It’s funny how day by day nothing changes. But when you look back, everything is different – C.S. Lewis
In this series of articles, we have covered various aspects of the ‘Digital Workplace’ and how the world is moving with technology. What had seemed impossible is becoming routine and what was routine is now changing. The world has moved on from going to the office daily to staying at home and managing work using whatever technology is available to ensure that, first and foremost, we remain safe. But with the steady re-opening of the economy, we are again changing our habits and people have started returning to the routine of the pre-pandemic era. Working at office has come a full circle now, from WFH being mainstream, and to WFO (Working from Office) once again becoming mainstream. But while most things have gone back to the pre-pandemic era, there are many things that have changed in the pre- and post-pandemic times. While the ‘Digital Workplace’ is not the ideal way of working at present, technology is constantly improving.
In this concluding article on ‘Digital Workplace’ we highlight three important points that everyone needs to consider to find the right balance between ‘Traditional Workplace’ vis a vis the ‘Digital Workplace’ and ways to prepare for the ‘Future of Digital Offices’.
1. Evaluate worker preferences carefully: Flexible office instead of a fixed and traditional way of working
Yes, the benefits of having an office and the entire team working together are unparalleled. Despite all the talk about ‘Virtual Offices’, we have still not reached a level where virtual offices can replace the existing office with people around us. There are numerous benefits of having the place to work, yet, such offices are not without their own limitations. Travelling to the
office is still the biggest challenge. In fact, the average Indian spends around 7%1 of her time daily in just travelling from home to office. Also, this number can go significantly higher when it comes to travelling in cities like Mumbai with limited public transport
facilities.
While everyone has accepted the importance of the office and travelling to it daily, no one can deny the fact that it does not hurt if employees or even promoters are not able to travel to office daily for the entire year. The existing technology supports such smaller breaks easily. For example, working from somewhere in the mountains once a year while enjoying weekends to ensure that you just don’t have to cancel your trip for a day or two’s work, or simply working while travelling, more popularly known as ‘Staycation’.
How many of you have faced a situation where a good employee has had to leave the office just because he / she has shifted to another city? While earlier it might not have been possible, today, an office can create an exemption and let a person work from home or just give some flexible working hours and WFH specially to female employees who face difficult times to work full time but have performed well in the past.
To make sure your plans align with what your team wants, find workable compromises:
* Avoid tensions that can sour your culture, have important but hard conversations with the team and conduct surveys to discover what most people prefer to do;
* Consider whether allowing your remote workers to stay at home would create a practical or financial burden;
* If remaining at home benefits employees’ mental or physical health, or their overall productivity, consider allowing them to maintain their current set-up.
Most companies have been vague about their plans or haven’t discussed them at all, which has resulted in bigger issues as many employees feel that their employers are disconnected from the reality.
2. Review consumer behaviours: Video calls over travelling
During the pandemic, consumers drastically changed their behaviour, spiking e-commerce and adapting to options like no-contact pickup and pay. As McKinsey & Company points out, this has shifted many of their long-term expectations and companies are having to account for that shift in how they operate and what they offer.
One such change was the most common realisation of 2020 amongst all of us that we do not always need to travel to the client’s place for a meeting and that it can be done with a video call. While this was good till it lasted, gradually we are moving back to the pre-pandemic era and we may see travel increasing again. However, the learnings of the year 2020 should not be wasted completely. With travelling permitted, we may prefer to visit and meet people again, but perhaps many such meetings can be replaced with video calls thanks to Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
But consumers and your team are interconnected. When your workers are happy to buy into your vision, they work better and provide better service so that customers are happy, too. It’s a simple cycle perpetuated by good business practices. Additionally, companies that identify emerging opportunities and provide great empathy during times of change often navigate the change most successfully. So rather than shifting drastically between old and new methods, a business that will evaluate
the situation and review consumer behaviour will gain over others.
3. Capitalise on emerging and proven technologies: Soft copies of records and online documentation over physical files
Prior to Covid-19, companies were using a slew of incredible technologies to stay productive and connected. But the pandemic elevated these technologies and helped leaders understand their importance. Prior to the pandemic, the common office working trait of everyone meant the use of excessive paper and traditionally offices gave a feeling of drowning in paper! People at office love paper and hard copies from every work they do from chairing and attending meetings, to sharing and approving documents, filling forms and so on. In fact, now we use scanning and digital copies, yet paper is often used as the first resort rather than the last. Most of the old physical files which hold a lot of significance psychologically are not actually required regularly. In fact, many people never even opened a file even once during the pandemic and have learned to manage with digital data. The pandemic has helped us to fast-forward ten years into digital adoption in our businesses! Our familiarity with digital files vis a vis physical files has increased significantly.
As the pandemic is coming under control and we move through re-opening, businesses have choices about how to proceed. But how people lived and worked during the crisis will continue to have an influence on how we live and work in the years to come. There is a new, positive mentality emerging that it’s okay to use cutting-edge technology to serve customers better and create a happier, decentralised workforce. Adapting to this new way of thinking will allow you to stay ahead of the pack, but remember that every company is different and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to anything. To create post-pandemic plans that truly lead you to success, evaluate your own situation and goals. The digital office is here to stay and offers incredible power in all kinds of industries, but how you shape it is entirely up to you.
It is time for us to start moving towards digital adoption of the working system instead of simply accepting what is the traditional system of working with paper. Though we have to agree that nothing will replace physical files and there is always going to be the risk of hacking, system crashing, non-availability of electricity or internet, but… The physical files may be used as a backup but gradually our dependency on them is reducing, so why not start transforming our old physical records into digital ones?
This move may not look that significant today but imagine the music record companies which have moved all their songs into a USB drive or uploaded them on Youtube when it was available. Keeping apace with technology is the only way to survive else we all know what happened to the likes of Kodak, Nokia, etc., all of which had a monopoly. (Kodak was sold for one dollar!)
CONCLUSION
Many things have changed over the last one and a half years, but overall we may not really feel how fast they have been changing around us and even in business on a daily basis. However, there are a lot of things which are improving for the better and as a business if we don’t adopt, we will be at a loss against other businesses who will implement automation and other technology-based features and the one that does not change will feel as if it is working with pen and paper during the time of Excel Calculation.
With this article, we wrap up the ‘Digital Workplace’ series. You can read our last three articles printed in the BCAJ as below:
(1) Digital Workplace – A Stitch In Time Saves Nine (August, 2021);
(2) Digital Workplace – When All Roads Lead To Rome (September, 2021);
(3) Digital Workplace – Finding The Right Balance (October, 2021)
