Change is happening all around us, and at HP, we’re leveraging our combined strengths with Poly to create a unique, pro-grade experience for hybrid workers.

We’re excited to announce a complete Microsoft Teams Room solution experience now integrated with HP compute for meeting rooms of any size, new Microsoft Teams device certifications, and promotions to better experience the power of Poly | HP.

The Poly Studio Room Kits for Microsoft Teams Rooms can now be paired with the Microsoft Teams-certified HP Mini Conferencing PC with Microsoft Teams Rooms to deliver a complete Microsoft Teams Room solution experience for meeting rooms of any size. Powered by Windows IoT and 12^th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor, the HP Mini Conferencing PC with Microsoft Teams Rooms is a high-performance processing powerhouse that provides users with a rich, collaborative video conferencing experience and gives IT peace of mind with HP Wolf Security for Business and integrated management. This combined solution reflects the world-class innovation driven by the power of Poly’s audio and video collaboration with HP’s legacy in personal computing.

Poly has  a broad portfolio of devices certified for Microsoft Teams, and two new Poly products now join this growing list as the latest devices certified or pending certification for Microsoft Teams:

• The Poly CCX350 phone – Our first Microsoft Teams-certified desk phone with a physical dial pad ideal for multiple users in high-traffic common areas as well as retail, manufacturing, or lab environments
• The Poly Voyager Free 60 Series wireless earbuds – Pro-grade wireless earbuds, built for work, but designed for everyday life featuring adaptive ANC and WindSmart technology. The Voyager Free 60 UC variants come in a standard model with a charging case, or the Voyager Free 60+ UC with a smart charge OLED case. Both the standard and the 60+ UC will also be available in a version certified for Microsoft Teams. The Voyager Free 60 series will be available worldwide in CYQ2.

We’re also making it easier than ever for users to experience the power of Poly | HP.

• My First Room 2.0 is a promotion that includes the new HP Mini Conferencing PC-based Microsoft Teams Rooms solution and Android-based Teams Rooms. It offers one-time discounts on first-time Microsoft Teams Rooms purchases.
• The My First Room Program allows users to choose from any part of our refreshed Microsoft Teams Room portfolio on Windows or Android, including My First Room 2.0, and offers a discount on a user’s first Microsoft Teams Room purchase.

We will be showcasing our latest Microsoft Teams solutions at ISE Barcelona. To learn more, please visit the Poly | HP  booth #2Q250 at ISE or visit: Poly solutions for Microsoft Teams.

In a Deloitte 2021 Return to Workplaces survey, 68 percent of executives reported that they intended for their corporate workforce to operate in a hybrid model. While that’s great news for employees who prefer the flexibility, this complicates things for the IT leaders planning their company’s return-to-office strategy.

A hybrid strategy can be complicated to execute as it must enable employee connectivity from any location all while ensuring everyone feels they can participate and collaborate on equal footing—as if they were all in the same room. This makes audio and video solutions that provide seamless communication between employees across diverse locations essential to all three phrases of your return-to-office strategy: planning, deployment and adoption.

PLANNING IS THE FOUNDATION OF SUCCESS 

When it comes to return to office, you need to consider two types of workspaces: shared and personal. Shared spaces are rooms of all sizes, from your largest conference room to your smallest focus and huddle spaces. Personal spaces can be a desk in the office or at home, a seat in a coffee shop or at the airport, or any other place where employees may need to work.

As you analyze your shared spaces, consider if any of them need to be reconfigured to meet the needs of a hybrid working model, such as ensuring remote participants can join meetings with a presence equal to those physically in the room.

To plan the best communication devices for personal spaces, consider both the characteristics of the workspace itself and the employee’s workstyle. Individual preference and comfort are also important factors for equipment like headsets and video devices.

GETTING DEPLOYMENT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME  

Deployment starts with regular communication about what’s happening and when it’s happening to help set stakeholder and end-user expectations. Next comes the rollout.

However, before beginning the rollout, you must organize it. Figure out how the deployment should go, who will be installing the new devices and how to deliver the new solutions to remote workers, supporting them in their ongoing use. Before the first device is installed, ensure you’ll be able to manage your entire portfolio once the deployment is completed.

In addition to rolling out devices to employees, figure out how you’ll provide them with the instructions and information they need to use their personal devices and meeting room equipment.

INCREASING EMPLOYEE ADOPTION 

You know what they say…first impressions matter! A company needs to make it easy for everyone to adopt the new devices to ensure employee productivity, validate the company’s investment and improve business results. Adoption is an ongoing process, but it hinges greatly on the first time an employee tries to use the device.

If they are unsuccessful or think their new equipment is hard to use, they will avoid using it. Often this means they’ll find a workaround that reduces their productivity and makes them less effective. So, ensuring first-usage success is an important part of your adoption program.

But adoption doesn’t end there. It’s a continuous process of helping users maximize their benefit from their personal devices or meeting room tech.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EXPERT ADVICE 

 There’s a lot to take into account as you strategize your return to office. Most of the office planning you’ve done in the past no longer applies, so it may feel like starting from scratch in some areas.

To help simplify the process, we’ve drawn upon our in-house experts to create a free toolkit to answer common questions, and provide tips, best practices and checklists across the planning, deployment and adoption phases. Before you finalize your strategy, check out Poly’s Return to Office Toolkit.

For Poly, the global pandemic has accelerated what we already knew: Employees need to be able to connect reliably and clearly to perform at their best, no matter where they are getting their work done. That’s why we’re excited to introduce the Poly Studio P Series, a new line of professional-grade video and audio devices for personal workspaces, empowering your employees to look and sound their best from anywhere. Paired with Poly Lens software, the Poly Studio P Series provides the best experience for remote workers while giving IT centralized management and deep insights to understand device usage and drive adoption.

An IDC poll from October 2020 indicates that organizations are gearing up with new technology to support hybrid workforces and many anticipate work models to be redesigned to support hybrid employees that split time between working in the office and at home.

Managing a large-scale device deployment was already a monumental task when everyone was in the office. Now, managing and tracking devices from all over the world with so many working from remote locations can be a nightmare. We believe it should be easier for IT to manage these remote devices and support employees from afar.

With the introduction of the Poly Studio P Series, we saw the potential to offer a tool to enable employees to customize their personal devices. The Poly Lens Desktop app ensures end-users are up to date with the latest firmware and streamlines device setup with tips for the best possible lighting and camera placement, ergonomics for the optimal workspace setup, as well as simplified troubleshooting. Poly Lens cloud management gives IT departments the powerful tools needed to provision updates, support devices, and understand usage and adoption, across both employees and workspaces, all from a single pane of glass.

For even more support, we will also be introducing Poly+, an exclusive personal device support service with unlimited 24/7/365 access to technical support from Poly experts and next-day hardware replacement. You even get exclusive discounts on some of our highly rated Professional Services offers. For IT, Poly+ also grants app-to-cloud connectivity, allowing people to do more while helping troubleshoot issues.

It’s our business to make work, work, wherever our customers are, and with whatever platform they use. We’re eager for you to get your hands on the Poly Studio P Series, Poly Lens Desktop app, and Poly+. We may not be able to turn your IT team into superhumans, but we do make the cape.

Read more about the new Poly Studio P Series in our blog post here or, get up close and personal with the devices here.

Introducing Virtual Watercoolers & Low-Touch Conference Rooms

If your office hasn’t declared a “return to work” date, you’re not alone. According to the Society for Human Resource Management or SHRM, 45 percent of organizations are in the same position. A phased return is the standard approach needed to address safety and spacing requirements. The same study also found that 81 percent of employers are limiting the number of onsite workers and when workers do come back, 75 percent of employers are staggering start, stop and break times to ensure social distancing and allow time for cleaning.

Poly has been working alongside partners and customers to help them address and ultimately thrive in this new way of hybrid working. We’re seeing businesses move from responding to the global pandemic, to giving thought to how they redesign their workspace so it can safely accommodate and facilitate a productive and connected workflow.

There are countless considerations – from identifying employee roles that are essential to have on-site to thinking about the type of space and safety requirements needed to accommodate those employees. Technology that may have been considered utility just months ago, is now stepping in to help companies rethink how they can be operated and used in the office.

Technology Takes on a New Role in the New Office

In the wake of the global pandemic, Poly has been continuing to evaluate and explore the ways its technology can help make the office productive and safe – analyzing everything from how people start meetings effectively to how they engage in common areas. Here are a few ways Poly technology can strategically help companies as they explore a safe and productive return to the office:

• Low-touch conference rooms – Meetings at the office should be as low-stress as possible and be as easy to start with people conferencing in from home as it is when meeting in-person. The Poly Studio X family of video appliances run our ecosystem partner applications natively, so employees can use their own mobile phone or laptop for proximity join (available on Microsoft Teams and via iOS client only on Zoom) and wireless sharing (available on both Microsoft Teams and Zoom).

• Virtual watercoolers – Maintaining strong social connections in this shift to virtual teams is critical to employee satisfaction and productivity. In fact, two of the top three reasons people want to return to the office, according to a recent Gensler survey, are socializing and impromptu face-to-face interaction with their colleagues. But when everyone can’t return to the office, how can you fill the void? Virtual watercoolers. Video conferencing appliances create an opportunity to rethink the traditional “office watercooler.” Historically, the watercooler has been the place to meet and connect socially and create those serendipitous moments of discovery and innovation.

Companies can use video conferencing devices to create a virtual watercooler and offer a space to foster these ad hoc types of meetups. Employees can leverage their personal devices as a low-touch way to connect with high-quality video and built-in production rules like Speaker Framing, Smooth Tracking and Conversation Mode (currently available in Poly Studio USB only). This helps to bridge the distance of social distancing by bringing those sitting more than six feet apart into the same frame and creates a more natural experience that makes remote employees feel like they are in the room – enabling a high-quality collaboration experience. Acoustic Fence and NoiseBlock AI technologies create the best audio experience, eliminating noise around the area (typically in open spaces), while minimizing the noise inside the ‘fence’ from far-end meeting participants (chip bag rustling, typing, etc.).

• Device management & analytics – Device management through the cloud puts you in control across your entire organization while the cloud-based architecture gives you security, flexibility and agility. When it comes to collaboration spaces, lower density meetings will be key and touchless conference rooms will be optimal. Spaces designed to hold four people may only fit two with current social distancing guidelines. Where prior to COVID-19 you might have been concerned more with the utilization of a room (which is still critical), now those same people count and usage information is critical to ensure that there aren’t too many people in a space, for the safety of all employees. Testing is underway to understand more innovative ways to use our Poly management software with Poly Studio X and G7500 devices to empower businesses with insights to manage for safety today, and for optimization in the future.

The journey to the next normal will look different for everyone, but we believe a focus and investment on the future state of the office, not just reacting to the current situation, will enable businesses to address current needs while creating an optimal work environment. One where employees can seamlessly transition between home, office and everywhere in between without sacrificing productivity or connection with their teammates. Leveraging Poly’s decades of experience, we’re looking ahead to help you define and deliver on future requirements across workstyles and workspaces, so you can respond to today’s needs and create an environment that supports the ability to reinvent work in the future.

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