Although many organizations were already planning or implementing digital transformation strategies when COVID-19 hit, the pandemic prompted these companies to accelerate their efforts. As working from home became the rule, not the exception, companies scrambled to implement collaboration tools so employees could work together and stay productive from different locations.
Today, with the rise of back-to-the-office and hybrid working, companies need to think about what collaboration will look like in the “post-pandemic” world.
In the hybrid workplace, organizations are trying to strike the right balance between giving remote employees the flexibility they need to be productive and ensuring technology also meets the needs of office workers, said Megha Kumar, Vice President of Research, Software and Cloud. services at IDC. “So when it comes to collaboration tools, organizations are realizing that they need to have policies in place for how employees will effectively interact with each other,” she said.
Companies need to ensure that no matter where employees are or what devices they use, they have access to the right information at the right time, Kumar said. And collaboration tool vendors are trying to expand and improve the capabilities of their products to meet the needs of these organizations. These vendors need to make sure their clients' employees can have the same experiences using their collaboration tools on any device, he said.
Hybrid work + collaboration = tension
There's a tension around collaboration when it comes to hybrid working, said Adam Preset, senior analyst vice president of employee experience technologies at Gartner. What organizations have learned is that technology that works when people are fully remote needs to be modified or changed when some employees are in the office and others are working away from the office.
Hybrid meetings are a great example. Video conferencing platforms like Zoom, WebEx, and Microsoft Teams work fine if everyone is remote and everyone appears in the same size rectangle on one screen; This puts everyone on an equal footing. Companies have developed best practices and etiquette to ensure everyone can participate, such as encouraging people to insert new ideas through the chat feature, Preset said.
But once that fully remote meeting turns into a hybrid meeting, organizations revert to pre-pandemic dynamics, except now only a few workers are in the meeting room while many more are working remotely, he said. .
“The host who might host the meeting in the office needs technology that allows them to see everyone in the distance as close to life-size as possible. “A host of an office meeting must also be able to see the content and people participating , listen to everyone and see other digital signals that remote people are transmitting, ”he said, he declares.
"Could it mean that if they raise their hand, they use the raise hand tool?" preset said. "If someone types something in chat, is there a way for the meeting host in the room to see it on the big screen or get a little notification that there's a conversation going on on the side during a meeting? Etc."
New features in video conferencing software can help make the meeting experience fairer for everyone. Zoom's Smart Gallery, for example, uses artificial intelligence to create an individual feed of each participant in the meeting room so that remote participants can more clearly see their movements and facial expressions.
And today's meeting room hardware, like Logitech's MeetUp camera, offers hybrid features like the ability to automatically find and frame each participant in the room, volume level adjustments for louder and quieter voices, and other enhancements. to create a better experience. for remote participants.
These types of changes in technical meetings are necessary for hybrid work to be successful in the long term.
New tools for new times
Organizations should also implement technology that enables collaboration with "deskless" or "frontline" workers, such as field technicians, truck drivers, warehouse workers, medical and retail staff, so they feel connected, Josh Bersin said. , founder and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company. a human resources consultant.
Deskless workers often don't have access to the company intranet, as well as the conference calls and training sessions that help team members stay connected. These workers may not have time to attend a meeting or they may not be able to interrupt their work to find desktop computers running the latest collaboration software. Instead, they often use their own insecure mobile devices and apps to stay connected.
Therefore, companies must focus on improving the ability of homeless employees to collaborate with colleagues, wherever they are. One way companies do this is to deploy desktop-less applications, Bersin said.
"Your company may not want your home phone to be your education system because it's not very secure," Bersin said. "But there are now, like WorkJam, that are designed for end-to-end communications with people who don't have computers. And the big vendors are trying to figure out how to build it. Microsoft, for example, has added a number of features aimed at office workers. front line to its Teams mobile app in recent years.
Seeking to increase engagement for all types of employees, the provider also recently launched a new social workplace app on its Microsoft Viva employee experience platform called Viva Engage, a kind of social network for the company's employees, Bersin said. The app is available as a plugin for Microsoft Teams, which the company positions as a hub for collaboration and communication.
Based on Yammer, Microsoft's former social networking tool, Viva Engage enables employees in an organization to connect with each other and with company leaders "to find answers to questions, share your unique story and find where you belong." at work," according to Microsoft. Viva Engage's goal is to help employees feel more included in the hybrid workplace.
Other tools emerging to build community among workers in different locations include virtual water cooler apps, e-learning platforms, and asynchronous video messaging tools. And several leading technology providers, including Cisco, Meta, and Microsoft, are exploring the use of virtual environments for meetings and other events.
"I just talked to the Microsoft product teams and their plans are impressive," Bersin said. “Microsoft Mesh for Teams, due out in the middle of next year, will let you replace your video presence with an avatar, create virtual rooms, and implement 3D spaces in Teams. Imagine a trade show, learning conference, or onboarding experience in 3D, all powered by Teams. I have to believe there will be a tsunami of interest in this technology.
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