Verizon Business: COVID-19’s impact on digital workplaces
In a recent announcement made by Verizon Business, the company reported its latest research on the impact of COVID-19 for digital workplaces and new ways of working driven by technology.
The report titled: Recreating Work as a Blend of Virtual and Physical Experiences, looks at the rise in remote working, discussing areas for leaders to focus on to help their organisations adapt to new ways of working. The report was based on feedback from 1,080 global business leaders in May.
“The global pandemic accelerated this move to a digital working environment and business leaders need to use the lessons of the present to future-ready their organizations,” commented Sampath Sowmyanarayan, President of Global Enterprise, Verizon Business.
“Seeing how their network, security and employee collaboration systems have operated during the pandemic should provide the blueprint for the road ahead. By acting now, they can capture the needs of employees and customers and create alignment across the organization as they pivot toward the new normal.”
Findings from the report
Of those that participated in the report, 86% see digital workplaces co-existing with the physical in the future, with 78% expecting an increase in the amount of remote working. However, Verizon identified that this does not mean everyone will be working from home. Instead organisations will pick and choose the type of work and people that will need to be physically present.
This insight comes from 61% of leaders reporting that the quality of remote work was on par with the physical workplace. In addition 52% experienced increased collaboration, 57% witnessed an increase in agility, and 44% saw an increase in productivity.
Elsewhere in the report, Verizon Business discovered that businesses with a digital workplace strategy are consistently more likely to have a greater return on investment (ROI), than a business that doesn’t. Of those who participated 52% of businesses with a strategy saw increased productivity compared to only 40% of those that didn’t have one.
Commenting on the best way to achieve these desired results, Verizon highlighted the importance of going beyond a basic work from home policy to define the purpose and goals, the use of technology is a key differentiator.
In addition to the statistics, Verizon Business identifies three key focus areas for successful digital work in the future:
- Smart working: organisations should look to integrate collaboration tools such as document sharing, white boarding and annotation into video and web conferencing applications, to enable real time collaboration.
- Simplicity and integration: for a cohesive and productive digital work environment, Verizon Business highlights the importance of tools being easy to use and seamlessly integrated.
- Security: as company’s shift to remote working it's important to identify the potential security gaps, by utilising enterprise grade security to identify and protect against fraud and threats. Businesses should also provide end user security training and develop policies.
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