Is your workplace ready for a hybrid future?
It’s safe to say that “the office,” as we knew it in pre-pandemic times, is a thing of the past. All indications point to working from home (which really means working from anywhere) continuing indefinitely in some form. A recent Lenovo study showed that 83% of IT decision-makers expect at least 50% of work post-COVID will be done outside a traditional office environment.1
And employees appreciate the flexibility. 60% of them prefer to work from home at least half the time, but 90% do want to go to an office or meeting space to connect with colleagues when needed.1
Now, as restrictions are lifted and the return to the office begins for more employees, IT teams will need to take another look at those abandoned corporate offices and assess their technological readiness for a hybrid workforce.
Fewer seats, more places to meet
Going forward, many offices will take on more of a “business center” model, with areas for employees to set up quickly and easily for a day’s work — along with plenty of spaces equipped with collaboration technology so employees can connect seamlessly with offsite colleagues.
The goal is to create a seamless transition from the work-from-home environment IT teams have supported for the last year-plus to a true work-from-anywhere experience. And that takes having the right technology in place with the proper support to ensure it’s all operating at peak efficiency.
Maintaining this optimal employee experience (EX) is critical. Studies have shown that employees’ satisfaction with technology has a significant impact on their overall satisfaction, and that for every $1 spent on improving EX, companies are seeing $5 back in increased employee productivity, organizational agility, and customer satisfaction.2
Evolving needs mean increasing support challenges
Managing the support needs of both a remote workforce and a hybrid workplace may represent an even greater challenge for IT teams than the initial adoption of the work-from-home model.
In addition to provisioning, deploying, and updating devices in the remote fleet, there’s a host of new collaboration technology and hoteling/hot-desking stations to be set up and maintained in offices.
And there’s still the ever-present need to keep all this technology safe from evolving cyberthreats, which have increased dramatically since work from home began. All of this takes the IT team away from the core task of driving business improvement through digital transformation.
“This new operational aspect keeps me up at night... it’s harder to provide our employees with the right level of IT support because they are not located in the company office. The IT security issues that can happen will be more challenging to solve because our employees are using their own internet connections that lack enterprise security.”
~ ITDM, large enterprise, Singapore
A smarter approach to managing the modern office
Lenovo Managed Services provides IT teams with a convenient and secure way to deliver an exceptional technology experience for both remote and in-office workers while allowing the IT team to refocus on core business objectives.
With a comprehensive portfolio of reliable, secure solutions, Lenovo Managed Services fits your IT operations like a glove, supplementing your team where and when it makes the most sense. And we operate 24/7/365 in 180 markets around the globe.
Beyond managing the day-to-day endpoint issues, we can support your needs across the entire IT landscape — cybersecurity, infrastructure, collaboration, and more.
Your workers stay engaged and productive whether they’re in the office or out, and your IT team gets back on track supporting your organization’s goals.
Visit our Managed Services page to learn more about how we can help you get back to moving your organization forward.
Sources
1 Lenovo, “The Future of Work and Digital Transformation” report, February 2021
2 Forrester, “Invest in Employee Experience (EX), Drive Your Bottom Line Growth,” October 2020
