Remote or hybrid work was rare in organizations just two years ago. Everything changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The forced transition to remote working provided an opportunity to test this model in selected areas of business (obviously, this does not apply to manufacturing divisions). As a result, many companies that until then could not imagine employees working outside the office recognized the benefits of such a solution.

Employees, too, have become accustomed to the advantages of working remotely and expect their employers to leave them this option even after the pandemic ends. According to a survey conducted by Antal and Cushman & Wakefield, 52% of professionals and managers rated this mode of work as the most suitable for them, 41% of those surveyed work only remotely, while 27% work in a hybrid mode.

New challenges

Such a large number of people who do not appear in the office or are there only a few times a month pose new challenges to the administration, HR, managers and the entire management board of the organization. Many companies decided to redesign their processes to adapt to such a suddenly changed reality. There are new expectations from platforms supporting HR processes.

How to quickly and effectively give consent to remote work? How to communicate with the employee on HR matters? Can we give up some of our office space and easily enable employees to book workspaces? Can a home-based employee record their working time? We are approached by both large and smaller companies with these and many other questions.

The BeeOffice platform addresses expectations and provides solutions to handle each of the above challenges. Currently, the system can support most of the hybrid work processes that organizations face. Responding to market demand, we have adapted existing modules to new needs or, as in the case of Desk Booking, designed them from scratch. Thanks to the great attention we pay to our customers’ needs, we were able to react quickly and provide the necessary tools in a short time.

An equally important element when designing new functionalities was the employee experience, which is why navigating the system (applying, filling in forms, approving) is intuitive, comfortable and “user-friendly".

A remote work request

In the organization of remote work, one of the most frequently chosen functionalities is … a request for remote work. It is a form used by an employee to request their supervisor to allow them to work remotely. The supervisor can approve or reject the request.

In the Schedule, team leaders can see on which days their subordinates are working remotely, and can arrange the work schedule according to their own criteria, e.g. so as to always have someone from the team or with certain competencies working in the office. As for other activities (e.g., a business trip or vacation), the statuses of requests are marked with different colors (a new request in red, an approved one in black). This makes it easier to manage the team and eliminates the fear that there won’t be adequate staff available on one of the days. We can put a limit on the number of days of remote work. The system itself will check whether an employee can still apply for a day of remote work in the selected pay period.

Currently, the legislator is working on introducing provisions on remote work to the Labor Code. Article 67(33) of the Labor Code would guarantee an employee the ability to work remotely 12 days a year. The new provisions are scheduled to take effect as of the third month after the end of the pandemic state.

Working time recording

Upon giving consent to remote work, each supervisor would like to be able to control the working time of their subordinate. This is made possible by the working time recording module. Depending on the needs, we can record time for projects, tasks or all-day working time. It is very ease for an employee to use it. When entering BeeOffice, the employee presses the start button (Start time recording) and starts counting their time. When finishing work, the employee just presses Stop, and the system itself transfers the result to the report and indicates whether the employee has worked the appropriate number of hours. The supervisor will be able to easily check whether the working time standard has been complied with.

At the employer’s request, an employee working remotely is required to keep a record of the activities performed, including in particular a description of these activities, as well as the date and time of their performance (Article 3(6) of the Act on COVID-19).

Time recording does not always look the same for all employees in a company. The flexible time recording module of BeeOffice allows different recording options to be set depending on the position or department of the company.

Desk booking

When it became clear that the new model of work organization did not significantly affect the smoothness of the processes carried out, and employees also liked working from home, some companies decided to reduce their office space. It was assumed that it would not be possible for 100% of the team to return to in-office work. The resulting savings are considerable. However, the problem of providing workspace to employees who want or need to come to the office on a given day remained to be solved.

BeeOffice Desk Booking is a module that was created for organizations for which remote work has become an equal way of organizing work and which have decided to introduce “hot desks". The desk booking functionality allows you to plan your stay in the office and take up the workspace of your choice. Depending on the rules applied in the organization, we can limit the booking options to, for example, two weeks ahead or a maximum of three days a week. The system itself makes sure that the employee does not exceed the set limits.

The module can also be used to book parking spaces, which is very useful when the company is located in the center of a large city and the organization has a limited number of parking spaces.

A space is booked in the plan of the office (or car park) provided by the customer. For the selected day, free spaces are marked in white. Once a desk is booked, the color changes to orange. On that day, such a desk cannot be reselected by another employee. If the office plan is not available, the booking is possible through the booking form.

Support for remote and hybrid work in BeeOffice

A new style of communication

According to a study by Magdalena Stańczuk (Cushman & Wakefield), “Employees whose companies let them decide when, where and how they work were more satisfied with their work, performed better and perceived their company as more innovative than competitors who did not offer this choice.” Not only have many companies quickly adapted to the changed circumstances and seamlessly transitioned to the new work organization model, but they have also discovered unexpected benefits.

In addition to the savings in office space rental, there are equally important advantages, such as the introduction of a modern style of communication with employees and their higher degree of satisfaction, which is of considerable value in a competitive labor market. A prerequisite for achieving these benefits is basing the organization of remote work on proven tools such as BeeOffice.