New research from digital infrastructure innovator, VMware, has revealed interesting things about the state of remote work. The report shows a 128% increase in the number of employees in the UK who see remote working as a “must-have” rather than a perk. The number increased to 53% throughout Gen X workers in the EMEA landscape.
Further, 70% of UK respondents said that their organisation simply couldn’t go back too the way things used to be, after recognising the benefits of remote work. According to Vice President of EUC EMEA for VMware, Kristine Dahl Steidel, challenges from the last six months have pushed companies to adapt quickly to environments where work doesn’t always involve being in the office.
The digital environment we’re living in today requires companies to create the right culture and leadership approach in a new age of work. The digital solutions that enable workforces to remain engaged and productive are already evident and continuing to grow.
New Requirements of the Distributed Workforce
Around 4 in 10 decision-makers surveyed say that their team won’t remain “on task” when working remotely. Over a quarter also say that the boardroom culture discourages remote working, while 53% say that they feel more pressure to be online outside of typical working hours.
There’s a new demand for top-down changes to traditional management practices. Despite the clear business and employee benefits of flexible working, the culture is still somewhat outdated. 73% of employees say that personal connections with colleagues are improving thanks to remote work. 62% feel more comfortable speaking in meetings, and 60% report better stress levels.
Employee productivity (28%) and morale (24%) are also increasing, while 58% of respondents say recruiting talent is easier, particularly when it comes to finding working parents and minority candidates. Around 74% of people agree that more innovation is now entering the workplace.
The Director of the Future of Work Programme at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University, Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, notes that companies need to move away from monitoring input and start focusing on output. Striking a balance of trust will be crucial to keeping employees motivated.
Today, IT solutions aren’t an inhibitor to distributed working practices. Employees can work from virtually anywhere, but over a third surveyed believe that IT isn’t equipped to properly manage a remote workforce. The shift that we’ve seen to the work anywhere model is offering a lot of advantages to both employees and employers. However, it’s important to see the demand for a change in people management strategies so that employees may stay productive and engaged.
Setting the Tone for the Future of Work
Both higher and middle management groups need to change the way they approach remote working strategies for building culture and team engagement. Middle management must constantly demonstrate trust in their team members to energise employees and ensure that there’s a sense of shared purpose.
Supporting the work anywhere environment today can be a complicated process, particularly when you consider all the changes that a business needs to implement. Everything from onboarding practices to visibility and compliance tracking is different. On top of that, managers still need to think about things like employee safety, security, and privacy measures.
However, there’s no ignoring the fact that the distributed workforce is growing, and it’s not going to slow down. Thanks to the pandemic of 2020, digital technologies and platforms are more valuable today than ever before. For companies to remain operational, they need to be prepared to adapt, moving more applications into a flexible cloud environment for digital transformation.
Workforces are shrinking and growing at an incredible speed, and some employees are even choosing to remain at home. This means that businesses have a more diverse range of devices to consider when they’re adopting flexible BYOD solutions. Every new device connected to the network in your business represents a potential point of attack for criminals. This breaks down the security that any business landscape has in place.
At the VMworld event, VMware announced new Future Ready workforce solutions to support more advanced workforce experiences. End-to-end zero-trust security controls, simpler management, and more allow companies to access an easy step to transformation. Digital workspace and endpoint security solutions deliver any application from cloud spaces into any device, so companies can remain flexible regardless of where teams are working.
