Sponsored by Verizon
A successful hybrid work program includes effective online collaboration and
information sharing so remote workers can be productive at home and feel
like they are contributing as much as their onsite colleagues
Upgrading remote work solutions
is an important first step to improving employee experiences, enabling
near-real-time issue resolution when remote employees escalate problems, and
establishing hybrid work as a differentiating employee benefit.
Recent research shows
that 66% of business decision-makers are investing in the technologies
required to empower employees in a hybrid workforce.
Leading organizations are extending their hybrid work objectives because
hiring and retaining talented people is needed to stay competitive and
accelerate digital transformation. Today, organizations must drive product
innovations, optimize business processes, improve customer
experiences, and enable remote workers to take on more challenging work
assignments. IT and HR leaders, including CIOs and CHROs, should partner on
hybrid work to drive a second wave of hybrid work innovation and
productivity benefits.
Take a customer-centric approach when evolving hybrid work
Providing employees with a reliable, high-speed, and secure remote access
solution
is a starting requirement to support a hybrid work program. CIOs and CHROs
should take a persona-based approach when seeking the second wave of hybrid
work capabilities enabling innovative collaborations, workflow
optimizations, and more ambitious remote work assignments.
Here are examples of remote work personas.
-
Customer-facing professionals – Customer service agents, account
representatives, sales professionals, and other employees who
interact with customers regularly and must deliver a positive customer
experience -
Knowledge workers – Marketers, DevOps engineers, and data
scientists who collaborate with onsite employees, remote workers, and
third-party partners -
Operational managers – People with managerial responsibilities
charged with improving operations and delivering quality services with
hybrid working teams -
IT Service Management (ITSM) specialists – IT and information
security professionals tasked to oversee infrastructure, resolve remote
working issues, respond to employee requests, and proactively address
security risks -
Enterprise service professionals – HR, legal, finance, and other
service functions that have staffers responding to employee issues and
requests
CIOs and CHROs should review these personas and identify the types of
experiences, technologies, and services the organizations can provide to
support the second wave of hybrid work. Here are three examples.
1. Transform agile collaborations from virtual calls to AR/VR experiences
Hybrid work collaborations today use virtual meeting technologies like Zoom
and Microsoft Teams, asynchronous messaging tools like Slack, and
whiteboarding tools like Miro and Balsamiq. These 2D experiences will give
way to the next generation of
more immersive collaboration technologies like AR/VR, experiences with integrated real-time generative AI capabilities, and
platforms that support interactive town halls of hundreds to thousands of
people.
These collaborations will require IT to provide
higher bandwidth 5G remote access options
while HR should prioritize which departments and functions to pilot programs
and learn best practices.
Who stands to benefit the most: Customer-facing professionals,
knowledge workers, and operational managers, especially for large
departments. Also, businesses with integrated physical and real-world
experiences, such as businesses in retail, healthcare, and education
industries.
2. Expand operating hours, increase services offered, and improve operating
metrics
Today’s business processes are a mix of automation, machine learning
capabilities, and business decisions made by trained professionals. These
business processes include back-office functions such as legal teams
performing contract reviews, HW professionals onboarding employees, or IT
teams responding to end-user requests. They also include industry-specific
functions performed by wealth managers, marketing agencies, insurance
providers, law offices, and technology managed service providers.
What do these service professionals have in common? First, they all compete
to increase customer satisfaction, deliver more services, improve quality,
and drive efficiencies. Second, people’s performance and contributions will
be the differentiators as technology, automation, and machine learning
become more ubiquitous.
CIOs and CHROs should seek how remote working professionals can expand
operations, including service periods, offerings, and quality metrics. They
can plan different scenarios, asking, “If we enable more remote working with
these schedules and skills, then what aspects of our services can be
improved?”
Who stands to benefit the most: All service professionals, including
IT, enterprise, operations, and customer service.
3. Improve productivity by shifting more responsibilities to remote workers
Recent studies
show that hybrid and remote workers are more productive, happier, and
healthier.
These findings should invite CHROs and CIOs to seek a second generation of
business process and productivity improvements by shifting work
traditionally performed “onsite” to work that remote workers can perform
equally or better.
Can a highly specialized sports injury radiologist perform a real-time MRI
diagnostic from her home concerning a professional athlete injured in a
remote location? How about requesting a remote field technician to guide
emergency repairs of a factory’s malfunctioning equipment? Can a luxury
goods retailer summon a specialist to advise a walk-in customer on product
selection?
These examples illustrate a shift in capabilities, where highly specialized
professionals can provide real-time services from their homes when the
business really needs them. The trend starts with IT, HR, and business
leaders recognizing that hybrid work is not just about improving the
productivity of today’s business processes but expanding what
responsibilities remote workers can take on with greater skill and
efficiency.
Who stands to benefit the most: Customer-facing professionals,
knowledge workers, and enterprise service professionals.
Executives can view the shift to remote and hybrid working as temporary or
recognize where enabling more remote capabilities can drive greater
efficiencies and innovations. CIOs partnering with CHROs can lead
organizational thinking and challenge the status quo around hybrid work at a
time when hiring and retaining skilled employees remains challenging.
This post is brought to you by
Verizon
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do
not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Verizon.
