Hybrid working: the new workplace normal

The new and still evolving world of hybrid work has created a fresh set of challenges for IT leaders who are tasked with ensuring that employees have the tools to get their work done productively and securely, regardless of their location.

CIO recently gathered a group of IT executives from a broad range of enterprises for a discussion on hybrid work and how work models continue to change as the Covid pandemic winds down. Attendees included IT leaders from organizations ranging from local colleges and government municipalities to multinational finance and technology companies.

The impact of Covid on attendees’ organizations varied widely, from educational institutions that adopted remote learning for all but a few laboratory-based courses, to enterprise organizations that significantly reduced their office footprint since their workforce had largely shifted to remote work, often with the assistance of a stipend to offset the cost of home computing and networking systems.

One positive result of the shift to remote and hybrid work models, mentioned by several executives, is the ability to recruit employees from beyond traditional office-centric geographies.

Two camps of employees

The discussion then shifted to ways the end of the pandemic has affected the workforce. For the most part, executives now divide their employees into two camps: Task workers who are more than happy to remain at home, and collaborators who want to return to the office setting – at least partially – to facilitate creative and collaborative processes.

Challenges arise when managers and employees can’t agree on which arrangement works best. Many executives want to bring managers and employees back to the office setting to restore a more collaborative culture. But many IT leaders are discovering that some employees need to be cajoled back to the office with new incentives, including upscale coffee and baristas, company-provided food and snacks, and other perks formerly associated only with Silicon Valley startups.

Some employees who have become accustomed to working from home dread returning to offices with open floor plans, worried about how the additional noise and other distractions will impact their work. Others point out that reintroducing a commute is tantamount to lengthening their work week.

However, with stipends ending and employers beckoning, many – at least grudgingly – are coming back to the office for one or more days each week.

A new set of return-to-office challenges

Some enterprises are allowing teams within the organization to decide whether to continue to work from home or come back to the office for a few days a week. But the transition is creating a new set of challenges: Since many organizations reduced their office real estate footprint during the pandemic, scheduling problems now crop up when multiple teams are doing “in-office” days simultaneously and vying for space and resources such as meeting rooms and videoconferencing equipment. The rise of this “hoteling” concept can create new headaches for operations and IT teams.

One constant among the attendees is the technology gap increasingly associated with a hybrid or remote workforce. Employees returning to the workplace are discovering that it is no longer a plug-and-play environment. Downsizing, moving, and years of work-at-home technology often lead to frustrating searches for the right cable to connect, the right power adapter, and proper training for the new audioconferencing bridge that they never learned how to use.

For those continuing to work at home, ensuring the security of remote devices used to access corporate resources remain a challenge for both IT and security professionals, while frustrating employees. IT leaders continue to seek the ability to deliver an equitable user experience for all employees, regardless of where they are working, what device they’re using, how they are connecting, and what application they need to access.

Scaling the hybrid workplace with DaaS

Attendees agreed that going forward, organizations must take user personas into account when optimizing hybrid work strategies. One approach that’s gaining some momentum is a device-as-a-service (DaaS) subscription model. This approach enables the IT organization to provide a broad range of devices and comprehensive services matched to individual needs based on personas, powered by predictive analytics and automation to provide seamless experience, irrespective of an individual’s location.

Another advantage of DaaS being as an all-inclusive package is that it comes with its own cybersecurity toolkit, preconfigured with all the necessary defenses required to protect individual devices. An extra security advantage that emerges from UEM integration with DaaS systems is the “remote data wipe” option, which takes place when devices are lost or stolen and prevents sensitive information from being leaked.

Another important aspect is to include provisioning of network services, to help ensure employees have consistent, robust connectivity. Participants discussed the emergence of new 5G technologies as a connectivity option for at-home employees, either as a backup to fiber or cable or increasingly as a primary network.

As to whether organizations will ever see a return to full-time, office-based work, IT leaders believe that the ship has sailed – and are adjusting their strategies accordingly for the long term. For some, this will involve technological changes at the workplace and at home.

Learn more about how to embrace new ways of working.