In a bid to enhance employee-employee relations in a hybrid work setting, Google has announced advanced features in Google Workspace. These include introduction of spaces in Chat and enhancements in meeting and conference hardware.
These enhancements will help organisations bridge gaps in communication, as many expect to continue working in a hybrid work model. With many people returning to office, the need for collaborating with more flexibility has risen. And this is what the new features will help fulfil.
Spaces, which is a rebranding of ‘Rooms’, will be a new, dedicated platform in Workspace that will facilitate sharing of information and thus, help projects progress. Spaces will help build communities and teams. It will be closely integrated with Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Tasks, which will only make it easier for users to indulge in topic-based discussions and brainstorm if need be.
Google has also added a feature in the Meet software to help team members indicate their virtual or physical availability/presence for meets, and set their working location in the Calendar. Soon Meet calling will be available at all natural endpoints in the Workspace, bringing in more spontaneity in connections. With these improvements, ad-hoc calls including chats, contact cards, spaces, and so on will be possible.
Users will also now be able to call other Gmail users via Google Meet, inside the Gmail mobile app.
They are also expecting to add more unique features in Spaces to help teams organise their workflows effectively in the near future. They are planning to launch the ‘Companion mode’ feature in two months.
