The practise of work from anywhere and any device has been around for years, but its adoption has been greatly accelerated with the onset of the COVID- 19 pandemic. Business and economic realities in 2020 have compelled organisations to step up digital transformation to create a sustainable hybrid environment that will support employees that are working onsite, as well as from offsite locations.
In my conversations with customers, the foremost priority for most of them centers around how employees in the office can work seamlessly and effectively with those who are working from home. As society and economy moves towards the recovery phase, the success of businesses will be inextricably tied to how they manage their hybrid workforce, and how efficiency, collaboration and productivity can be maximised to deliver impactful business outcomes.
Understanding this, a top priority HKBN JOS has been on making it easier for businesses to share knowledge, innovate as a team, solve problems and access key resources under this hybrid arrangement.
With the hybrid work arrangement, there is a real risk of siloes developing between remote and on-site teams, resulting in a disconnect between team and business goals. To overcome this, a two-pronged approach is required:
Effective collaboration cannot happen if team members, both on-site and remote, cannot communicate with one another. On top of helping teams remain in touch, collaboration tools today such as Zoom, Teams, Slack are invaluable assets that enable colleagues to work together on projects in real-time – helping the hybrid workforce maintain seamless connectivity to build a sense of teamwork.
As remote teams work offsite for extended periods of time, there is a chance they may feel socially isolated from the rest of the team. This can be addressed if organisations make a conscious effort to set up regular catchups via video conferencing and even create specific chat channels that are not work-focused – similar to the typical pantry chat experience in the physical office.
Creating a secure environment with a hybrid workforce may sound challenging but there are certain steps organisations can take to realise this. A hybrid workforce would open up more access points to a business’s network, making endpoints more distributed and expansive – proving there is a need to rethink security for the connected economy.
As a first step, businesses must better understand the strength of existing cyber defence mechanisms. HKBN JOS Security Assessment conducts an in-depth review of IT security strategies, highlighting any gaps and vulnerabilities that should be addressed while providing concrete steps to boost security and improve compliance.
To secure a hybrid workforce, HKBN JOS recommends a holistic approach to cybersecurity along with multiple layers of defence:
The best run businesses today are those that harness technology and embed it across the entire organisation to amplify the outcomes of decisions made and actions taken for the hybrid workforce. The key to achieving this, is to extract the most out of data that is generated from this hybrid work arrangements. Modern digital platforms will have the capabilities to collect and analyse data from the various teams operating in different environments across the organisation. These data can include operational data that pinpoints workforce bottlenecks, employee engagement patterns, or collaboration challenges. The rich insights from these data will help organisations resolve key issues related to their hybrid workforce, so both onsite and offsite teams can work together effectively.
To fully unlock the powerful insights that data offers, HKBN JOS has been helping businesses achieve consistency across their entire data architecture by unifying data management policies and optimising data warehouse management. This has resulted in the creation of an integrated data architecture and intuitive UI displays that help businesses derive insights quickly and easily.
The transition to a hybrid workforce will be filled with challenges, but if the various lines of businesses are aligned and transform with purpose, I believe that the hybrid workforce will enhance productivity and teamwork to spur business growth.
In an ever-changing business environment, organisations can explore working with trusted technology partners to build a reliable and future-forward digital foundation, so they can better focus on running their core business. In fact, we see many bundled cloud offices and IT support solutions being offered recently to help businesses adapt to the new remote work reality. Many of these are created to help organisations accelerate their digitalisation journeys without being weighed down by technology and workspace challenges, enabling them to focus on charting a path towards growth in the new normal.
The pandemic has given business leaders a golden opportunity to step up to the challenge to lead by example, leveraging technology to deepen engagements with the workforce. The future of work is hybrid and with our proven track record in driving innovations for customers in this region, along with our unique culture of being unyielding and always striving for excellence, HKBN JOS is ready to help organisations harness this to their advantage, offering a hybrid work environment that will continue to attract digital-first talents so they can build back better.
18 Dec 2020 | This article first appeared on DigiconAsia on 14 Nov
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