The pandemic has drastically changed the way we work. Meetings take place over Zoom, kitchen tables have been converted into workstations, and home offices are the “new normal” that we now accept to be reality, perhaps grudgingly.
But many companies are still struggling to adapt to hybrid work and have difficulties managing employees who work remotely, said Jean-Baptiste Pimenta de Miranda, founder of Flydesk.
Having worked in six cities on three continents and with over 15 years of experience in technology and telecommunications, Pimenta de Miranda has experimented with remote work throughout his career and is a firm advocate of hybrid work approaches.
In 2019, Pimenta de Miranda embarked on a new adventure and created Flydesk. Soon after that, the pandemic broke out. Now, nearly everyone works remotely to a certain extent, he said, but that sometimes leads to isolation or even trust issues.
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“When you have the opportunity to give people the chance to switch between working in an office and remotely in the same week, that starts to be very powerful,” Pimenta de Miranda said.
Flydesk has devised an app that combines tools for team management and desk usage management, giving companies a way to better manage their employees and costs. The management tools, which include work scheduling and work habit analytics, inform staff about their teammates’ workflows and activities related to their tasks.
Flydesk’s workspace booking feature is similar to a travel booking site and is meant to cut costs related to renting and real estate. For those who have a physical office, the app lets employees book workstations and meeting rooms when they need to work offline. This makes it possible for companies to rent a smaller space, as they do not require a desk for each team member.
Through collaborations formed with co-working spaces like WeWork, Flydesk also operates a marketplace for workspace. This means companies that are adding to their headcount can simply rent temporary desks rather than worry about imminent solutions for physical expansions.
Flydesk blends real estate and HR technology with its marketplace in one application. The company already has one of the biggest networks of co-working spaces in Asia, Pimenta de Miranda says. The company has a ten-person team scattered around Vietnam, Spain, and other countries.
Flydesk raised a USD 400,000 angel round last July, and they’re now beta testing for companies who want to try their hybrid work solution for free. Beginning in 2022, the company will charge subscribed clients USD 2–6 per user.
Founded in Hong Kong, Flydesk already has a presence in Singapore and Spain. At the moment, Pimenta de Miranda says the company is speeding up its software development process to consolidate its position as the go-to problem solver in the age of hybrid work.
Flydesk was among the ten finalists of the Alibaba Cloud x KrASIA Global Startup Accelerator Hong Kong Online Demo Day, which was held on December 14.