Last week, Fuze held its Flex Summit 2021, a five-day virtual event exploring the future of flexible work. With innovative content dropping daily during the week, the company has provided a range of insights into future working. A curated blend of presentations, interviews, webinar, research and entertainment provided a varied and informative package of content across the week.
Starting on Monday last week, the Summit began with a welcome from Fuze CMO Eric Hanson, who shared the company’s perspective on flexible work. The first day also revealed the research and findings of the latest Fuze Study. This involved surveying 8,800 frontline employees, office workers, and business leaders to uncover key trends and insights into the evolution of flexible work.
Lisa Walker, the Vice President of Brand and Workforce Futurist at Fuze, then discussed the key findings and highlights uncovered by the study, detailing the progress made in terms of building trust, staying productive, and engaging employees while unable to work together in the same locations. Some key takeaways include:
- 75% of respondents report that flexible work should be an essential part of how people work
- Across all regions, nearly half (46%) of workers think management isn’t more trusting of remote work, yet 70% of senior leaders believe management is more trusting, highlighting a gap between management’s new-found trust in remote work and employee perception of that trust
- In every industry, every job category, and every region, fewer than 10% of workers consider seeing someone’s face the most critical part of an effective meeting
The next day, Fuze published a webinar titled, “How to Create a Sustainable and Engaging Remote Company Culture” featuring analyst firm Forrester Research. For this session, guest speaker David Johnson, a Principal Analyst at Forrester, discussed how remote worker preferences are demanding that employers deliver options that attract top talent and take account of how and when employees work best. An employee experience specialist, Johnson is well placed to explore the psychological and organisational challenges that the pandemic has initiated.
The third day of Flex Summit 2021 featured a keynote presentation from MIT Media Lab’s Kate Darling on the topic of “Where Do Non-Humans Fit Into the Future of Work”? Darling emphasised that robots are becoming more commonplace, and with every generation they are smarter and more capable of emulating worker behaviours and tasks. Robotisation of the workplace is therefore entering the mainstream — so Darling profiled where the true potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics lies.
The following day, Fuze released a new episode of its Flex podcast on Designing for the Hybrid Workforce. Meredith Zenkel, the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Poppin, an office furniture and décor company, explained how companies are adjusting their design and planning services to meet the needs of global organisations. Zenkel also explained how attitudes and expectations of physical office space are changing and how design is reflecting and driving these changes.
The episode also featured Sam Aquillano, the Founder and Executive Director of Design Museum Everywhere, a nomadic museum with the mission to take the power of design everywhere. Aquillano discussed how the pandemic has changed how he thinks of the future of the workplace and how optimal workspaces will be designed for a new era of hybrid collaboration.
Finally, last Friday Fuze dropped a featured performance to conclude Flex Summit 2021. The performance from Pop-Up Magazine, called “Leave a Message”, explores how voicemail, a technology disdained by many, now seems obsolete in the era of text messages and WhatsApp. However, the performance explores what we lose when communication with loved ones changes from voice-based to text-based, providing thought-provoking insights into the unexpected consequences of innovation.
All of the content from Fuze’s Flex Summit 2021 is available to read, listen to, watch, and engage with here.
