In our previous article we discussed the Digital Workplace, its advantages and how the world is moving towards the ‘New Normal’. In India, we usually adjust to adversities very well and when the situation demanded, we quickly moved to the Work From Home (WFH) / Remote Working scenario. Now, as the restrictions on travel are being lifted, we will be back to working from the office. Many seniors with whom we have interacted told us that the remote working model was a temporary solution when there were restrictions, but it won’t work out in future. These statements have been further affirmed by The Future of Work Study 2021, released by LinkedIn. It said that one in three Indian professionals has burnt out, stressed due to remote working.
Remote working started with a bang and saw people preparing Dalgona coffee and playing various online games! But once travel curbs started to get relaxed, everyone started going back to office and people started explaining the benefits of working from the office! However, reality has started hitting us again. Those who are travelling daily are missing the WFH scenario, because it was not the WFH that was bad but it was the lack of a system to manage WFH that was telling. That was obviously because WFH started unexpectedly and everyone had to quickly adjust to so many things – statutory as well as internal processes.
When offices resumed, all the backlog started piling up. For example, audit documentation has become a bit more difficult considering that some data is available in physical mode and some in soft copies; employees have started realising the importance of WFH with the extra time they have to spend travelling daily to work; the additional expense they have to incur daily to reach office; having to eat lunch from a box and so on. Employers have also realised that giving people the WFH option saves a lot of infrastructure cost and the overheads have reduced significantly.
IMPORTANCE OF HAVING AN OFFICE
Your office is located in the southern part of a metro city. Your employee has his residence in the north and visits the office in the morning; he has an important client meeting in the afternoon in the north. He travels to the client’s office for the meeting and gets done by early evening. In such a case, if you are not prepared with a Digital Workplace option for him, he will have to again travel back to the office in the south. This will impact him in multiple ways: stress of commuting back and then going back home in the evening, the time and effort wasted due to such travelling. Correspondingly, the overheads spent on such to and fro travel and the per hour cost that you will have to bear considering that the employee will lose two hours travelling during office hours – perhaps this may pinch you to give it (the DW) a serious thought.
If we prepare ourselves by having a Digital Workplace, the employees can lead a stress-free life and also save on time, effort and money.
Scenario 2: Telephone and zoom meetings correspond to savings in time and money
Your client has requested you to arrange a meeting to discuss some plan. The client’s office is in some other part of the city. To kick-start it, you have an initial face-to-face meeting with the client. However, as we know, this generally doesn’t stop at one meeting. You may have to catch up quite a number of times to ensure a smooth assignment. The client is prepared for some Zoom or virtual meetings, considering that you will be charging the reimbursements to the client.
Imagine a situation where you have not kept yourself ready with virtual meetings in terms of having some virtual presentation tools (like Prezi) or a dashboard which manages each stage of the assignment and discussion (like Trello). The meeting may not be as impactful as it would have been in physical mode. At this juncture, you are also in a state where you cannot refuse a client a Virtual Meeting. Also, a Virtual Meeting means you can attend more than one meeting in a limited time as the time saved from travelling can accommodate more such meetings.
The scenario emphasises how we cannot ignore a face-to-face meeting when it is absolutely required, but we also need to have a Digital Workplace ready to handle such situations. Needless to say, this will also help save a lot on time and money that you would have otherwise spent on every physical meeting.
Scenario 3: Work from office contaminating situations when employees need social breaks
We live in a very social country. Often, we have social functions to attend or have guests visiting our homes and whom we have to attend to. Let’s say your employee has a social function to attend at 4 pm for an hour. In case you have made physical presence at the office mandatory, the employee will have to request you for leave or a half day off (merely for an hour’s function). This will not only impact your work plan for the day but will also affect the employee’s leave balance and salary.
Alternatively, if you are ready with a Digital Workplace for such a specific situation, you can have your employee work from home till 4 pm, attend the one-hour function and then return back to work. This will not only make the employee stress-free from commuting, but also save his half-day leave. On the other hand, you would not have to compromise for the day or half day’s work.
Scenario 4: ‘Workation’ corresponding to employee welfare
This may not please everyone. But remember, ‘All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy’. We have a scenario where your employees have been planning a vacation for a very long time. But the stress of being present physically in office is not letting them do so. This is impacting their mental health and productivity, as a break is a start to a more efficient environment.
If you have a Digital Workplace ready, you can, in certain situations, allow your employees to go on a ‘workation’. Though they might have to keep working on the vacation, but at least the change in location and atmosphere would give them space to breathe. This will not only contribute to better efficiency but also contribute to employee’s welfare and mental health management.
Scenario 5: Documents storage and security corresponding to threat of data loss
Having files and documents was a mandate earlier. However, with the Information Technology Act coming into force, we have seen a major shift in digital modes of data and document storage. We still see people comfortable with physical files, invoices and other documents, but imagine a situation where some natural disasters occur (we have often seen files getting damaged in floods, fires, etc.). If not damage, there is also a fear of unauthorised access to files in office lockers / cupboards. There are chances of data getting lost or compromised.
A Digital Workplace has the capability to store our data on cloud and also restrict the access. You can forget your fear of losing data or compromising it. Even if you prefer to have physical files, there is absolutely no harm in storing the data on the cloud. Even if a fire breaks out or there are floods and your files are damaged, you will still be able to have access to your files on the cloud. Additionally, with the data restriction option, you may ignore your fear of data getting leaked due to unauthorised access.
Scenario 6: Hiring / retaining best talent
How many times have we seen the woman who is taking care of an entire office and working diligently, having to leave not for professional but for personal reasons such as getting married to someone who is staying in another city, or whose family has moved to another city? In these cases, we are left with no choice but to bid adieu to the hardworking talent. Now, imagine having an active Digital Workplace system where you can accommodate the work of a dedicated employee on a remote basis and she can continue working on existing clients without having to actually leave the office. Since she has already been part of the system, adjusting to a remote system may not be that challenging, and you can retain the right talent instead of finding another one and teach / train her from scratch. A similar scenario is possible even when you have to hire an employee from a different State or location. In fact, the Digital Workplace enables your company to open multiple offices without actually having a physical presence at all these locations.
Hence, it is important to find the right balance
Physical offices are much like face-to-face (F2F) conversations. They can never be replaced with technology because no technology can replace the comfort of F2F conversations. However, technology has changed the way we communicate and the entire communication system has evolved. While F2F communication is still the key, gradually phone calls and now even messages and WhatsApp are added to the communication skills. We cannot imagine a person with good communication skills not being able to communicate via these new systems. So much so, that now WhatsApp groups are becoming an official communication channel and most of the decisions of firms, corporates, etc., are taken on WhatsApp and people meet very rarely except when issues are complex in nature, or it is a periodic meeting.
On the same lines, we do not believe that having an actual physical office where employees can work will be replaced anytime soon with a complete remote office. But looking at the way technology has changed everything, having a Digital Workplace today is as important as having a website used to be at the start of this century. As per The Future of Work Study 2021 released by LinkedIn, as many as 86% of respondents think that hybrid work will have a positive impact on their work-life balance. It will help them spend equal time on their personal and professional goals / lives.
To conclude, we feel that the choice is ours: either resist the change until it becomes mandatory and then accept it; in doing so, we could lag behind the world. Or simply embrace the change and start looking at the endless possibilities that technology can offer to maximise the advantage we have at our disposal and get the first mover’s advantage. While a physical workplace can help you stay, a Digital Workplace will help you grow.
