Hybrid work model is no longer a theory, but a strategic move

Hybrid working maybe be a relatively new buzzword piggybacking on the lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic. But, with today’s sky-high costs for office locations, less rigidly defined workplace environments are becoming very commonplace, and the use of hot-desking was growing even before COVID-19. And flexible working isn’t just the ‘where’; many people choose to work in the evening or early in the morning, when children are asleep or when they can enjoy the comfort of their own homes instead of a semi-deserted office.

And of course, businesses need to be able to continue working and ensure business continuity with as little slow down in productivity as possible, when hit by unplanned disruption. Traffic problems or weather incidents can affect employees’ ability to travel to the office, while the rapid spread of coronavirus caught the whole world off guard. The BBC reports an estimate of up to one in five workers in the UK being off work at any one time, during the peak of the coronavirus epidemic. In many cases this involved allowing or even enforcing employees to work from home and enabling those who are self-isolating to do so.

With today’s technology, flexible working is easily achievable and many businesses that support it are thriving. Digital Workplace is a modern, flexible version of the traditional workplace characterized by consumerisation of IT and collaborative workplaces. It enables innovative ways of hybrid working – on-site as well as remote – and improves productivity and collaboration by leveraging new-age digital tools. It is typified by being hyper-resilient and agile, workload-centric, and device and platform agnostic fulfilling the needs of the next-gen workforce

At Simplex, with our Digital Workplace services, we enable digital transformation of businesses to help align technology, people, and business processes to improve operational efficiency and meet organisational goals. Our offerings facilitate secure and convenient remote access in modern digital workplaces to help boost employee productivity and enable a consistent experience across multiple devices. The focus is not on devices or technology stack, but users’ productivity as well as the user experience.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, there was an accelerated move towards Digital Workplaces. However, even after the pandemic eases, there will be a strategic move towards the hybrid work model with business continuity and resilience as a priority. According to a recent McKinsey survey of 100 executives across industries and geographies, nine out of ten organisations will be combining remote and on-site working in the post-pandemic future. The survey confirms that productivity and customer satisfaction have increased during the pandemic.

However, despite the embrace of a hybrid model, most organizations have only begun to think through and articulate the specifics of how to work it out. Book an ap
pointment for a complimentary, no-obligation advisory with our experts to understand how hybrid work and digital workplace could help your business, and we’ll set you on a path to digital workplace.

Photo courtesy: Sigmund