5 Reasons Why Scheduling Software Is Important In The Era Of Hybrid Working Model

A hybrid working model is a flexible working system where employees are not bound by location or timings to get work done. With the pandemic pushing companies to adopt work from home model, it is now clearer than ever to all human resource management professionals the benefits and viability of a hybrid working model. This led to the dawn of the era of the hybrid working model, As per the model, employees of organizations and professions that can work virtually such as software development professionals, help desk teams, human resource professionals, marketing teams, business development teams, customer service executives, and any other profession that does not require the employee to be physically present at work location can work from wherever they desire and follow a flexible work hour routine. This has helped many working mothers to split their work time and match it to their children's routines, it has also helped many employees build custom routines to make time for their daily workouts and frequent appointments.

As the nature of the model is heavily dependent on the employee’s schedules, managing employee times such that they are available for meetings, discussions, announcements, events, etc. is a challenging task. Let's take for example a marketing team of 5 responsible for launching and hosting a virtual event. This would require the team members to let go of complete flexibility and decide upon mutual availabilities to coordinate and execute the event. Scheduling their days and building predictable routines would help team members coordinate smoothly. Thus, prioritizing and managing schedules is the best way to establish an effective hybrid working model.

Identifying this, many organizations have invested in scheduling software to manage their appointments and schedules as they transition to a hybrid working space. Some reasons why it's needed, especially in a hybrid working model:

1. Human resource management

The hybrid model allows organizations to employ talent from across geographies. This means one team can have members working in different time zones. The model also grants employees the freedom to work flexible hours. This situation proves to be challenging to manage if the team members were to coordinate meetings and discussions using spreadsheets or 1-1 conversations - not only among themselves but also with 3rd party stakeholders. Scheduling software helps overcome this challenge by integrating with the calendar applications and ensuring their availability is visible for scheduling to those concerned.

2. Office space management

Certain organizations have limited office space availability for employees and consultants to work from — either as per their preference or as per company rules that require them to work from the office for a few days a week. Enabling this requires office space availability to be visible to all for booking. Be it booking a meeting room or simply a desk for the day, scheduling software helps keep office space availability in order. Since office space management requires the availability of multiple desks, meeting rooms, or cabins to be up for booking for multiple employees and stakeholders, scheduling software helps ease the process and simplify scheduling.

3. Employee flexibility

While managing employees’ work times and office space utilization is important, so is enabling flexible hours. Most organizations across the world have decided the number of working days and working hours that employees are required to complete to ensure flexibility without affecting the company's productivity. In such scenarios, the employees are required to share their availability with their colleagues to ensure coordination and collaboration are not affected. A scheduling software would allow employees to share their schedules and customize their time slots and work hours.

4. Time management

Scheduling software applications not only help schedule appointments, they also help ensure that the appointment is fulfilled by allowing easy appointment modifications, sending multiple reminder notifications, and integrating with calendar applications. This ensures companies do not lose out on time due to any no-shows, double bookings, technical errors, etc. Managing time for virtual employee presence becomes easier with the help of a scheduling software application as it stores, classifies, and analyzes data from a single database. This ultimately leads to efficient time management and improved productivity.

5. Visibility

As the schedules of all employees, customer interactions, and office space are fed into a single system, it grants companies end-to-end visibility in all schedules. A scheduling software would help HR departments in evaluating an employee's leaves and availability, a manager in evaluating the team's productivity, or a sales team in analyzing customer interactions during a specific period. The analysis in turn would help companies take quick and informed decisions.

While challenging, a hybrid working space is the future and companies must embrace it to stay ahead in the talent market. Candidates do not just prefer rather require the work-life balance that a hybrid workspace provides. Leveraging scheduling software to overcome the challenges of the model is the only way to survive.

Appointo is a no-code appointment booking software that helps track appointments and bookings for all types of businesses. Its easy-to-use interface is aimed at helping all organizations across industries ease appointment scheduling for all their stakeholders. Keeping it simple for a host of our clients, Appointo is well known for its simplicity, swift implementation, competitive pricing, and customer support. Try Appointo for your business now.