DTUWC
How we work has changed—and will again!
Almost overnight, we all had to reassess the way we worked. Now, almost three years later, work and the workplace have changed. Remote and hybrid working environments have become standard as an everyday reality, with more than one in two employees now working remotely. A quick look at any jobs board will demonstrate how important the shift to remote and hybrid has become. True, some positions cannot be performed remotely, but today’s leaders need to consider, like never before, how to provide the best experience and job satisfaction for their employees, while maintaining optimal and seamless productivity. Technology has long been at the center of the modern organization, part of a broader, continual technological evolution that has been with us for a while, despite seemingly building up speed during the pandemic. We are now seeing a “work from anywhere” mindset that is part of the equation.
So, what has changed?
Well for one, the digital workplace has radically changed the way in which leaders provide for their employees, and evolving this workplace needs to be a top priority as research shows that the number of remote users has tripled over the last 12 months. What’s clear is that today’s visionary leaders need to rethink how they provide for their employees no matter where they work: at the office, remotely, or a mix of both.
Employees, in turn, have shown that engagement is part of the equation. When they don’t feel cared for or engaged, this will either reflect in their performance and contributions or they will leave. Part of the “quiet quitting” we have seen during and in the wake of the pandemic. Smart employers will “cash in” on this perspective and adapt the workplace accordingly. According to those who are already working to the hybrid model, potential benefits include: greater employee satisfaction and wellbeing; increased productivity; and improved efficiencies. Beyond this, nearly nine out of 10 organizations believe that the technology they provide to their employees impacts their ability to attract and retain talent.
Prevailing Technology Shifts
The overall technology shifts leading to change in the workplace and for those in it demonstrate a convergence of workplace and consumer technologies:
- The consumerization of IT: Today, it’s hard to imagine a business functioning without mobile technologies, accessible broadband, or the ability to use personal devices in a work context.
- The internet of things (IoT): Creating a network of physical objects, embedded with software and sensors, and given the ability to exchange data with other devices and systems, has created a new world of possibilities for consumers and businesses.
- Mobile apps and cloud services: Today’s mobile apps and the cloud services that support them are the lifeblood of everyday workforce productivity for organizations worldwide.
- Gamification or using gaming techniques to increase the engagement, happiness and loyalty of an audience has become a vital part of business engagement with employees and customers alike, from training to marketing.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning have seemingly limitless capacity to entertain and engage while transforming almost every industry and organizational function–making life easier, more efficient, and potentially more meaningful, both in and out of the workplace.
- 5G: With the roll-out of 5G, fast, always-on internet connectivity provides the infrastructure for the technologies that businesses rely on and those yet to be created.
Prioritizing employee experience
Employers can’t rest on their laurels; they need to consider employee satisfaction seriously and, also, through the employee’s eyes. One way they can do this is through providing a better employee experience both in and out of the office.
Improving the employee experience through IT Service Consolidation
Using a single preferred IT vendor is one of the ways to accomplish improved service. The real value for CIOs comes when they consolidate multiple PC-related IT services with a single partner instead of using (multiple) separate partners for each service. These services can include:
- Project management
- Physical/remote deployment
- Imagining
- Application configuration and installation
- Ongoing systems operations
- Asset recovery and disposal
The more an employer consolidates its services to a single PC vendor, the greater the enhancement to the employee experience, along with their bottom line. Happier employees want to stay longer and a reputation for employee satisfaction attracts more and higher-quality applicants. Compared to organizations that use multiple vendors, organizations that use a single vendor for multiple PC-related IT services see 21% lower employee turnover.
What does this mean for workers?
Personalized digital workspaces for users: A digital work-from-anywhere workplace is vital whether for remote or onsite work. Seamless productivity requires personalized user experiences and intelligent collaboration. To be effective the workplace must be flexible to meet the needs of every user’s workstyle—modern devices, peripherals and software combine to improve user experience, provide the right tools and resources, and eliminate inefficiency. Plus, it’s one of the most effective ways to create a winning organizational culture with highly satisfied employees who can focus on work instead of their PCs. Thus, IT spends less time dealing with employees’ issues; there is less unplanned downtime for everyone; and faster PC deployment and more
Intelligent collaboration between users and devices
When employees are working away from the office, they need keep in contact with their colleagues and their organization’s data. Since making the shift to remote work: capabilities like automation and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software enable employees to leverage an intelligent digital workplace that learns and adapts to meet their needs.
One example of this is the Dell Optimizer, a built-in, AI-based optimization software that learns and responds to the way employees work on their computer system. It can automatically reduce background noise, prioritize bandwidth for conferencing apps, and manage the performance of the most commonly used applications. Employees can then focus on their work, not on their system.
Flexible options for technology consumption: Making it easier and more cost-effective to acquire, consume and pay for new technologies or capabilities is a boon for evolving business scalability. A PCaaS approach can help your IT team outsource end-to-end PC services, including hardware, deployment, support, asset recovery and transitioning to new devices. PCaaS lets your team manage the PC lifecycle for one simple, predictable monthly cost so you can control costs and free up capital for other digital initiatives.
Read Part 2: Security is Everyone’s Business →