How to Optimize an Office for Hybrid Work: Megaplan's Experience
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2025 6:57 am
Over the past year and a half, hybrid attendance has become commonplace in many offices: employees work from home, from another city, and visit the office 2–3 times a week. There are fewer and fewer assigned spaces in work areas, and employees are developing a new ethic for using common areas. How to motivate a team and optimize space?
If before self-isolation in Moscow, Megaplan employees came to work every day, now more than half of the employees have completely switched to remote work, a third have a hybrid schedule. Very few are in the office every day. Thanks to this, we moved to a space five times smaller than before the pandemic, but we had to rent a separate small warehouse and solve a number of organizational and technical problems.
Unneeded server room
Having your own server room is a significant burden. While the workspace can be easily ukraine whatsapp list moved, the technology room cannot be moved out just like that; a whole procedure is required. In addition, a separate space is needed for the equipment in the new location. For many years, Megaplan’s server room had a dozen and a half machines: an Internet gateway with VPN, four file storage computers, an accounting terminal, four hypervisors for internal needs, telephony servers, and “1C”.
We ended up distributing our entire server space across Moscow and St. Petersburg data centers, shutting down some services entirely, and replacing others with cloud-based, more modern solutions.
The advantage of data centers is uninterrupted operation. They rarely experience power or internet outages. In an average Moscow office, this happens at least once every 6–12 months.
Dry storage for documents
Another burden is the archive of paper documents. By law, companies are required to store tons of paper for years. A warehouse can be rented for the paper archive.
Basements and lower floors of houses should not be chosen for the archive. They can be flooded during an unexpected rainstorm. In addition, pipes can burst in the basement. The premises should be dry; in addition to documents, spare computers and office equipment can be stored there.
It is important not to select premises on former production sites or near public catering. There may be parasites there that settle in documents or system units. It is also important that your archive is located close to the workspace and can be accessed around the clock.
Office equipment
Until recently, every sales manager of any company had a landline phone on their desk. Buying these phones and connecting the PBX was a separate big task. Today, all calls can be made via IP telephony in the CRM on a laptop. Headphones with a microphone are enough. Managers need less productive computers, or better yet, laptops. Developers need stationary and powerful computers. It is convenient to connect the function of printing documents from mobile phones. Remote employees need smartphones with large screens to work with the CRM system and task management program.
Schedule for the team
When not everyone works in the office every day, a hybrid seating arrangement is appropriate. Permanent employees have system units, monitors, and personal belongings next to their desks. Those who come to work from time to time have a locker for personal belongings and the opportunity to reserve a free workspace before their visit.
When switching to a hybrid work schedule and unassigned workstations, rules become especially important: the workstation must be tidied up before leaving, things must be put away in a locker; meeting rooms and workstations must be booked in a certain order. All these rules must be agreed upon by everyone together.
Employees of related specialties come to the office on certain days for negotiations. For example, Wednesday at Megaplan is the day of marketers, Tuesday is the day of product specialists. On this day, employees of other departments come to work who want to meet with marketers and product specialists.
If before self-isolation in Moscow, Megaplan employees came to work every day, now more than half of the employees have completely switched to remote work, a third have a hybrid schedule. Very few are in the office every day. Thanks to this, we moved to a space five times smaller than before the pandemic, but we had to rent a separate small warehouse and solve a number of organizational and technical problems.
Unneeded server room
Having your own server room is a significant burden. While the workspace can be easily ukraine whatsapp list moved, the technology room cannot be moved out just like that; a whole procedure is required. In addition, a separate space is needed for the equipment in the new location. For many years, Megaplan’s server room had a dozen and a half machines: an Internet gateway with VPN, four file storage computers, an accounting terminal, four hypervisors for internal needs, telephony servers, and “1C”.
We ended up distributing our entire server space across Moscow and St. Petersburg data centers, shutting down some services entirely, and replacing others with cloud-based, more modern solutions.
The advantage of data centers is uninterrupted operation. They rarely experience power or internet outages. In an average Moscow office, this happens at least once every 6–12 months.
Dry storage for documents
Another burden is the archive of paper documents. By law, companies are required to store tons of paper for years. A warehouse can be rented for the paper archive.
Basements and lower floors of houses should not be chosen for the archive. They can be flooded during an unexpected rainstorm. In addition, pipes can burst in the basement. The premises should be dry; in addition to documents, spare computers and office equipment can be stored there.
It is important not to select premises on former production sites or near public catering. There may be parasites there that settle in documents or system units. It is also important that your archive is located close to the workspace and can be accessed around the clock.
Office equipment
Until recently, every sales manager of any company had a landline phone on their desk. Buying these phones and connecting the PBX was a separate big task. Today, all calls can be made via IP telephony in the CRM on a laptop. Headphones with a microphone are enough. Managers need less productive computers, or better yet, laptops. Developers need stationary and powerful computers. It is convenient to connect the function of printing documents from mobile phones. Remote employees need smartphones with large screens to work with the CRM system and task management program.
Schedule for the team
When not everyone works in the office every day, a hybrid seating arrangement is appropriate. Permanent employees have system units, monitors, and personal belongings next to their desks. Those who come to work from time to time have a locker for personal belongings and the opportunity to reserve a free workspace before their visit.
When switching to a hybrid work schedule and unassigned workstations, rules become especially important: the workstation must be tidied up before leaving, things must be put away in a locker; meeting rooms and workstations must be booked in a certain order. All these rules must be agreed upon by everyone together.
Employees of related specialties come to the office on certain days for negotiations. For example, Wednesday at Megaplan is the day of marketers, Tuesday is the day of product specialists. On this day, employees of other departments come to work who want to meet with marketers and product specialists.