With 83% of employees now saying they prefer a hybrid working model, a flexible remote/in-office strategy is likely to be the future for most teams. The good news is these hybrid environments have the potential to encourage better productivity and stronger engagement from employees. Of course, companies can only leverage those benefits when they create the correct hybrid environment.
Unified Communications is one of the most critical investments for any companies planning on a future of hybrid work. Without communication, teams can’t collaborate, information becomes siloed, and workflows grind to halt. With more people working in a distributed environment, unified communications will give teams the single-pane-of-glass solution 68% of employees prefer.
Let’s consider the top reasons why you should be buying UC for the hybrid workplace.
A Single System to Use and Manage
As mentioned above, employees prefer only having a single system they need to access for communication and collaborate. In today’s digital landscape, your team members are spending more time working with many apps and tools. The fewer apps they need to jump between to stay connected with their peers, the more productive they become.
At the same time, an all-in-one system for communication is much easier to manage for your IT team and security professionals. You can provision cloud-based communication tools to remote teams in seconds and ensure everyone remains secure with regular patches and updates.
Consistent Experiences Anywhere
In the future workplace, your employees are going to be dividing their time between working in the office, working from home, and staying productive on the move. A unified communications tool ensures staff members don’t have to adapt to different technology experiences depending on where they are.
Today’s leading UC systems can offer the same unified experience to staff regardless of whether they’re using workplace-provisioned desktop devices, laptops, tablets, or even smartphones. With access to the same technology everywhere, there’s less confusion for your team.
Improved Productivity
Unified Communications systems do exactly what they say on the tin. These platforms combine all of the tools your employees need to stay productive on the move, into one, easy-to-access environment. With only one system to learn how to use, employees can stay focused through the day.
UCaaS solutions can even adapt to suit the specific needs of a business, integrating with other tools teams use every day. Integrations with things like help desk technology, CRM, enterprise resource management, and workforce management tools keep the number of systems employees need to use to a minimum.
Flexible Licensing
Unified Communications tools are excellent for a workspace in a constant state of agile evolution. As your company evolves and you learn more about the features and functionality your employees need, you can adapt your UC investment. Most UC vendors today offer a range of licensing options, allowing companies to add and remove seats whenever they need them.
You can add support for extra contractors and remote workers when you’re experiencing peaks in demand and reduce your number of licenses whenever you like. Because business leaders can log into a cloud-based portal and provision technology to staff instantly, it’s much easier to keep the business running as smoothly as possible, without interruptions.
Easy Access to Innovation
Hybrid work might be the “next great disruption” according to innovators like Microsoft, but it will also pave the way for other positive disrupters to change the way we work. Driven by the influence of the pandemic, a lot of companies will be evolving at a rapid pace over the next few years. They’ll need an environment for communication and collaboration that’s open and agile enough to facilitate easy access to innovation.
A good UC solution in your hybrid workplace should make it easier to unlock the benefits of artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT technology, and even extended reality whenever your team is ready. You can evolve as quickly or as gradually as you like.
Improved Collaboration
Unified Communications isn’t just about helping teams to access chat, phone calls, and fax on the same platform anymore. These environments are also becoming hubs of collaboration, enabling teamwork to happen outside of the standard office environment. Modern UC solutions come with access to presence features, so teams can see which peers are online. There are tools with file and screen sharing, for ensuring everyone has access to the right content, and even video conferencing.
A good UC solution ensures even when employees are distributed between the “traditional” workforce and the future of anywhere work, they can continue to work well together.
Better Security
We mentioned above, having all of your communication and collaboration tools in one place makes them easier to manage. With unified communications, it’s also easier to ensure everything remains safe, compliant, and secure. Security teams can access administrative controls which allow them to control the kind of access team members have to certain tools, as well as what kind of security systems are in place.
With the right UC solution, there are fewer tools to track across the in-office and remote working landscape, fewer threats to worry about, and more control over things like data retention policies and compliance.
Greater Reliability
Finally, a strong unified communication system enables continued productivity no matter what happens in your business landscape. With a solution powered through the cloud, you can ensure your teams continue to have access to all the features they need, no matter what might happen in your day-to-day office environment.
You can even get guaranteed uptime agreements and failover systems in place with the right UC providers, to ensure even better peace of mind for when data centres go down, or problems emerge. UC solutions give you the flexibility you need to continue thriving in an unpredictable world.
These are just some of the convincing reasons you should be considering a UC solution for the hybrid workforce, which is most compelling to you?
