Remote, On-Site, or Hybrid Work – A Guide and Insights For Your Team

Whether you’re returning to the office, allowing your team to work remotely, or giving your team the flexibility to choose, Zoom can keep you safe and connected.

Virtual meeting

As a sense of normalcy begins to return after a year of extreme changes, decisions now need to be made about what the next phase of work will look like for your teams and your company. Will you be fully returning to the office? Will you leave the office behind and embrace a fully remote workspace? Or will you offer your employees flexible work options to work where they want, building a hybrid workplace with both work from home and in-office options?

 

Whatever choice you make, we offer the features and functionality your team needs to stay safe, connected, and productive. This digital guide covers three options for what your next phase of work could look like, as well as the specific tools and features of Zoom that can make them possible. What you choose for your next phase of work hinges on a number of factors unique to your business, your strategy, and your people.

Returning to the Office

group at desk

Planning for the health and safety of your team as you return to your physical on-site workspace.

Full Return to the Office

As organizations continue to adjust their work models to meet the needs of their employees, they’ve begun to ask the same question: “when can we get back to normal?” However, many are realizing that their sense of “normal” will likely never return just as it was as organizations face new and emerging challenges related to health, safety, and productivity. While employees are eager to return to the office, they’re also nervous about their health and safety.

 

A study conducted by Envoy surveyed 1000 full and part-time employees in the US; the results showed that 73% of respondents were worried about returning to the office. Companies are taking these concerns seriously, and for good reason: the study also found that over half of people would consider leaving their job if their employer didn’t prioritize their safety. Getting the best work from your people now requires additional focus to ensure the health and safety of all your employees using on-site workspaces.

73%
Percent of workers are concerned about returning to the office

For those surveyed, the top three concerns about on-site workspaces were concern over others coming to work sick, an overcrowded workspace, and proper ventilation. While Zoom has traditionally been focused on virtual collaboration, we’re rapidly expanding our product portfolio to help businesses like yours tackle these challenges and get back to in-house work safely.

Top Concerns About the On-Site Workspace

  • Warning

    Not knowing if someone sick comes into the office

  • Large group

    Too many people in the workspace at once

  • wind

    Lack of proper ventilation

Returning to the Office Checklist

Ensuring the health and safety of your employees while they’re in the office is more important than ever before and you need the right tools to help you manage resources and minimize contact wherever possible. Zoom makes this easy with our video-first unified communications platform. With some exciting new features, and others you’ve known and loved for years, Zoom can get your team back on-site, in the office quickly and safely.

Return to Office Checklist - diagram

Health & Safety

  • 1 Virtual Receptionist

    For contactless visits

  • 2 E911 Platform

    For emergency response

  • 3 Environmental Data

    To monitor conditions

Resource Management

  • 4 In-Room People Counting

    For policy monitoring

  • 5 Workspace Reservation

    For resource sharing

  • 6 Digital Signage

    For important updates

  • 7 Room Schedulers

    For easy room booking

Hands-Free Communication

  • 8 Companion Mode

    For mobile room control

  • 9 Wireless Pairing

    With dedicated devices

  • 10 Voice Control

    In conference rooms

Virtual Receptionist

Welcome guests safely and allow your front desk staff to work from anywhere with Zoom’s Kiosk Mode. Office visitors can tap to instantly be connected with your front desk staff over Zoom.

Once engaged, your front desk staff can greet and assist office visitors from anywhere, safely delivering a great first impression to every office visitor.

wELCOME TO

Digital Signage and Workspace Reservation

With more employees looking for a hybrid work model, splitting their workweek between home and the office, Workspace Reservation with Zoom Rooms Scheduling Displays can help employees reserve their spaces in advance and provide visibility of available resources. Use Digital Signage to show resource availability (e.g. SpaceIQ) or information such as the cleaning schedule of on-site assets.

whiteboard graph

Voice Commands for Zoom Rooms

Available on iOS today, and coming soon to all platforms, you can start a meeting in a Zoom Room with voice commands. Upon entering a meeting room, attendees can start a meeting without the need to touch communal Zoom Rooms controllers.

Alexa for Businesses is also available now on Zoom Rooms Appliances, providing additional abilities, like “Alexa, find me an available meeting room.”

future meetings

E911 Digital Signage Integration

With fewer coworkers on-site to help in times of need, marshaling the right resources is more challenging than ever. Zoom Phone Nomadic E911 (U.S. and Canada) provides the ability to dynamically track the location of users as they move around your campus to ensure their location is up to date in the event of an emergency. When an emergency number is dialed, Zoom will notify your internal safety team and use digital signage to direct first responders.

Virtual signage

In-Room People Counting

We’re enhancing Scheduling Displays to show in-room people counting to help attendees keep to social distancing requirements. The Zoom Rooms camera will constantly monitor people in a room, displaying the count on the rooms scheduling display. Rooms will also report on room occupancy over time in the Zoom Rooms dashboard, making it easier to track and enforce any occupancy policies or limits.

Meeting tablet

Zoom Rooms Scheduling Displays

Zoom Rooms customers can deploy an unlimited number of scheduling displays that can make it easy for on-site and hybrid workers to book meeting spaces. Integrated directly in your organization’s calendar application, scheduling displays show real-time booking information and availability throughout the office. They can be used for large conference rooms, huddle rooms, and even desks or other shared resources.

conference room

Companion Mode for Zoom Rooms

In-room meeting attendees can now pair their personal devices to the Zoom Room with the Zoom Room Controller mobile application. Once paired, an attendee can manage the room controls from their own device. No need to touch communal controllers to start or control meeting rooms, everything can now be controlled from the attendee’s own device.

Phone features

Digital Signage and Space Utilization

Zoom Rooms customers can deploy an unlimited number of digital signage to display important information and announcements throughout the office. Leveraging secure, cloud-based occupancy dashboards from organizations like Density.io, Zoom Rooms Admins can display building capacity limits and human occupancy alerts throughout your office spac

94% Full

Enhanced Dashboard Reporting

The Zoom Rooms dashboard can now help monitor and report on room occupancy, giving you a clearer picture of how resources are being utilized and if employees are following policies. Supported hardware such as Neat devices can also monitor things like air quality to ensure a safe and healthy environment.

Multi graph

Buttonless Bluetooth Phones and Softphone

Zoom Phone makes it easy to pair office desk phones to specific users in flexible work environments and new Bluetooth-enabled, buttonless models allow for easy cleaning and minimal hands-on usage.

Desk phone

The Hybrid Work Model

Figure at desk on webcam

Giving your hybrid workforce the freedom and tools they need to work the way they want.

The Hybrid Workspace

As companies plan for their next phase of work, many will likely implement both a remote and on-site workspace, or what we’re calling a hybrid workplace. A hybrid workplace provides employees the ability to choose day-to-day where they would like to work. Some employees can work from home, offsite full time while others will be in a physical office bright and early each day. But both groups have the flexibility to change their working location based on their schedules, projects, or needs of the day.

 

Allowing employees to tailor their workspace to their needs can have a dramatic impact on productivity, and employees seem to know it. That same study conducted by Envoy that surveyed 1000 full and part-time employees in the US found that a whopping 94% would like to still be in the office at least once a week. On-site and remote workspaces both have their place, and a hybrid work environment allows your team to choose what best suits their needs and work.

 

The hybrid workspace is not without its challenges. The top three concerns about the hybrid working model are concern over others coming to work sick, not being able to see friends and teammates as often, and missing out on birthdays, activities, and other events that can build and maintain culture. Just as Zoom helped facilitate fully remote workspaces and full physical workspaces, the Zoom platform is essential to productive workspaces for a hybrid distributed workforce.

Top Concerns About the Hybrid Work Environment

  • Warning

    Not knowing if someone sick comes into the on-site workspace

  • friend group

    Not seeing friends and teammates as often

  • At home

    Missing out on birthdays, activities, and other events

Hybrid Workspace Checklist

The hybrid work model blends the advantages and challenges of both the physical in-office space and the remote workspace. This makes your communication platform more important than ever, and Zoom has the tools and features to provide the flexibility hybrid workers want, with the safety and accessibility they need to stay connected no matter where they work. Use the checklist below to gauge your readiness to deploy a hybrid workforce.

Hybrid Workspace Checklist - diagram

Collaboration

  • 1 Seamless Zoom Whiteboarding

    For easy collaboration

  • 2 Zoom Apps (coming soon)

    Apps available directly in the meeting

  • 3 Messaging

    Real-time connection

  • 4 Noise Suppression

    Fewer disruptions

Communication

  • 5 Smart Gallery

    More personal meetings

  • 6 Zoom for Home

    An enhanced Zoom home experience

  • 7 Zoom on Smart Displays

    More ways to connect

  • 8 Mobile App

    Always connected

Health & Safety

  • 9 Virtual Receptionist

    For contactless visits

  • 10 E911 Platform

    For emergency response

  • 11 Environmental Data

    To monitor conditions

Resource Management

  • 12 In-Room People Counting

    For policy monitoring

  • 13 Workspace Reservation

    For resource sharing

  • 14 Digital Signage

    For important updates

  • 15 Room Schedulers

    For easy in-office room booking

Fully Remote Workspace

Figure at home desk

Keeping your remote team connected and together, even when they’re apart.

Fully Remote workspace

Remote work is not a new concept, but over the past year, WFH has taken a massive leap forward, from a conceptual strategy to the day-to-day reality of most information workers. The past year has been an incredible experiment in the flexibility of offsite remote work, and that experiment has yielded some very real and surprising benefits to companies that have embraced it.

 

Employees looking for job flexibility

 

Productivity has long been the top concern of many companies as they considered flexible working options. Over the past year, many companies have found that flexible working options, like remote working, actually improved their team’s productivity. One Gartner study showed that when employees are given the flexibility to choose when and where they work, the percentage of top performers rose by 19 points to 55%. That means a majority of the employees at companies that work remotely are top performers!

 

Worker desire for flexibility in where and when they work is mirrored in hiring trends. According to Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn, “We’re seeing a huge increase in demand for remote work on our platform, one that will have a significant long-term impact on the labor market. Globally, we’re seeing four times the number of jobs that offer remote work since March.”

 

For these reasons and more, the remote work trend is not going anywhere soon. According to a Gartner study, seventy-four percent of surveyed companies plan to institute some form of remote working option for their employees on a permanent basis. But successful remote work requires the right communication and collaboration tools, and Zoom offers a complete communication platform for your remote team to work from home, a coffee shop, or even the beach.

Work From Home Checklist

Keeping your employees connected, giving them new ways to collaborate, and facilitating the interactions that build and maintain company culture are all crucial elements of a successful, productive distributed workforce. Your communication platform is the hub that makes all of this possible. Use the checklist below to gauge your readiness to deploy a remote working environment for your employees.

Work From Home (WFH) Checklist - diagram

Collaboration

  • 1 Seamless Zoom Whiteboarding

    For easy collaboration

  • 2 Zoom Apps

    Apps available directly in the meeting

  • 3 Messaging

    Real-time connection

  • 4 Noise Suppression

    Fewer disruptions

Communication

  • 5 Software/Hardware Phones

    Easy remote use and setup

  • 6 Zoom for Home

    An enhanced Zoom home experience

  • 7 Zoom on Smart Displays

    More ways to connect

  • 8 Mobile App

    Always connected

Culture

  • 9 Zoom Events

    For company events

  • 10 Large Meetings

    Up to 1000 participants

Zoom Events for Company Culture

When your employees are working remotely, maintaining company culture can be a challenge. Zoom Events provides an event platform that is perfect for offering culture-building classes to your employees, from yoga to cooking classes, ERG events to All-Hands Meetings. Sharing experiences is where culture is created and maintained, and Zoom Events makes it easy to attend a wide range of events or host your own.

man in kitchen

Seamless Whiteboarding

Collaborate like you’re in person, even when you’re working from home. Zoom’s Whiteboard tools are perfect for collaborative brainstorms, ideation, and iteration. Contribute to whiteboards from your desktop application, mobile application, or Zoom Rooms for Touch devices, no meeting necessary! Zoom Whiteboards can easily be saved and shared to Zoom Team Chat or for reference or to build on in the next session, and every participant can collaborate on a Zoom Whiteboard from any device.

monitor displaying graphs

Zoom for Home

Zoom for Home devices bring exceptional meeting experiences right into your remote office or living room. Easy setup and management mean you can spend more time face-to-face with your team, even when everyone is at home. Devices like the Facebook Portal TV, pictured here, can even turn your existing TV into a Zoom Room, allowing you to join meetings with a single touch.

Zoom on Smart Displays

Zoom now runs on more devices, including the Google Nest Hub Max, Amazon’s Echo Show, and the Facebook Portal. Your teams can leverage the smart devices already in their home for even more ways to meet and stay connected.

Virtual meeting

Zoom Team Chat

Make collaboration easier between teams and external participants with enterprise chat and instant video meetings. Zoom Team Chat allows you to communicate in real-time across your entire organization. With 1:1 chat and group chats, you can keep your teams up to date and connected from minute to minute. Zoom Team Chat provides the tools to help every organization leverage the power of messaging communication to enhance team collaboration.

Laptop displaying zoom

Background Noise Suppression

The sites and sounds of a remote office are far less predictable than a standard in-office environment. Thankfully, Zoom’s background noise suppression will eliminate any background noises you might experience in a WFH space such as dogs barking or your partner’s phone call, creating a distraction-free meeting experience that’s perfect for important meetings and presentations or online education.

office simulation

Zoom Apps and App Marketplace

Bring the tools you use every day into the Zoom Application with Zoom Apps and Zoom’s App Marketplace. Zoom can fit seamlessly into the workflows and tools your team already uses to get work done, eliminating time-consuming context switching and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your team.

Logo display

Zoom Mobile App

Rated Best App of the Year in the Apple App Store, the Zoom Mobile App allows you to stay connected wherever you are. Whether you’re using Zoom Team Chat to stay in touch with your team or taking a video meeting on the go, the Zoom Mobile App ensures you never miss a thing.

phone on couch

Zoom Webinars for Large Meetings and Town Halls

Zoom scales seamlessly to accommodate all your meeting needs. Whether it’s a one-on-one or a town hall with the entire company, Zoom works perfectly every time. Zoom Webinars can accommodate even more participants, making Zoom the perfect choice for even your largest events.

Galley view

As we mentioned in the introduction, what you choose for your next phase of work hinges on a number of factors unique to your business, your strategy, and your people. This choice should be carefully considered to find the solution that best fits your situation and business. With Zoom’s video-first unified communication platform, you’re able to keep your people safe, keep them connected, and keep them productive no matter what your next phase of work looks like. We’d love to speak to you about your workspace, the challenges and opportunities you’re facing, and how Zoom can partner with you to come back to the office stronger than ever.