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