Customer perspectives on this growing trend
By Mike Lim, Director, with Chris Dallmar, Market Development Manager
The tectonic shift to a flexible “work from anywhere” world presents myriad challenges to organizations trying to establish a hybrid work strategy that’s both effective and sustainable. But as messy and nuanced as the transition is, this much is clear: there’s no going back to pre-pandemic times. Virtually all meetings (98%) will feature at least one remote participant.1
The new flexibility is a win for employees. Nearly two in three (64%) say the ability to work from anywhere affects their decision to stay at or leave a job. And 86% of companies expect to expand their hiring criteria for job candidates over the next two years to allow for fully remote work arrangements.2 This is good news for employees who have always dreamed of living in an Airstream trailer or a cabin in the woods.
But what does the shift to hybrid work mean for CIOs and IT leaders? Without a one-size-fits-all solution for enabling this new paradigm, what are the opportunities and challenges keeping these leaders up at night? To find out what’s top of mind for them, we hosted a roundtable with four Fortune 500 IT leaders from the retail, healthcare, insurance, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) sectors. Here are their key concerns.
I. Employee engagement
"While we were fortunately being quite productive, we were rapidly seeing that it was going to be burning everybody out really quickly."
- IT executive in the retail sector
Remote work has blurred the lines between work and personal life, resulting in record cases of burnout and the much-publicized “Great Resignation.”
To combat these issues on an organization-wide scale, customers are partnering closely with HR on initiatives to help create more distinct boundaries aimed at giving employees a better sense of their schedules to deal with both work and life. To do this, they’re deploying technologies that manage and optimize time, enforce clear calendar delineations, and get teams on the same page.
Enterprises are also rolling out tools like mindfulness apps and team-building solutions that offer fun and unique ways of bringing people together outside of normal work activities. To help distributed workforces be more collaborative and productive, they’re also introducing tools such as easily searchable knowledgebase repositories and collaboration-friendly documentation, and project management solutions which reduce the frustration that comes with more antiquated, single-user solutions.
II. Deep collaboration
“One of the mantras that we've been working on is to remove friction [for] our colleagues.”
- IT executive in the healthcare sector
Another focus for IT leaders has been deep collaboration, defined as the integration of productivity and collaboration tools in one place, or a single, seamless workflow to get a specific job done effectively. Deep collaboration solutions are designed in part to reduce friction in hybrid work environments — particularly as employees deal with significant application sprawl. Examples include all-in-one platforms that enable event-driven workflows across multiple systems, and seamless integrations with APIs, analytics, and other applications.
But not all employees are receptive to these solutions. According to our roundtable participants, most employees are willing to adopt new tools if it means a better user experience. And uptake of these solutions is limited among those at the extreme ends of the technology continuum — both those doing more technical, development-oriented work, and those with limited technical knowledge that “just want to use what works for them.”
Considering this, there is an appetite among IT leaders to understand how their technology partners can help them bridge change management — implementing new features, both small and large — to their end-user experience. This could include things like digital adoption platforms and gamification that help new applications become stickier.
III. Updated workspaces and distributed collaboration
“Overall, we're just continuing to figure out how do we create a better experience in a hybrid environment.”
- IT executive in the CPG sector
As more employees return to the office, leadership is tasking IT and departments such as HR and Facilities Management with reimagining their workspaces, given more stringent safety protocols and more permanent remote workers.
One practice that’s having a positive impact is the creation of employee personas: groupings that help determine not only who needs to be in the office and when, but that also inform new office designs for better collaboration and safety. Examples include staggered attendance and open seating areas. New solutions have emerged to enable these workplace-focused considerations, moving the primary focus off the workspace and onto the worker. These measures have helped solve many in-office logistical issues.
Perhaps the greatest challenge organizations are dealing with is multi-platform collaboration for distributed teams — specifically, how to ensure an efficient, equitable experience for in-office and remote employees working together. Market consensus is that many solutions aimed at this issue, such as whiteboarding, have fallen short of the mark.
This is a vital concern that requires rigorous planning and execution. One promising nascent solution is holograms, which move virtual participants “out of the square” in video applications and more into the room. Improved virtual spaces that everyone can join on an equal footing also hold promise.
Though multiple challenges remain in establishing an effective, sustainable hybrid work strategy, Cisco is committed to helping businesses enable this new paradigm. We’re helping customers dramatically improve the hybrid work experience through reimagined workspaces and through our ever-expanding suite of devices and applications so they can deliver the best experiences for their people. Innovations like Webex Go, Webex Events, Webex Connect, our all-new Webex Whiteboarding app, and our asynchronous video messaging tool Vidcast are just some of the latest tools available that, together with our security and networking offerings, make hybrid work secure, flexible, and inclusive so the hybrid workforce can stay engaged and get more done.
For a look at how Cisco executives and leading venture capitalists are thinking about the space, join Cisco Investments for an insightful discussion about emerging innovation and investing trends in hybrid work at Magnetic Collaboration on Tuesday, April 5th, featuring Cisco executives in the collaboration space and top-tier venture capitalists. WATCH ON-DEMAND
Footnotes
[1] https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/future-of-tech.html#~introduction.
[2] https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/hybrid-work/people-culture/work-location-preferences.html.