Christmas is nearly here! While the spirit of Christmas is in the joy of giving, finding time to take leave from work to head back to your hometown, or country, is a stressful experience for many. Purely in-person offices with many employees looking to get some family time over Christmas might struggle with large amounts of employees requesting leave, and the inflexibility of requiring them to show up at the same place in person each day.

Luckily, there is a new kind of office that does not experience this problem. Not only is this kind of office cheaper to run, but also offers immeasurably higher levels of flexibility for employers and employees. Fortunately, Covid-19 has ramped up the implementation of them many times over.

You guessed it, I’m talking about hybrid offices. According to Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index Annual Report, 73% of employees said they were hoping for more flexible remote work options, and 66% of employers responded they were looking into such options for their businesses.

How do hybrid offices help us spend more time with our families, though?

Good hybrid office setups allow excellent communication and for employees to come and go with their computer from office work to work from home seamlessly. One of the benefits of this is employees can travel to see their families for Christmas, without disrupting their workflows or asking for large amounts of leave simply due to travel time or quarantine requirements.

While there are no shortage of premium quality room solutions (Learn more about Room Solutions) coming onto the market to meet the needs of companies looking to fully digitize, bringing work-from-home or remote working options could be as simple as installing a good quality video conferencing camera to allow remote staff to remotely participate in meetings as if they were there in person. Since we’re living in 2021, image quality is no longer a concern with 4K sensors, a necessity in any good video conferencing camera.

Aside from offering employees greater flexibility and improving your business’ workflow, companies themselves also benefit from the implementation of hybrid setups. With Covid restrictions and requirements having become a normal part of life, hybrid offices prepare a workplace to operate at a lower capacity if required, even at short notice by allowing employees to work at home without sacrificing the quality of communication.

Hybrid offices also require less space. This can simply mean no more cramped desks, or could be a win-win with a smaller office space where employees can have the freedom they need with their work, and the company itself can avoid spending excessive amounts of money on renting or buying office spaces. There has never been a better time to modernize your office.