THE FUTURE OF WORK IS HYBRID

As with life, change is the only permanent feature of the workplace. Since late 2019, the workplace has seen disruption of popular onsite operations due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown that followed it. For the millions of employees that were lucky to retain their jobs, they have had to work from home.

Up until now, the opinions of employees and managers on the future of work has been varied. Statistics show that there are still mixed feelings about the perks of working remotely. An estimated 65% of employees seems little or no readiness to return to the traditional physical workspace, according to the leading consulting firm, McKinsey.

On the contrary, 90% of employers tend to expect that the lockdown sequence will be temporary, not permanent. The new trends coming resulting from this situation suggest that there are imminent changes in the way we work.

Out of the many possibilities, one of the main workplace changes is the hybrid nature of work in the future. In a sense, it is probably an emerging resolution to the difference in the employer-employee preference for work either in the office or at home.

What is the hybrid workplace?

Hybrid work is combining working in the physical office or workspace, with working virtually from home at other times. Also, it is a situation where a company has a part of its workforce working in the office while the other half works virtually.

In any case, the need for a hybrid workplace could be caused by company core values and policies. For example, some companies want their staff to be safe and avoid full exposure to the risk of contracting the pandemic, while also keeping the work rolling in. So, members of the staff probably take turns working online and at home.

The Microsoft Work Trend Index report highlighted the workplace perks from a study of 30,000 people across 31 countries. Part of the results we learned in the new normal is the hybrid workplace. Also, employees are the center of business management in the health crisis and business leaders may be forced to create their employees preferred work style.

Also, countries are considering a return to the previous lockdown due to the resurgence of COVID-19 although in the form of its Delta variant. In light of this uncertain time in the world of the workplace, here are a few tips to ponder.

The Emerging Workplace: Things to Consider

1. Keep an eye on employee dissatisfaction: Although employee satisfaction is a major part of work, it’s obvious that a business leader’s listening ear will prove to be their greatest asset now. The bottom line is to keep first things first and make employee satisfaction a top priority.
2. Measure Productivity by Output: If you trust your workers enough to assign a task to them, then trust them to follow through with the task. In this age when digital jobs and work operations prevail, perhaps you may need to be in your workers’ faces less, in the name of supervision. The point here is to measure their productivity by the quality and timeliness of their delivery on expected tasks rather than by how much time they spend “on the seat.”
3. Expand Remote Work Set-ups: The Cloud services gained popularity over the past years and has become invaluable at enhancing the efficiency, flexibility, and growth of many organizations. According to Tech Jury report, at least 85% of businesses across the globe make use of cloud computing to store their company’s information. Also, think of collaboration tools such as Asana, Microsoft 365, which will allow you to integrate calendars and contacts into your work that will boost the efficiency and productivity.
4. Use Virtual Desktop Infrastructure: As the hybrid workplace emerges, there is the problem of managing, securing infrastructure that is needed to run your business. For that reason, VDI makes it easy and affordable to manage these environments. With VDI, you can use your business’ desktop operating system to host a virtual machine on a chosen host server, you can share applications, company data, and desktops to your workers as a service through the internet. This way, employees do not have to use a physical endpoint device in the physical office space.
5. Edge Compute: There have been predictions that 90% of businesses will use some form of edge computing in the next 1 to 2 years from now. That is a heads-up to start real plans to integrate it into your company work. The basic idea in edge computing is that it involves fewer cloud processes. For example, drones can perform monitoring roles for your business in places that you cannot easily access, and they can give analysis. Similarly, self-driving vehicles are being developed to relay information to other vehicles at important times.

Get ready for the emerging workplace while there is still time. ProTech Services Group specializes in bringing you the best IT solutions. Contact us now.