Software

7 Best Hybrid Work Apps to Boost Productivity

To handle the transition to a hybrid work that lots of companies worldwide opt for, employers need to consider the choice of digital tools that would act as facilitators. In our new post, we list the apps providing assistance in hybrid team collaboration.

Alla Chernets

Oct 21, 2024 • 9 min read

With hybrid work offering to combine benefits of WFH and onsite models (most importantly, the flexibility of working hours and maintaining social connections), the idea lands well among lots of companies.

According to McKenzie estimations, workers can be expected to attend offices from one to four days per week, which will require the implementation of different management policies.

The recent news confirms the strengthening of hybrid work trend that the European accounting firms, in particular, are starting to put into practice actively.

Indeed, by utilizing the best software for hybrid working challenges of split work get an easy solution.

For example, using automatic time tracking software for free in integration with other productivity tools for hybrid teams can significantly improve employee timekeeping and project management.

However, there are other related areas that require special attention before we proclaim the end of 'cubicle reign'.

To decide if your company has capabilities for enabling remote work with effectiveness, we recommend checking great reads here and here.

Hurdles Hybrid Workers Commonly Face

Hybrid work: a blend of the best of both worlds, or a blur of boundaries?

According to studies, most remote workers name social isolation as one major downside of all-remote mode, which makes hybrid (when workers are allowed to alternate office and WFH) an ideally balanced work option.

However, without deep changes, businesses could experience a fail in choosing the right tone when saying hello to hybrid work.

For a start, hybrid work requires that the processes stay aligned, and team communications improve.

The key challenge is balancing employee flexibility with organizational efficiency.

How can we create a system that will provide the benefit of adaptable work hours without causing organizational chaos?

To achieve this, we must develop a system that optimizes both.

The Best Tip for Hybrid Workers

If we had to pick one tip that works particularly well for hybrid work, it would be:

"Batch similar tasks together"

This involves grouping similar tasks together and completing them in one session.

For example, checking and responding to all emails at once, or making all phone calls at once. This technique is called "batching" or "task grouping."

Batching helps you stay focused and avoid context switching, which can be a major productivity killer in hybrid work environments.

By grouping similar tasks together, you can:

Reduce the time spent switching between tasks
Increase your productivity and efficiency
Minimize distractions and stay focused on a single task
Improve your work quality and reduce errors

For winning hybrid work, employers must keep in focus:

Providing conditions for autonomous work so that employees are tech-ready to adapt accordingly regardless of where their workstation is located
Documentation of communication that includes adequate feedback and leaves no room for assumptions.

How to Choose a Hybrid Work App

Apps for Hybrid Work: Connecting Teams and Streamlining Tasks

In the post-pandemic workplace, where hybrid work has become the norm despite calls for a return to the office, choosing the right hybrid work app is essential for a seamless employee experience.

To thrive in this new environment, businesses must abandon outdated protocols and provide clear guidelines that prioritize:

Safety: Ensuring a secure and healthy work environment for all employees.
Mental Wellbeing: Supporting employee mental health and work-life balance.
Empathetic Leadership: Fostering a culture of understanding and support.
Diversity: Promoting inclusivity and equal opportunities.

Ignoring the value-based changes at time of the reopening may come at a risk of falling behind competitors. According to Conversation:

Firms may prefer traditional work practices, but progress in society will require that a new normal is established.

In the long term, the corporate culture attuned to these requirements will pay off by building a more resilient and future-proof work environment.

Below, we name tools that prove to be reliable assistants in facing possible challenges of hybrid work related to administration and communication processes.

TMetric: Ideal Time Keeping App for Hybrid Teams

In hybrid mode, trying to keep the tasks and working hours updated can get overwhelming, and a time tracker with the basic ability to start and stop an activity would not be enough.

How does TMetric increase productivity for hybrid work?

TMetric is a top hybrid work software offering robust features to optimize productivity and facilitate complex workflows including:

generation of detailed reports on demand
task management options
PTO module for tracking employees' attendance and time off regardless of their onsite, remote, or hybrid presence
working offline (to empower the digital switch-off routine)
setting project rates and budgets
calculating time in related services (by integration in the mail and virtual communication tools to give insights into work processes).

The Bottom Line: When setting a hybrid-remote environment, opting for TMetric time tracking for hybrid teams translates into keeping workflows productive and smooth by automating work time calculations for employees using hybrid workstations.

Livestorm: Easy Video Conferencing App

Livestorm is a great hybrid work app that enables teams to have high-quality video communication and provides detailed event analytics.

How does Livestorm increase productivity for hybrid work?

It is available across any device and gives access to service in real-time.

Hybrid teams engaged in marketing, customer support, sales, and HR use this platform for improved communication.
Irreplaceable in promoting a new team collaborative hybrid-based culture.
Aside from featuring lots of options, this video conferencing solution is affordable, well-integrated, and easy to apply.

The Bottom Line: Livestorm allows not only holding multiple online events that create a seamless experience for hybrid teams but also delivers live interactions and event recording for further reviewing.

Workast: Task Management for Slack teams

Workast is a hybrid working app for teams that use Slack. Workast task management connects directly to a Slack workspace so team members can create and manage tasks, inside their conversations.

How does Workast increase productivity for hybrid work?

Get more work done in less time with Workast's Slack integration.
See everything that the team needs to do with reporting.
Never forget another task with reminders and Slack notifications.
Streamline processes with custom forms.

The Bottom Line: Workast is a completely customizable task management solution for teams in hybrid work settings, increasing employee productivity and efficiency with greater transparency within the organization.

Teams: Messaging App for Hybrid Teams

The use cases of this app go beyond traditional work environments and find wide applications across lots of industries including business, healthcare, and education.

How does Teams increase productivity for hybrid work?

Teams is a versatile platform that offers a range of hybrid working tools, making it ideal for both in-office and remote teams.

It has chat and message options to promote collaboration
It enables teams to hold committee meetings
Diverse contact management
Initiating of discussions
It integrates with digital ecosystems smoothly
Provides recording of the meetings
Additionally, it offers functionality for video conferencing.

The Bottom Line: Teams greatly facilitate communication, remove the necessity to be bogged in long email threads, and liberate employees in hybrid work settings by providing conditions for proactive participation.

M-Files: Document Distribution Tool

It is the best hybrid work management software for complex document management guaranteeing significant improvements in hybrid team performance.

How does M-Files increase productivity for hybrid work?

Besides the improvement of workflow, it contributes to the increase of information distribution by featuring:

content management functions
multiple templates
provision of digital asset management
document classification and generation
smart archiving
tracking of information compliance.

The Bottom Line: M-Files has proven its high level of performance in more than 100 countries as it works best for hybrid teams in SMB and delivers reliability and high value in terms of management of business information.

CloudApp: Visual Communication Tool

CloudApp is a leader among productivity tools for hybrid teams.

CloudApp provides visual communication widely used in customer support, product development, sales, marketing, and design.

How does CloudApp increase productivity for hybrid work?

It suits a hybrid workplace ideally by creating collaborative space and delivering options for:

sharing videos, GIFs, screenshots
annotations on images
screen and webcam recording
filters for facilitating search
document generation inside the app.

The Bottom Line: It makes the best use of asynchronous communication and enhances the user experience in a hybrid environment by personalizing it. This way, meetings can accommodate multiple participants but enable the host to take charge of the process.

Calendar: Effortless Scheduling

If you need to research the best software for hybrid working to improve our team scheduling, here is Calendar.

It is one of the most important collaborative tools is a scheduler that would cater to specific hybrid environment needs.

It helps balance the cognitive workload amplified by too many virtual calls by creating a consistent schedule adjusted to hybrid work.

How does Calendar increase productivity for hybrid work?

The functionality, which is well-attuned to hybrid-remote settings, makes Calendar your ideal collaboration solution. It features:

Address Book and sync of the contacts
Unobtrusive system of reminders
Functionality for event management
Data sharing for viewing relevant scheduling options

The Bottom Line: This tool prevents overlaps in scheduling while additionally, providing detailed analysis of the time allocation on meetings and associated tasks.

Pragli: Virtual Assistant for Hybrid Teams

Pragli stands out as one of the top hybrid work software solutions, offering a seamless platform for remote teams to collaborate and communicate effectively.

Unlike other communication tools, Pragli provides one important option, – the permanent availability of the collaboration channel.

How does Pragli increase productivity for hybrid work?

It features rooms that are always open so that team members can enter or leave as their schedule requires.

avatar builder to enable a gamified user experience
choose whether your room is currently open or closed
video and screen share
choice of audio/video format recording.

The Bottom Line: It creates a more efficient environment for hybrid-remote teams by providing the mechanism for copying behavior in the actual office that supposes organizing the meetings instantly.

Fyle: For a Seamless Expense Management Process

The easiest way to automate your entire pre-accounting process end-to-end. Fyle enables your Finance teams to gain complete control over your expense management process by giving them full visibility into company-wide business expenses from one unified dashboard.

How does Fyle increase productivity for hybrid work?

Fyle is a powerful hybrid working app that simplifies expense management for teams of all sizes.

It's perfect for a hybrid work model as it enables:

Easy submission and tracking of business expenses
Automated compliance through pre-submission checks
Complete visibility into company-wide spending patterns and trends
Seamless integrations with prominent accounting software

The Botton Line: In a hybrid setting, the software ensures that your employees have the freedom to submit their business expenses with ease while also reducing the manual labor on your Finance teams to verify each of these expenses manually.

By ensuring all your expense reports are policy-compliant, Fyle keeps expense fraud at bay while also letting you stay audit-ready.

Conclusion

With digital tools performing like a crucial enabler for company transition to a hybrid work environment, every manager needs to opt for the apps that would ideally fit in the specific business policies.

The hybrid working tools mentioned above are ideal for small and medium businesses seeking to streamline their workflows and adapt to hybrid work environments.