The Record - Issue 18: Autumn 2020

94 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om V I EWPO I NT PAU L S CHOL E Y : B LU E J E ANS BY V E R I ZON The future of work will see many enterprise organisations adopting a hybrid approach, allowing teams to work in the office, at home or on the go W hether returning to work, school or recreation, many people are strug- gling to adapt to the relentless pace of change and ambiguous policies wrought by the Covid-19 crisis. In the workplace however, one thing is crystal clear: the pandemic has turbo-charged systemic shifts that were already well underway. Although the changes are dif- ficult for many today, these changes will likely yield many sustainable positive business, social and environmental outcomes. The ‘work from anywhere’ movement The most seismic of these shifts is the ‘work from anywhere’ (WfA) movement. Despite some governments urging workers back into offices to revitalise city centres, most enterprises from Google to Uber have told employees to work from home until at least January 2021. That’s why in the first few months of lockdown, we saw a 300 per cent surge in the use of our video- conferencing service. Almost overnight, work- place video calls became the norm, replacing in-person and audio-only meetings. Greater efficiency is one silver lining to the Covid-driven WfA acceleration. Since the 2007 financial crisis, economists have been trying to solve the UK’s ‘productivity puzzle’ marked by output and wage stagnation. Many other nations face a similar problem. WfA can be part of the solution. In our recent Future of Work survey, 74 per cent of respondents said they were equally (34 per cent) or even more (40 per cent) produc- tive working at home than in the office. Organisations are busy adapting to more flexible operational models, impacting everything from property leases and employment agreements to IT and communications infrastructure and supplier contracts. The reason is simple: the more flexible the organisation, the more ready it is for anything that comes its way. And by all accounts, we’re in for a sustained period of continual change. Companies that support WfA today gain a sustainable competitive advantage, not only through higher productivity but from greater hiring flexibility and optimised office space and travel costs. A cloudy digital transformation Cloud services like Microsoft Azure are vital to enabling operational flexibility, providing scala- ble, virtual storage and runtime infrastructure at a fraction of on-premises costs. The WfA movement has boosted adoption of cloud-based collaboration tools, including video conferencing, chat and other communications tools. Cloud makes it easier to support remote workers and it can handle usage spikes by providing elastic capacity. Cloud-based systems also tend to interoper- ate well, which means employees can use their favourite communications and productivity soft- ware alongside the company tools. We continue to update our secure videoconferencing plat- form to support organisations’ bring-your-own- device policies, integrating with a range of PCs, mobile devices and conference room systems. Interoperability is essential for future-proofing, as software policies and standards evolve in line Easing the transition to a hybrid ‘future of work’