How I Made Hybrid Work Great Again By Understanding Managers

SWAY — tailored software for a hybrid work environment

Our switch back to a hybrid work model faces a critical challenge: low office attendance negatively affects team collaboration and company culture. Initial company-wide data revealed some concerning patterns.

My Role — Lead Product Designer and Manager

Team:
  • 2 Developers (frontend and backend)
  • 1 UX Analyst (user research and testing)

Timeline: 6-month part-time improvement project building on existing basic booking system.

Task

Reach 60% overall office attendance while maintaining flexibility for different work styles.

  • Strategy

    Design Direction, Product Strategy

  • Design

    UI/UX Design, Art Direction

  • Client

    SWAY

  • Tools

    Bullet Journal, MIro, Figma

Metrics to Start With

Office attendance patterns

32p
21-25 year-olds

office time

45p
25-32 year-olds

office time

58p
32-40 year-olds

office time

18

minutes

Manager scheduling time averages
only
31%

Desk utilization rate

The Initial Problem

Before SWAY existed, our offices around the world faced a fundamental issue with workspace coordination. We needed to create a service that would make office visits feel motivating rather than mandatory.

The existing coworking solutions were bloated with unnecessary features and required extensive customization. Our own software solution wasn’t ideal either. My team needed to design something lean and focused that was built specifically for internal corporate use.

Why This Mattered

When younger employees skip offline teamwork and projects, progress slows down.

Poor coordination meant that when people came to the office, they couldn’t collaborate effectively.

Managers spent too much time booking meeting rooms and were unable to book desks spaces that seated everyone together.

Success Definitions

Increase overall attendance to 60% while accommodating different work styles across teams.

Give managers more time to focus on other priorities by reducing the workload on them.

The Breakthrough Moment

We started with a simple assumption: build a basic desk booking tool, and “please, improve some UX” request.

This was wrong.

Our guerrilla research approach revealed the real problem. We immersed ourselves in daily operations and observed managers struggling with meeting coordination.

A pivotal insight came from observing a manager spend about 20 minutes manually selecting individual team members for a weekly project review and booking desks across the office space, often forgetting people.

On the regular employee side, according to the survey results, more than a third of employees preferred minimal office presence. Booking a desk required logging into the system, searching for an available desk, and reviewing their preferred locations by moving the office map. It was not possible to plan regular visits ahead of time.

The Real Need

Managers needed to orchestrate team presence, not just book individual desks

This insight transformed our approach from individual booking to team coordination.

Our Agile Response

Research Methods Used:
  • Intercept interviews (hallway testing)
  • Rapid usability testing with paper prototypes
  • Think-aloud protocols
  • One-on-one task completion observations

The Pivot:

Transitioning from linear individual booking to cluster-based team coordination with smart proximity features

Key Innovation Implemented

Automatic nearby seat selection that highlights available desk clusters on specific days and enables managers to book multiple adjacent workspaces with one action.

Solution Impact

Template System:

We solved the biggest pain point for managers.

Instead of selecting employees one by one, managers can create reusable templates, which reduces meeting planning time by 68%. Any meeting can be saved as a template with one click.

A smart clustering algorithm seats all employees next to each other when planning a day of teamwork.

0
Flexible booking templates

with customizable repeatability

0
Calendar integration

with office location &  visual desk mapping

0
Smart clustering algorithm

for automatic team seating

0
+ Mobile-first experience

separate project initiated after desktop success

Lessons Learned

What Worked

Embedded observation revealed real problems vs. assumed problems

Rapid prototyping allowed quick iteration based on user feedback

Simple design with limited functionality prevented feature bloat

What We Discovered

Full-stack Enterprise
Media Management

Regulatory oneven an enterprises such she and the got the did attributing and pushed.

We currently have 36 active media campaigns across 24 projects.

Google Analytics &
Measurement

Spaces of each debt in the digital world can help you with overall simplest authentic;

Get an utilized of structure to tackle complex issues and changes.

UX/UI Design &
Website/App Design

A higher spacing and movements through an impactful email campaigns;

Creating a portfolio budgeting in a real time planning and phasing.

Marketing Campaigns &
Content Creation

Making a shor time up to date email campaings to achieve a real impact.

Ready to Build Something That Matters?

I'm the strategic design leader who gets the business side

I don’t just take briefs—I help you figure out what you should be building in the first place. I make your team more effective, your products more successful, and your users happier.

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