A hybrid work set-up can seem daunting and appear challenging for many organisations making the switch to the hybrid office.
With Focus’ commitment to helping to fix the broken world of work, the following tools have been tried and tested with Focus customers and coaching clients and come recommended with clients requiring help with their move Hybrid.
Read Our Free 35 Page Comprehensive Guide:
The Hybrid Work Guide
The tools are alternatives to what you and your teams may have used or the best software available on the market.
It is important to understand with Hybrid work tools and hybrid software there are minimum requirements including:
- Being cloud-based aka usable anywhere
- Many third-party integrations, reducing the need for multiple tabs to be open at once and working on many apps is not required
- Simplicity as standard: Easy to learn for all users and does not require expensive onboarding is essential
- A need to work across all browsers and devices is a minimum
- Multiplayer as standard (show who is editing and where and being able to have conversations within the app is important
- Keyboard commands and quick commands lines to reduce user friction
- Quick and auto save and tracking edits is essential
Virtual Meetings Tools
| Tool | Use case | URL | Top Pro’s |
| Whereby | High quality, low bandwidth and browser-based tool. It’s more than just needing a tool that is an alternative to zoom and designed for breakouts? | http://whereby.com/ | Flexible and designed for meetings with chats, breakouts and collaboration. Picture in picture enables you to browse other tabs while the meeting guest(s) are still in view |
| Around.co | High-level hybrid collaboration for small groups of people and teams who work remotely. | https://www.around.co/ | Collaboration around campfire (option to set meeting attendees around a campfire set up) and centralising views. Echo terminator works really well when truly working hybrid (some in the same office, others working from home) and sends any notes and links shared into slack and to those who attended the meeting, |
| Butter.us | Training, workshops and sprints all within a browser as good as being in person together | https://butter.us/ | Super simple to use and integrations with Miro, Google Drive and YouTube into major tools make it easy to use and fun to use in a workshop setting with quick reactions and open feedback tools. |
Collaboration Tools
| Tool | Use Case | URL | Top Pro’s |
| Miro | When you need something bigger than a shared document and want to brainstorm, workshop or build your roadmap. | https://miro.com/ | Super simple canvas (whiteboard), enables collaboration straight away and allows one to one, one to few or one to many working sessions |
| Mural | Digital workspace tool build to help you problem solve in multiplayer setting | https://www.mural.co/ | Simple visual brainstorming, all within a browser. Works well if you require visuals to run analysis Mural has over 200 templates for you to work from instantly. |
| Google Docs | When you need to collaborate on a working document together and have accountability of changes | https://docs.google.com | With over 1billion monthly active users almost everyone knows how Google Workspace apps work. Open and free to everyone. |
Internal Wiki and Knowledge Centre’s aka Asynchronous Chat Tools
| Tool | Use Case | URL | Top Pro’s |
| Notion | Need to tool that enables a number of different documentation options and lives and breathes with embeds, internal linking | https://notion.so | Simple interface with numerous simple commands. Templates for almost every use case. Enables asynchronous conversation with embedded content that works out of the box, unlike many |
| Asana | When you need to be across numerous projects and require task level attention to detail | https://asana.com/ | Attention to detail Inbox view for work to complete Built for asynchronous discussions and being updated within “meetings” |
| Atlassian Confluence | For large organisations requiring organisation and enabling cross-functional collaboration with the ability to build knowledge centres quickly and integrate into tech and product roadmaps | https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence | Build for flexibility – helps keep on top of changes Used by many organisations and has numerous Simple mention and notification centre helps |
Chat Tools
| Tool | Use Case | URL | Top Pro’s |
| Slack | Require a tool to help teams work across projects, primarily with text chat and integrating their digital presence | https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/ | Numerous integrations into third-party tools with hundreds of apps answering numerous challenges businesses have Enables quick-fire conversations with threads |
| Discord | Require a tool that provides flexible ways to collaborate. Built with asynchronous work in mind allowing audio channels and text-based chat. | https://discord.gg/ | Built for collaboration and multiplayer in mind. Good for teams who love quick questions and answers. A number of bots that helps collaboration and has a number of moderation bots to reduce friction within apps. Require quick fire audio updates to your colleagues rather than typing |
| Microsoft Teams | Do you need to work around traditional documents and collaborate within Word, Excel, PowerPoint or MS software? | https://teams.microsoft.com/ | Teams is built to be a work operating system for those who are invested in Microsoft. Simple interface and creates super quick and simple updates across all Microsoft software. |
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