Building Hybrid Work Experiences: Details Matter

The Shift From Remote Work to a New Hybrid Work Environment

It’s exciting to see more organizations start to make the shift from remote work to a new hybrid work environment, but it’s a transition that comes with a new set of questions and challenges. How many people will return to the office, and what will that environment look like? Increasingly, we’re hearing that teams are feeling fatigued and disconnected – what tools can help to solve for that? And perhaps most importantly, how can we ensure that employees continuing to work remotely have the same connected and inclusive experience as those that return to the office?

When we think about delivering positive employee experiences, it’s the details that matter. This month, we’re rolling out new Webex features that solve for a few challenges that might be overlooked and yet play an important role in the new hybrid working model.

Give More and Get More From Your Meeting Experiences

Whether in the office or working remotely, no one wants to sit in meeting after meeting listening to a presenter drone on. Or worse, participating in a video meeting where there are so many talking heads and content being shared that you just don’t know where to focus. Making meetings more engaging is important in the world of hybrid work.

We’re expanding our Webex custom layouts functionality to include greater host controls, resulting in a more personalized and engaging meeting experience. As a meeting host or co-host, you have the ability to hide participants who are not on video, bringing greater focus to facial expressions and interactions with video users. Using the slider feature, you are able to show all participants on screen, or focus on just a few. And now hosts and co-hosts can curate and synchronize the content and speakers you want your attendees to focus on, and then push that view to all participants. This allows you to set a common “stage” and establish a more engaging meeting experience for all.

Setting the stage and sharing great content is one half of the equation – but wouldn’t it be helpful to know what your audience thinks about your meeting as well? Yesterday we announced the close of our acquisition of Slido, which brings best-in-class audience interaction capabilities to the Webex platform. With the ability to crowdsource questions, launch polls and quizzes, and solicit real-time feedback from your audience, the meeting experience just became a lot more interesting and valuable to both those hosting and those attending.

Work More Efficiently with Personalized Webex Work Modes

Your morning routine might start with a review of your meeting schedule, or checking unread messages. Or maybe you spend the majority of your time on calls. As a Webex user, you now have the flexibility to modify settings to default to the work mode that’s most important to you, allowing you to work your way more efficiently. And because all work modes come together seamlessly on the Webex platform, you can transition between messaging, calling and meeting with ease.

If you’re like me, you might rely on your message inbox as a To Do list that reminds you where to prioritize your time. To better support this workstyle preference, Webex now offers the ability to easily mark a message as unread, even if you’ve already read it. This visual reminder allows you to work efficiently and effectively – keeping up to speed on conversations, while ensuring that action items don’t fall off your radar.

Reimagining the Workplace

When it comes to planning for a safe and successful return to the office, business leaders are faced with new challenges large and small – everything from reconfiguring workspaces for a hybrid workforce to ensuring that shared surfaces and devices are kept clean and sanitized.

To ensure inclusive collaboration between employees in the office and those working remotely, we’re making it easier for all meeting attendees to be seen and heard. The Webex Room Kit Mini now offers a more powerful 5x digital zoom camera and optimized audio via internal microphones, providing clear audio up to 4 meters away. And the Webex Room Panorama is now configurable for low ceiling height and features flexible placement of content screens, enabling a wider variety of workspaces to support boardroom-style meeting experiences.

And talk about attention to details: Webex now enables easy sanitation of shared devices, with features like medical-grade, alcohol-resistant removable covers for phones and a wipe-down metal grill option on Webex Room Kit Mini devices.

When it comes to enabling safe, engaging and inclusive employee experiences, we’re just getting started. Next month, you can expect to hear much more about new Webex solutions we’re rolling out to support our customers and enable their hybrid work success.