Many discussions about the future of the workplace focus on the element of remote workers, but the return to office is an essential building block for hybrid work. It’s also going more slowly than anticipated.

A spring 2022 survey of 160 major employers, conducted by The Partnership for New York City, found that more than 75% of firms are set to implement a hybrid model, but the larger the company, the slower the pace of return to office.

Why are things going so slowly? Because workers are unwilling to return.

A recent European survey found that on average 64% of workers are reluctant to return to the workplace, from a low of 56% in the Netherlands to a high of 83% in Ireland.

In the pre-pandemic world, things like game rooms, free snacks, and cool office design were used to create excitement among employees for being in the office. Today, these incentives have been replaced by HR policies, placemaking, and organizational design underpinned with a technical infrastructure that enables hybrid work.

THREE CONSIDERATIONS FOR CREATING A BETTER WORK ENVIRONMENT

The three most important elements to focus on in the return to office are people, spaces, and technology.

Meet employees’ changed expectations and attitudes. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Someone early in their career may want to be in more often for the camaraderie, while established workers with families may prefer to be in on as few days as possible. With the autonomy many employees developed through remote working, managers who feel employees need to be in the office to be micromanaged are a detriment. Take roles and function into consideration and make more granular decisions about what makes sense.

Recognize the role of place in building workplace culture. 66% of businesses are considering remodeling their company spaces for hybrid work. While many organizations clearly understand that the traditional approach to office space won’t work, it’s also important to take a new approach to the function of office space. As you redesign your space, consider how your new environment communicates your values and culture.

Animate your return to office with technology. Technology sets in motion the interactions that solve issues, generate new ideas, express culture, and bring colleagues together. From workplace apps that bring people together in the right place at the right time to immersive video conferencing experiences, technology repositions your office as an intelligent hub for remote and face-to-face collaboration.

TURN YOUR RETURN TO OFFICE INTO A RESET FOR THE LONG TERM

With hybrid work becoming our new reality, many organizations are struggling to tackle their return to office at a functional level, while missing the underlying culture, structure, and values necessary to support all employees.

To help you navigate a strong return to office that sets your company up to succeed as workplaces continue to evolve, Poly has partnered with the experts at WORKTECH Academy.  Our latest white paper combines key insights, with input from technical and design leaders, and real-world examples to help your return to office strategy create a strong foundation for hybrid working.

Read The Journey to Hybrid Working: A Reset For Return To Office?  to learn more research-based considerations about people, spaces, and technology in your return to office planning.

When it comes to hybrid working, there’s no turning back.  And yet Poly research shows that less than 50% of organizations are fully prepared with a hybrid working strategy.

Embracing this new model and setting up your business to operate in a new standard over the long term is no small feat. It requires a fundamental reshaping of time and space when it comes to how and where we work. There are many things to consider, which is one reason so many companies are still in the planning phase.

But as large as the challenges seem, so are the benefits to be gained. The ability of businesses to attract and retain talent in a tight labor market is only the beginning. Getting it right can also increase business agility and resiliency and provide an advantage in volatile markets.

CREATE THE RIGHT MOMENTUM

How do you move forward without falling back into the paradigms of the past? So many of the headlines around hybrid are focused on whether people are working in the office or at home, and how often they work in each place. But that’s just one of several elements to consider in a process that’s completely remaking the future of your employees and your business.

It’s also essential to consider:

Where the work occurs. Is your office the traditional office or is it an ecosystem that also encompasses a variety of casual working locations where employees can gather? Also, it’s important to acknowledge that remote isn’t just a home office. For employees on the go, it may not be a static location at all. So, wherever your employees are working, and whether they’re in an office location four days a week or one day a month, your plan needs to enable them to be productive now and as your hybrid model evolves.

How hybrid work affects your employees. Hybrid work has blurred work and life and eroded the boundaries of “traditional” office hours. This creates a dichotomy; while 83% of workers told Accenture that hybrid work would be optimal, almost half of the respondents in Poly’s research reported an unhealthy culture of overworking at their company.  The nature of employee connection and collaboration has also changed. With no way to bump into each other in the hall, what’s happened to the informal conversations that help things get done?  When people work from everywhere, are formal meetings the only way to collaborate? Creating a healthy working environment and enabling all styles of communication are critical to a successful plan.

The impact of hybrid work on your organization. When everyone was in the same location, whether it was a pre-pandemic office or all working remotely, everyone had the same presence. But that changes when some people are in the office and others aren’t. Traditional offices were set up to favor those in the office, but that must change for hybrid success. Another traditional arrangement that needs to be updated is supporting employees with siloed service departments. In a hybrid world, this creates fragmentation when a clear, unified approach is needed. A truly workable hybrid plan must ensure that everyone has the same impact and presence, wherever they are working and streamline organizational structures that can obstruct your progress.

SIX CONSIDERATIONS FOR U.S. COMPANIES WITH NO TIME TO LOSE

Hybrid working is at an inflection point. It’s no longer the next big thing; it’s our new long-term reality. So, it’s time to be all-in on the strategy that sets your forward course.

To help you develop a plan that provides the structure you need now and the flexibility to evolve in the future, Poly has partnered with Worktech Academy on a white paper that combines key insights into hybrid working with original research focused on U.S. workers.

Read The Journey to Hybrid Working: Six Things for U.S. Companies to Consider, to explore six key decision points for making a successful transition to hybrid work.

Is your organization ready for hybrid work? If not, you’re not alone. Poly’s recent research found that just 37 percent of respondents who planned to implement a long-term hybrid work model are fully prepared with a strategy ready to go. 

 This isn’t a surprise. After all, we’ve never seen such a fundamental, long-term change in how and where we work. When the pandemic first started two years ago, IT Leaders had to react on the spot to maintain business continuity when teams were first forced to work from home. In most cases, the technology solutions rolled out were short-term solutions, intended to help remote workers get by until everyone could return to the regular office environment. 

Now that we’ve arrived fully in the era of hybrid work, IT teams and business leaders need a well-planned strategy to enable employees to be effective and productive working, no matter where the work is getting done.  

CHART YOUR OWN COURSE 

Because we’ve never lived through such drastic changes there’s no playbook or road map. You can’t reach out to your peers who’ve successfully made this transition, because we’re all still sorting it out. And since your organization is one of a kind, with specific challenges and advantages, you need to plot your own unique strategy.  

 Navigating the transition to supporting hybrid teams is a complex undertaking, so it makes sense to start with some key considerations: 

How hybrid will your company be? Will everybody be in the office four days a week and remote on Friday? Or can employees come into the office on two days each week that they choose? Or does everyone only have to come in on the day of the monthly all-hands meeting and are otherwise free to work where they choose? Are there set hours during the day when everyone must be online and available, regardless of their location? 

What will your office look like? Is the office your traditional office, or will you also have co-working spaces or hubs where remote workers can gather? And when employees are in these workspaces, how will they work? Will desks be assigned, or will they be hot desks that workers will need to reserve? What kinds of collaboration spaces do you need to create? Do you need more conference rooms or more huddle spaces? 

How will you support your remote workers? With the perception that they need to be “always on” is a common complaint, how will you help them balance productivity and well-being? Can you provide them with an equality of presence with employees in the office? 

There are many moving parts and the picture is changing rapidly. While this can seem overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. 

TWELVE CONSIDERATIONS TO NAVIGATING HYBRID WORKING 

While hybrid working remains a largely unmapped territory, some guideposts are emerging as experts from a variety of disciplines consider its challenges, explore their impact on organizations, and provide insights for planning how your business moves forward. 

To help you navigate this journey to hybrid working, Poly has partnered with Worktech Academy on a white paper that incorporates insights and original research into twelve key considerations to help you develop a strategy tailored to your business.  We examine the contours of the emerging hybrid work landscape and chart some of the pivotal decision points and dichotomies that you face en route to making a successful transition. 

This is just the first step in our rolling program to create new thinking, define the main challenges, and explore emerging opportunities around hybrid working. Start by downloading The Journey to Hybrid Working: Twelve Considerations, then stay tuned as we continue to develop insights into the new corporate landscape for hybrid work. 

If the last two years have taught IT professionals, the public sector and business leaders anything, it’s that organizations must be prepared with a voice and video infrastructure capable of providing continuity in the face of rapid, and often, disruptive change. The global pandemic has been a catalyst for digital acceleration across all industries, as companies have been forced to rapidly deploy new technologies to keep their teams connected and performing at their best, no matter where they are getting their work done.

Whether it is health-related, like the current Omicron surge, or a natural disaster, no one knows what the next major disruption will be or when it may show up, but the recent past has taught us all how important it is to have readiness and flexibility built into an organization’s communication infrastructure.

Here are a few examples of Poly customers from different verticals who were ahead of the curve in terms of having the right collaboration tools in place to set their organizations up for success as they navigated the challenges of quickly pivoting to support remote and hybrid teams:

EDUCATION

The pandemic turned the education landscape upside down seemingly overnight, challenging learning institutions of all types to implement distance learning and remote administration in record time. Deciding what gear to roll-out, which features to deploy and how to ensure network readiness were major challenges for administrators and IT departments to navigate.

Issues such as their phone systems not allowing for off-prem use, needing to provide reliable professional quality headsets and roll out VaaS platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams left many schools struggling and scrambling in the transition to remote education.

When Chapman University needed a flexible solution that facilitated reliable communication and collaboration between staff and students, they turned to Poly as their trusted partner. Chapman moved quickly in the early days of the pandemic to support its nearly 10,000 students and staff with Poly gear, preparing them with the necessary tools to tackle remote learning and administration. The use of video cameras with features like speaker tracking, headsets that block out distracting background noise and speakerphones with acoustic fence technology made a huge difference for teachers working from home or in remote classrooms. The transition to support remote learning helped the university create a safe environment, support diverse needs and better prepare for whatever the future may hold.

Pennsylvania Public Schools is another success story. The Poly technology the Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 (IU 13) implemented years before to connect the 22 schools in their district made their pandemic-induced transition to distance learning far more seamless. Roy Hoover, IU 13’s Network and Telecommunications Coordinator, pointed out that the decision to move from traditional desk phones to softphones and Poly headsets in the years prior to the pandemic made for a relatively seamless transition when staff were forced to work from home. Roy’s experience demonstrates how equipping a workforce with flexible, agile technology makes it possible to transition between traditional and remote working environments with relative ease.

GOVERNMENT

State and Federal governments faced massive challenges when transitioning to supporting a virtual workforce due to the scale of operations, privacy/security concerns and need to integrate with outdated, complex legacy infrastructure.

Because the Virginia State Supreme Court had a Poly-powered voice and video network in place, the pandemic did not incite the chaos it might have otherwise. Bob Kelley, Sr. Video Applications Engineer for the Supreme Court of Virginia, recommends that if states haven’t already begun, they should start planning their video infrastructure immediately so that they can launch something that will work for them in the long run – the next five to seven years.

HEALTHCARE

The medical field has been ahead of the game relative to many other industries. Healthcare institutions have been taking strides toward improving telemedicine for years to make quality care more accessible. There was an increasing demand for telehealth options, even before the pandemic, and now that increase has accelerated significantly. Administrators and IT professionals in the medical field have been leading the charge and taking on this challenge bravely, and Poly has been happy to be an ally.

Avera eCARE has supported patients and clinicians with their team of medical experts for more than 25 years. As true pioneers in telehealth, they use Poly solutions across their network to provide remote emergency care to rural emergency rooms, behavioral health clinics, critical access needs, correctional health needs and senior care.

On an average month, Avera eCARE supports 1,400 emergency video consults calls and 1,000 specialist consults, receiving patients from their 380+ Poly Group Series 500 units deployed to emergency rooms, state correction facilities and long-term care facilities. In addition to video, nearly 90 percent of Avera’s clinical administration and clinical staff use a Poly headset at their desk every day.  In the early days of the lockdown, they were well-equipped to send staff home with the gear they needed to continue providing exceptional service to patients.

The Road to Readiness

At this point, we know change is inevitable. It’s something the workforce is going to navigate day-by-day, and we know the back and forth is exhausting for everyone. However, ensuring your business has readiness and flexibility built in ahead of time can make a huge difference. Those who suffered fewer obstacles and less stress were those who already had flexible, reliable voice and video technology in place.

Poly is here to assist with a variety of consulting services that help you plan ahead and future-proof your organization, including the Poly Grant Assistance Program, which is a free resource focused on aligning available funding with your organization’s communication needs.

The road to readiness is paved with professional-grade voice and video solutions capable of adapting quickly as collaboration dynamics evolve. Being prepared is the key to business continuity – and, when it comes to keeping your teams connected, Poly’s got you covered.