7 Essential IT Strategies for a Permanent Hybrid Workforce

Business leaders across the world are coming to terms with the realities of a permanent hybrid work model, one in which many employees will work remotely on a permanent basis, at least part of the time. An astonishing 75% of global CEOs expect their office spaces to shrink as result, Forrester reports, where “70% of U.S. and European countries will pivot to a hybrid work model” even after COVID-19 subsides.

 

Fortunately, recent reports suggest remote work can provide substantial advantages for companies. These include smaller in-office and operational requirements; but also, greater productivity and worker satisfaction—especially among workers for whom mobility and childcare are everyday challenges.

 

Employees are graciously adapting to home offices to keep the gears of industry turning. Now, business leaders must also do their part to accommodate these teams. Indeed, their responsibility to employees extends throughout those workers’ involvement with those companies, even if they are working off premises. This article explores how technology strategies and adoption can accommodate workers as they adapt to hybrid work environments, defined by a combination of remote and in-office workers.

 

Transforming Home & Mobile Workspaces

 

One of the most overlooked obstacles to a successful permanent hybrid work model is inadequate home office environments among employees. Countless employees have had to use their own IT resources, Forbes reports—be they personal laptops or mobile devices—as well as their own home networks—which may lack sufficient security, speed, or dependability.

 

Employers must take responsibility for some aspects of remote employee success, albeit in different capacities than physical office spaces. The emergence of 5G as well as new suites of hardware and firmware are making this easier, where employees’ “office space”—a area for which the responsibility must fall firmly to employers—can now be defined as digital.

 

Employees who lack strong Wi-Fi or broadband, may begin connecting via employer-provided, 5G-enabled devices which work at lightning-fast speeds. Combination hardware and software suites like Microsoft’s Surface products ensure remote workers work securely and easily access their employers’ essential digital resources and tools. Dedicated software may make collaboration with colleagues easier as well. And as we will find, cloud-based resources provide additional benefits, even if employers cannot provide these devices.

 

Hybrid Conferencing & Communication

 

2020 and 2021 have featured a lot of head spinning among business leaders as the digital communication platform market has exploded with new solutions. Indeed, platforms where two-person calls, team meetings, and companywide town halls can take place and even shift from one to the other within the same familiar environment—no matter where employees sit. The promise of these solutions run the gambit of hyper-focused performance or all-in-one capabilities. Needless to say, their are clear winners and losers in this space.

 

Microsoft Teams has proven itself a true winner through its integration with widely used Microsoft products like Outlook and the ease with which employees and business leaders can set up individual calls or even company-wide meetings. The brand and feature familiarity makes it broad employee adoption a smoother process as well.

 

But Teams and similar conferencing platforms aren’t always the best solutions for more robust and unique interactions, especially in areas like project management and client or partner communications. External partners or clients may not use Teams, for example; Teams may not provide the capabilities that employees require for effective project management as they work in separate physical environments. Fortunately, there is also a variety of free and low-cost tools that employers and teams can try, then discover the right solution or solutions for these unique needs.

 

Project Management

 

As mentioned, conferencing tools don’t always provide what teams need for effective project management. On the other hand, modern project management tools lend themselves to hybrid work environments, and provide distinct advantages over traditional project management models common to in-person office spaces.

 

Some of the most recognizable modern tools are Trello, Basecamp, Slack, and Monday.com, each of which provides some degree of customization so that teams can purpose-build their own applications and features to suit their needs—no coding required. Some may also offer a ‘freemium’ where smaller teams or companies can utilize some of their tools indefinitely, or all of their capabilities for a certain time period. This gives teams opportunities to identify the right tool or tools to fit their needs.

 

File Sharing & Collaboration

 

Cloud-based file sharing and “co-editing” tools had been growing in their adoption before the COVID-19 pandemic began, and continue to provide workforces with distinct advantages to the use of physical documents and email attachments. Perhaps the most popular such solution is Google Docs—and by extension, Google Drive, the free cloud storage space where Google Docs and other documents typically reside. Google Docs supports Microsoft-style files in cloud environments where colleagues can participate in real-time writing and editing.

 

These solutions solve for collaboration bottlenecks that emerged long before the pandemic—runaway email attachments and versioning issues on company shared drives, for example—but which have become even more pronounced today. More advanced, purpose-built tools such as InVision, which provides remote teams with sophisticated design software, represent the next generation of these tools as sophisticated software increasingly resides within the cloud rather than on-premise environments.

 

Partner & Supplier Engagement

 

In addition to free and purpose-built third-party software, enterprise companies have launched custom-built portals for partners and suppliers to offer services, exchange information and files securely, and streamline invoicing and payment processes from anywhere, often from a free browser application like Chrome. Software vendors like Bill.com GEP also license their software to companies so they don’t have to custom-build these environments themselves.

 

It’s increasingly common for companies and teams to work with partners and suppliers via file sharing and collaboration solutions such as Google Docs or Basecamp as well. These provide the added benefit of bringing those parties closer to internal teams in seamless, collaborative capacities—almost as close as fellow employees on their teams. We may witness more business models shifting to partner-driven models where teams integrate with those of their suppliers, featuring daily, collegial communication and collaboration as a result.

 

Cybersecurity

 

Cyber attacks represent perhaps the deepest concern among employers who have shifted abruptly to remove work environments. In June 2021, The Wall Street Journal described the new business environment as a “cybersecurity nightmare” where attacks grew by 238% in early 2020, as the pandemic began. This is due in part to the insecurities home and mobile networks present when employees work outside of the office; but also, employers’ inability to adapt their own cybersecurity capabilities in the midst of a crisis.

 

New strategies and technologies are helping companies of all sizes mitigate this risk. One straightforward method is for employers to provide their own devices to employees, especially those that are built for remote workers and feature uniform cybersecurity software and firmware. Microsoft’s Surface products are an example. But even companies that can’t afford new devices can implement capabilities to help protect their employees and themselves. These include email protection tools, as well as two-point authentication software, among others.

 

Non-VPN-based Cloud Resources

 

Central to all these changes is employers’ graduating form VPN-based remote connectivity. This traditional model worked will when remote workers were scarce and infrequent, but they throttle employees’ productivity and ability to collaborate in the capacities they need today.

 

As we’ve shown, the sky is the limit in terms of the cloud-based capabilities employers can adopt to maximize productivity, employee satisfaction, flexibility, security, and growth. VPN solutions are costly, after all; these modern tools coincide with broader trends of shifting infrastructure to the cloud.

 

Conclusion: The Employee Experience is Key

 

The difference between reaping the benefits of greater productivity and employee satisfaction lies not in new technology adoption, but in the employee experience those technologies provide. Individual technology adoption may resolve workforce pain points in the short term, but a holistic, enduring approach to hybrid work is what will drive lasting success as employers embrace this new paradigm.

 

Partner with Uvation for the Best Hybrid Workforce Model

 

Uvation can help you measure you level of readiness for a more secure, more effective hybrid work model. Contact one of our hybrid workforce experts today for a free consultation.