Dutch online radio station New Business Radio invited SmartCom Summit’s founder Rob Kurver to talk about the opportunities and challenges of hybrid work, following his appearance at the Remote Working Summit in September. Listen to this 30 minute discussion (in Dutch) here, or read the summary below.
The next normal is hybrid
While remote working has been the normal for many global tech companies for many years, after our recent 18 months Corona experiment across all types of organisations it has become obvious that the traditional 9 to 5 office environment is dead. Reduced travel times, fewer distractions, better access to global talent and the ability to align better with family/personal time make working remote more efficient and effective for many roles and tasks.
Almost all recent surveys indicate that the future of office work is some kind of hybrid: some days in the office, some days at home (or some other working location). Depending on the organisations, local infrastructure, and roles/types of work this balance can work out differently, but the overall trend points to 2-3 days working from home and 1-2 days working from the office. Of course, this has tremendous impact on the way organisations are structured and managed, and on the layout of modern office plans.
Tech companies lead the way
Interestingly enough, global tech companies like Microsoft, Zoom, Google, Audiocodes, Poly and Logitech are not just setting the example but also building the technology that makes all this possible. And they are competing like crazy to improve the collaboration platforms and the intelligent endpoints and room systems that make working and collaborating from home just as good as, or even better then, working from the traditional office.
Because of the flexibility of modern, online, platforms new improvements can be rolled out at a monthly or even weekly or daily basis. Breakout rooms, automated transcription, online polls and chat are all normal already, as are (background) noise cancelling, and in the coming months we can expect to see real-time translation (making global teams even easier), smart video framing, better presentations and whiteboarding, automated note taking, management feedback and much much more.
It’s all about putting people first
The advantages for companies that adopt these latest technologies, and empower their teams to make optimal use of them, are huge. With the war for talent still heating up the organisations that are able to keep and attract the best employees will outperform competitors. State of the art collaboration platforms and smart technology will support these best of class organisations to come out of the pandemic thriving.
The role of leadership changes from managing presence and day-to-day activities to connecting and empowering their people, building teams, developing new talent through training and coaching. Think about it, would you rather be a resource that is managed by the “Human Resources” department or a talent that is coached and developed by the “Talent Development” department?
What’s Next?
Organisations that embrace these new technological capabilities will be the leaders in the next decade. Join us on December 2 to hear from technology leaders as well as users that have successfully adopted these new technologies to learn more about the possibilities, and where and how to get started with remote work, the future of business and new leadership. Register now to attend, or apply as a speaker or partner.
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