HYBRID IT - ALCATEL-LUCENT ENTERPRISE

Post-pandemic, remote and hybrid working models are here to stay. While it’s important for organisations to ensure they have the necessary technology in place to enable this, it’s equally important that their management have sufficient trust in their employees to use that technology to best effect.

A new way of working

Two years have passed since the global health crisis turned our world upside down. Lockdown measures, put in place by government to stem the spread of the virus, saw most people forced to work from home, often with little or no warning. Yet, through a combination of ingenuity and innovation, we made it work. The swift and widespread adoption of cloud-based services and online video communication tools meant that businesses could operate as well as they could, under the circumstances.

Today, while some circumstances improve, other areas remain unstable and unpredictable, thus remote and hybrid working looks set to continue. A recent report found that almost three quarters of employers were planning at least some amount of remote work for the foreseeable future. For it to be sustainable, however, organisations need to review their existing operations - particularly the temporary measures introduced at the peak of the pandemic - to ensure they are robust, secure, and meet the needs of the business, its employees, and its customers.

Taking control of technology

A digital workplace, built around a human-centric, rather than a traditional location-centric model, requires all services to be available to everyone, everywhere, at all times, regardless of device capabilities and network infrastructure.

Companies must take control of the entanglement of their current network infrastructures, and consider the new possibilities brought by the cloud. In addition, networks will have to support 5G, LAN, or Wireless LAN technology, integrating these into an organisation’s digital ecosystem. Importantly, the resultant mix of network infrastructure and cloud will need to be tailor-made, designed in a way that best meets a company’s rapidly changing needs. After all, we’re only at the beginning of this revolution in our way of working; new services will emerge on-demand or “as a service” on an almost daily basis.

Ensuring the right technology is in place is only half the battle. Despite the benefits of this, largely cloud-enabled, human-centric approach to working – as proven during lockdown – maximising its full potential can be hindered somewhat by a question of trust.

Striking a balance

Accustomed to years of being office-based, an organisation’s management can be slow to adopt trust in employees who have opted to work remotely. And at the same time, interestingly, there’ll often be a reciprocal wariness from those employees towards their management.

From the management’s point of view, this concern is typically due to anxiety around security and privacy. It’s about protecting the organisation’s assets, its sensitive corporate and customer information which, in the new cloud paradigm is now shared far beyond the company’s borders. Employees, on the other hand, have concerns that any additional security services used to track and monitor the flow of data over cloud services may also be used by the company to track and monitor workforce activity.

A balance must therefore be found; a mutual trust, without which the shift to remote and hybrid working will never be truly successful for businesses or their employees. Organisations must find the right level of control to ensure both optimum productivity and the highest level of security. Rather than tracking workforce activity, this will instead be achieved through the massive deployment of people-based agile processes and the provision of a secure and open collaborative environment to empower a greater sense of leadership within the workforce itself.

Support and facilitation

However, giving this new leadership to employees could be perceived as a threat to the role of middle management. To counter these concerns, a further shift must be performed to introduce a new role of support and facilitation. According to Gartner, organisations need to implement an inclusive programme in order to maintain productivity and engagement among employees in this new work environment.

To facilitate this inclusive new environment, middle management should redefine how the team will work and communicate together, while ensuring to maintain team spirit and a motivated and healthy workforce, on premise, remotely or hybrid. The creation and transparent communication of business, team, and individual goals is essential so everyone is engaged, with regular virtual check-ins used to ensure everyone is on track and suitably supported.

The more we are surrounded with technology, the more we need to reconnect with human values and needs (freedom, health, security, reality). Cloud, 5G and AI, used in a virtuous manner, can clearly help humans in improving their living conditions, at work and in their private lives. This implies a shift from location-centric operations to a human-centric model.

Furthermore, understanding and empathy is important. Team members should be reassured that additional flexibility can be created in their schedules to accommodate any challenging work-from-home issues that might arise. With collaboration platforms and strong engagement from management, businesses can continue to prioritise employee wellbeing, inclusivity, reducing isolation and boosting team moral. Therefore, working from home does not mean becoming disconnected, whilst an always-on connection does not mean losing the balance between private and professional life. The right to disconnect is a must and is part of business' ongoing mission to cultivate a thriving workforce.

In a world where remote and hybrid working are the dominant practices, organisations need to provide employees with the robust technology they need to get their work done. But when an employee’s autonomy is essential to a company’s productivity, it’s important that management provides full trust in its people – and ensures that trust is returned in full. The health crisis has changed the world in which we live and work, and in this new world, organisations now have to change the way they operate. Whether remote, hybrid or on premise, trust is the integral foundation of a successful and happy workplace.