The Future Of Working Between Home and The Office

The future of working between home and the office

We’re experiencing a brand-new style of working, with many of us relying on technology to connect with colleagues, clients and loved ones more than ever before.

Recent findings from Computer Weekly, revealed that 69% of British adults are now working from home at least part time, compared to only 9% that worked at home part time before the pandemic.

According to the report, 62% of British adults have turned to video calls to connect with colleagues since the early stages of lockdown, with 26% taking active steps to improve their home internet connection for added efficiency while they work.

Here we take a look into the future of working between home and office, and how the right technology can enhance our productivity throughout the working day.

For many of us, the immediate way of working is decidedly virtual. In light of this change, it’s essential that companies take a flexible approach and look to invest in easy to use technologies that can be made accessible to all generations.

The pandemic has pushed the subject of remote working to the forefront of employees’ minds with the majority continuing to work from home where they can.

Having experienced both the perks and the drawbacks of working from home, businesses will be left considering whether returning to the traditional office setting, creating a blend of home and office working or going entirely remote is the best option for either medium or long-term success. The opportunity to downsize an office due to less employees being permanently located there will be a big positive to companies who have large overheads linked to rent.

As workplace collaboration will always be a crucial factor in the effective running of a business, an employee-first approach will have to be adopted.

Office time will always exist, no matter how often people choose to work from home, although it could become much more flexible to fit new homeworking lifestyles. Therefore it’s imperative that businesses make the necessary adjustments to facilitate the ‘new normal’ we are faced with.

As we look to the future, we can see that there will be a rise in remote workers, hot desking and shared office spaces in the coming years with inevitable developments in communication technology helping to improve the transition.

Investing in the best technology

The huge surge in home workers has highlighted the areas in which businesses can improve the support they offer to staff. The key issues for many workers seem to be poor connectivity and struggling to communicate easily with colleagues from home.

The research from Computer Weekly discovered that 10% of people working between home and office in the UK chose to upgrade their broadband packages, with 8% purchasing wireless extensions or booster kits to improve their internet connectivity, indicating that there is a definite need for technology that performs during the current climate. Running business grade technology over low quality home broadband will often end in disaster.

User experience has also become hugely important in regards to technology used throughout the pandemic, as a poor UX often leads to a drop in productivity and staff engagement. It can also lead to Shadow IT being deployed if employees are really unhappy, which can be a big security headache.

These technology-based issues have urged people to consider which technology is best to simplify the process of working during the pandemic. However, with so much choice in the market, finding the right solution for businesses can be challenging.

With this in mind we’ve put together key recommendations to help your employees work seamlessly alongside each other whether they’re working from home, the office or a hybrid of the two.

Reliable connectivity

A good connection makes all the difference whether you’re working at home or in the office. Without a reliable connection your employees will struggle to keep up with the pace of work and soon fall behind, impacting productivity and revenue.

For employees working from home it’s worth investing time and money in improving connectivity with business broadband.

With many people returning to the office either full or part time you may want to consider technology solutions like leased line DIA and SD-WAN, you’d hate for their connectivity to be better at home than in the office environment!

Cloud telephony (VoIP)

For employees on the go, VoIP cloud phone systems are the best choice, offering the flexibility needed.

You can easily integrate calls in and out of the business with communication solutions like Microsoft Teams helping to improve collaboration across the company, no matter where your employees are based.

Whether you’re looking to set up a call for 3 or 300 people, Microsoft Teams enables you to scale accordingly without call quality being impacted.

Collaboration tools

With IT having to justify spend more than ever before Microsoft Teams is the ideal solution. It unifies comms by bringing everything together in one shared workplace, making managing daily tasks easy and enjoyable. You can work from anywhere, chat with your team and collaborate on files.

It’s also built to allow collaboration in real time, so you can share whiteboards, documents or desktops.

If you aren’t already experiencing the benefits that Microsoft 365 offers then it should definitely be at the top of your strategy for 2021. Microsoft 365 enables your employees to work seamlessly from anywhere on any device.

You may be familiar with the office suite of Word, Excel and PowerPoint but you get so much more than that when you invest in Microsoft 365. You get these products plus Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneNote helping to improve collaborative working for everyone.

How will the office of the future operate?

While we may not know what the future holds, one thing is for certain: it’s vital that your business invests in the right technology to keep every employee engaged and the business profitable. Whether working in the office, remotely or a blend of the two it’s important to make sure that your staff have the right tools at their disposal.

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