

For most businesses, your staff will need work devices. In the vast majority of cases, this will mean a computer. However, thanks to WebWork’s cross-platform availability, your team can use it on any internet-connected device. You’ll be able to do most things—including managing projects and tasks, tracking time, messaging via WebWork chat, and more. Keep in mind that to take advantage of the tracker’s most powerful features—like app and website usage tracking and activity level monitoring—you’ll need a computer.

The type of the device is always an important factor when choosing one for work. But, another one that you might not have considered is the quantity.

One Device vs Two Devices

One of the most important requirements of hybrid work—as well as remote working and teleworking—is that your staff have portable work devices to use at home. However, this requirement also opens up the opportunity for you to forgo a stationary device in your office. This can have many benefits for your business, including reduced equipment costs. Your staff can simply grab their computers when coming to the office, eliminating the need to purchase one yourself.

Depending on how frequently your staff work at home and the office, this can also let them avoid switching between two devices. While this may be a small benefit, it can add up in the long term. One benefit that you won’t have to wait long to reap the benefits of is increased security. Having only one device per staff member will reduce the number of possible vulnerabilities in your business. However, this will of course be offset a bit by the fact that your employees have to use portable devices—which can be stolen. So if cybersecurity is a major concern for your business, you might want to reconsider hybrid work and implement the exclusively in-office work model.

A Place to Work

The other important requirement for almost all professions is a place to work. In a hybrid work environment, your team will need two—one shared with their coworkers and one remote location. Fortunately, both should be simple to fulfill in most cases, so we won’t go into much detail here.

Deploying WebWork in a Hybrid Work Environment

Having established the requirements for hybrid work, let’s now get to our main topic: deploying WebWork in a hybrid work environment.

Doing this is no different from integrating WebWork in a traditional office. If each staff member is using a single device for their work, setting up the tracker couldn’t be simpler. If you’re using two devices per employee, however, then you must install WebWork on both of them. 

Besides the tracker, you’ll also need to deploy all of your other work tools on multiple devices per employee. While this process can be a hassle, you can simplify it with a single sign-on solution, like Okta. WebWork integrates with this service as well, making deployment easy.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to use SSO, you can try to reduce the number of software products you use at your business. For example, you could forgo dedicated chat, video conferencing, and task management programs—replacing them all with WebWork’s same built-in solutions instead. This will save you the hassle of managing multiple accounts across several devices. Moreover, you’ll also save on the subscription fees of other productivity suites.

WebWork Features That’ll Help You Get Better Results

After completing your initial deployment, you can take your hybrid team’s productivity to the next level with several WebWork features. We’ll cover a few examples of these, including:

• Video Meetings
• Team Chat
• Project Management
• Integrations

Let’s explore these in-depth, starting with the first one.

Video Meetings

Collaboration is one of the most challenging parts of remote working arrangements. Depending on how much of it you intend to include in your team’s hybrid work, you might need to invest in high-quality collaboration tools. Most commonly, these are video conferencing apps, which let you host meetings online. However, with WebWork, you won’t have to get a separate video conferencing app. You can use the tracker’s Video Meetings functionality in the same place you track time. Your staff will be able to collaborate more effectively to remain aligned with your company’s long-term goals.

Team Chat

Continuing on the topic of communication, chatting is another important collaboration tool. Unlike video meetings, chatting is more asynchronous. It’s a vital part of the day-to-day communications of lots of teams worldwide. As a result, there are lots of options for chat apps out there. However, what makes WebWork Chat stand out is its integration with several of the tracker’s productivity features. Namely, it works perfectly with our periodic stand-ups, automated holiday reminders, and birthday congratulations. These will not only contribute to your team’s productivity but also enhance their work-life balance.

Project Management

Managing your firm’s projects correctly can be vital for ensuring its success in the long term. WebWork can make this easier with its built-in Project Management functionality. This will allow you to not only manage tasks for each project, but also track time in them and monitor budget spending of each with Project Budgeting.

Integrations

As mentioned previously, managing several productivity suites across multiple devices per employee can be tedious. WebWork can simplify this process for your staff with its integrations. Link your tracker with a wide variety of productivity tools and platforms, like GitHub, Asana, and more. You can even create your own custom automations with our Zapier integration—further streamlining your workflows.

Integrating WebWork with third-party productivity suites has one more benefit in terms of security. If your company mostly works in the office, your team can avoid having to log into sensitive accounts on their personal devices. As they track time and manage tasks on WebWork, the tracker can sync their progress across the apps your workspace uses.

Concluding Thoughts

A hybrid work environment can offer many benefits for your business. However, to take advantage of these fully, you’ll need a high-quality management and productivity tool—like WebWork. Setting up the tracker for hybrid working arrangements is a straightforward process that’ll enable your staff to perform their best—regardless of where they’re working from.