The impact of lockdown on business has varied greatly from sector to sector. For instance, the closure of non-essential business has taken a toll on retail and hospitality, but the new normal for many businesses in tech services has caused a positive reassessment of workstyles.
According to Gartner up to 74% of companies plan to make remote working part of their business strategy moving forward, making it important for the focus to shift from surviving to thriving while remote working.
As many of us adjust to lockdown, we examine five ways the new normal is in fact the better normal for the office of the future.
1. Work will change forever for the better
It is clear to see that remote working brings with it a wide range of benefits for employees and employers alike. At home employees can often take advantage of heightened focus, fewer distractions and better productivity, which means more work gets done efficiently and can benefit the bottom line.
Research shows that 55% workers said their productivity levels were boosted due to the additional free time in their day, and 44% said that they had fewer distractions at home. The current climate means that remote working is no longer a privilege of the past and the working world will inevitably see a permanent shift towards remote working styles post-pandemic.
2. The end of the corporate HQ
The lockdown has marked an inflexion point for the standard commute. We’re used to travelling into city centers to work in steel-and-glass or brick-and-mortar offices. But the office of the future is set to be more of an abstract concept – it can be located anywhere with the connectivity provided by tech for remote working.
Research shows that 62% of respondents find the increase in flexibility has helped them to focus more on work. The success of remote working for urban companies means employers will be less incentivized to pay expensive overheads on central and expensive lets, potentially migrating out to further afield business parks and more relaxed spaces for any physical premise needs. We’re already seeing brands like TetraPak moving to hybrid of work, split between home and office, proving that remote working is certainly here to stay.
3. Digital transformation has shifted into the next gear
Lockdown has well and truly kicked digital transformation into fifth gear. Businesses are recognizing the heightened need for business continuity and collaboration across projects.
When it comes to digital transformation, many only consider the software side of things, disregarding the hardware considerations until they need to. Research indicates that despite 82% of employees preferring to work remotely one day a week or more after the COVID-19 crisis is over, nearly a third (28%) were not equipped with the necessary hardware in order to work productively from home.
Take it from Google – scrambling pre-lockdown to purchase tech products like laptops and keyboards in bulk to ensure employees are equipped to work from home is not the best approach. As we consider the reality of remote working in the long-term, businesses need to start investing heavily in IT supply and ask employees directly what tech fits their individual departmental needs to ensure they are set up for success.
Whether it’s dual screens, an ergonomic keyboard, or a docking station, employers must ensure their employees are well-equipped to work productively at home. Ideally, tools should offer a quiet, distraction-free environment, accommodate video calls at a moment’s notice and limit physical strain and stress.
4. Tech is taking a bigger role in our everyday lives
The past few months have seen industries that have traditionally been averse to change embracing tech tools and solutions to work better digitally. We’ve seen people turn to conferencing platforms like Zoom for uses ranging from remote university to telemedicine and even the weekly pub quiz.
The retail industry is one that has taken tech adoption a step further with retailers exploring how innovations such as AR and VR can create touch-free buyer experiences to safely entice customers back to brick-and-mortar stores. Research shows that consumers are geared up to making use of tech-enabled solutions such as self-scanning tills or an app that could be used to scan products and pay for them when in-store. This could mark the start of a golden age for digital retail.
It is clear to see that tech permeates nearly every aspect of our lives and the lockdown has helped us as a society to recognize and appreciate the value of technology as a mainstay in the way we live.
5. Agility is the only way forward
As lockdown measures begin to lift, we will once again face a new normal – one that involves employees to split time between home, office and venues in a socially distanced way. Commuting will not look the same either. Protection and portability will be critical for the commute 2.0.
Some more fortunate employees are setting up comfortably in their homes, yet many will continue to work in makeshift conditions from sofas, dining tables and even multi-purpose ironing boards. No matter your work set-up, tech can help create a conducive environment to work from.
You may not have an ideal work set-up at home, but there are many innovative solutions on the market for functional audio, ergonomic and computer set ups in spaces big and small. However, setting up the home office is only the first phase of workstyle digital transformation. In the near future employees will need to flit between home and office set ups as the return to the office kickstarts again.
Employees will need to be agile in every sense. They need to be equipped with travel-ready tech as we move into the next phase of work. When commuting starts up a hybrid and agile approach will likely prove popular – combining the best advantages from remote working and office working.
An innovative solution to this is having your ‘desk in a bag’. Portable and easy to plug-and-play tech accessories such as keyboards and smart devices will be in enabling employees to work effectively anywhere and anytime. Tech should be portable enough such that work travels with you, rather than you travelling to work.
Towards a better normal
The lockdown has caused the biggest impact in recent years on the way we work; it marks an inflexion point for how and where we work. The past few months have shown us that as a workforce, we are able to embrace working from home and still soldier on with business as usual, proving that a hybrid approach will perhaps be the best way forward for efficiency, productivity and employee wellbeing in the future.
- Marcus is a C-level executive and EMEA director at Targus.
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