Jacques Bertrand, Executive Vice President for Crestron Electronics in Asia, says it’s not a matter of if hybrid working is the way forward for organisations, but how best to go about creating a hybrid culture with the most effective technological infrastructure.
The pandemic may seem like a lingering memory today, but it has been a key catalyst for the drastic shift in workplace dynamics world-wide. It brought a whirlwind of change in how employees evaluate their jobs to look for better work-life balance. And that led to a significant number of organisations across the world shifting to a hybrid model, allowing employees to have the flexibility to combine working in an office environment and working from home.
According to a study by The Center for Creative Leadership, the adoption of the hybrid work model has nearly doubled in Asia-Pacific, up from 41% pre-pandemic to 80% post-pandemic, with Singapore as one of the strongest champions of hybrid work arrangements across the region. The data is a clear indication that hybrid work is now a fixture of workplace culture. And given the changing business dynamics, now, it’s time Chief HR Officers and Chief Information Officers must make the intelligent hybrid workplace a priority for business and employee productivity.
Technology is key to a hybrid future
Technology will be the backbone for the future of the hybrid-work model, backed by rapid adoption of more automated, cloud-based, and artificial intelligence-enabled workplace solutions to drive collaboration and productivity.
As market research and advisory firm IDC rightly pointed out in its Future of Work report, hybrid work will create new technology solutions across functions and industries alike. Firms that invest in digital adoption platforms and automated learning technologies will see a 40% increase in productivity by 2025, delivering greater speed to expertise.
By 2025, organisations that have created dedicated hybrid security policies will be three times less likely to suffer a security breach. By 2024, 55% of C-suite teams at global enterprises will use intelligent space and capacity planning technology to reinvent office locations for gathering, collaborating, and learning, the report added.
For the hybrid-work model to be successful, companies urgently need to invest in the latest tech. If every meeting is not equipped to be hybrid, which includes remote participation and collaboration, teams will experience challenges in staying connected to each other, to leadership, and to the company culture, no matter where they are working. Imagine the negative impact on productivity and employee satisfaction. Being unable to fully see and engage with in-room or remote participants negatively affects meeting experience.
Challenges to overcome
In the post-pandemic world, the hybrid-work model has benefited employees in terms of improved work-life balance, higher productivity, efficient use of time and developing new skill sets. This is favourable for employers, too. But it will largely depend on how well the organisations are equipped to integrate the hybrid-work culture.
There are challenges that Chief HR Officers and Chief Information Officers face in pushing for the latest technologies. For example, intelligent meeting rooms in the workplace. Organisations have yet to formalise hybrid work policies and employees are still trying to adapt to a work environment where they could be interacting with colleagues, in-person or through a screen, on any given day. Companies also need to evaluate employee behaviours and preferences for a hybrid workplace, and find out what tools and solutions they are currently lacking.
CIOs should also partner with their counterparts in the HR department to understand the workforce archetypes within the organisation, to see how they function and what they need to be productive in their job. To encourage productivity, engagement and teamwork: seamless virtual collaboration between home and office is the key. And for that companies will have to consider not just implementing more tools, but the right ones.
There is much work to be done. In a recent survey, conducted among 800 mid-level employees and over 500 IT-industry leaders globally, nearly half (41%) of respondents said that half or fewer of their workspaces were adequately equipped for full hybrid engagement.
Prior to the pandemic, we all imagined the future in a modern, tech-focused workplace. No one realised this future would be approaching so fast. Today, the hybrid-work model is the new normal but how well it is integrated within the work culture, still very much depends on the right CIO mindset and his ability to convince his stakeholders in this workplace transformation.
About the author
Jacques is the Executive Vice President of Crestron Asia where he oversees cross functional teams throughout China, Japan, North, and Southeast Asia, and India. Jacques has more than 30 years of leadership experience in sales and marketing communications, 20 of which have been based out of Asia.
Jacques began his career with Barco in the Barco Graphics Division, starting the business operations in Asia. He later became responsible for the entire Asia Business for Barco Group. Then as Chief Sales Officer, he was responsible for the group’s global sales and customer-facing initiatives.
In his last years with Barco, he was responsible for the Clickshare business, Control rooms and virtual reality division.
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