How your organization should draw the benefits of remote work
At a glance: How modern cloud-based business productivity solutions are revolutionizing the way of working remotely How technology is enabling organizations to manage staff online and reduce office overload. Helping business improve their enterprise productivity by maintaining effective communication between team members as well as clients. Providing great flexibility and improved employee experience by addressing the needs of remote workers Hybrid work became a norm during the pandemic as companies tried to cope with the lockdowns and travel restrictions. Employees not being able to come to the office or go meet the clients were initially seen as a crippling situation, but it quickly became an advantage with a leap in modern workplace technology. Modern organizations now have access to the kind of infrastructure needed to adopt hybrid work, thanks to the availability of modern work management and business productivity solutions like cloud applications. In fact, data suggests that the number of patents filed for technologies that support remote-work capabilities has doubled since 2020. This has remarkably improved the applications and software products that aid in online collaborations, digital data, and document management. The biggest example is the marked enhancement in features and capabilities of Microsoft Teams since its launch in 2017: The meeting recording features became refined Meeting transcription quality improved and became a default feature Earlier, there were restrictions on the number of participants. Now we can host up to 100-200 participants easily Meeting duration cap was removed. We can have long meetings on Teams now Overall network latency reduced, which allows for better screen sharing and collaboration The video and audio calling quality was improved Background noise cancellation ensures that you can effectively participate in calls, even from noisy environments Auto-join, auto-recording, and attendance report functionalities reduce the moderation efforts Now, even external participants can join easily without needing to have a Teams login. Browser capabilities have improved remarkably Overall processing requirements to run these applications are better optimized According to projections, SMEs will spend more than US$100 billion over the next few years on collaboration platforms, cybersecurity solutions, and cloud-based apps. This technology is a part of our daily lives now. Modern tech is used to run schools, hospitals, offices, and colleges. You can now work anywhere you want, collaborate seamlessly, offer enhanced customer service, and learn new skills online. How remote work has evolved Remote work was possible with the basic tools available before. There were always email and chat applications. Things like Dropbox and Google Drive were allowing data and document sharing. However, they were not integrated into a comprehensive suite of applications. Things had to be managed on separate disconnected platforms. For that reason, it was thought to be cumbersome and inefficient. It was fine to hire a part-time freelancer for remote work, but we were not used to seeing “remote” full-time positions at companies. Now, we have broken that barrier. Technology has made it possible to do the same job, no matter where we live. It has allowed us to always stay in touch with clients and coworkers. Reduce your office overhead According to a Gallup survey, 43% of employed Americans said they have spent at least some time remotely.” This means companies have already understood the benefit of remote work. They can more economically manage staff online than hire people for a particular location. Maintaining full-time office spaces is expensive. Think of the electricity bills you will save. HR can save relocation bonuses, transportation and conveyance allowances, and many such expenses. Improve productivity You’d agree that most of the time spent by employees in the office goes into doing unproductive work like gossip, unnecessary discussions, and just idling. It’s because the actual time to do things that are necessary is much less than the working hours. Having a remote workforce can help your team members get on to the priority tasks with to-the-point communication. They can also track their performance with productivity tools like planners and task managers. Enterprise productivity solutions can be used by organizations to maintain effective communication between team members. Greater flexibility and improved employee experience Companies are projecting themselves to be modern and progressive by adopting hybrid work culture and sophisticated workplace productivity solutions to address the needs of remote workers. Employees working remotely, whether they are in coworking spaces, at home, or elsewhere, can benefit from videoconferencing, file-sharing platforms, and project management tools. Want information about our business productivity solutions? Click here. In times of global crises like pandemics and geo-political turmoil, many see the option of working from home as a safe and considerate way of working. Companies willing to be flexible about working hours, location, and time zones are more lucrative as employers. Are you looking for a business productivity services partner? Advaiya provides digital transformation solutions for enterprise-level organizations. Our team includes certified professionals who can customize and implement the latest business productivity solutions according to your business needs. Saurav Pranay Saurav is a Microsoft certified member for Dynamic and Project Online and has over fifteen years of experience in Project and Process management and has been involved in many Dynamics and Project Online implementations and have addressed solutions to challenging business needs by clients.
Workplace Flexibility is the New Norm
A lot has changed since last year due to the pandemic. Many of us started working from home, and the world experienced a rapid workplace transformation. Organizations and businesses worldwide re-examined their workplace, realizing the need for a new work culture of connection, support, and resilience. In a world where everyone is working remotely, creating a good employee experience and work culture with flexibility is more challenging than ever for any organization. Along with this, the organizations are more aware of the wellbeing, connection, engagement, and growth of the employees as these factors play a significant role in employee engagement and organizational success. To fulfill these needs, organizations have started working to ensure that they stay connected, informed, and motivated as the transition to the new hybrid work model occurs. In the Hybrid work model, Employees need to feel more connected and aligned towards their goals to grow and make a difference. Leaders need to have modern ways for overall employee engagement and development. IT needs to quickly upgrade to the modern employee experience without replacing their existing systems. To fulfill all these requirements, we need to have the right tools and environment to maintain the natural workflow in the new norm of working life. To make the workplaces as flexible and scalable as possible, Microsoft has announced the Viva Employee Experience Platform, the first employee experience platform (EXP) designed for the digital era to empower people and teams to give their best inputs from wherever they work. Even though Microsoft Teams is already playing a central Hub in many organizations, Microsoft Viva is valuable. Why? The reason being that with the Microsoft Viva Employee Experience Platform, companies can not only connect and support their distributed teams working from different locations but also foster a culture of good employee engagement, growth and success. It also gives teams the power to be more productive and informed wherever they are. As we all know, similar solutions already existed in Microsoft Teams, like intranet functionality and connections to LOB applications. On the other hand, Viva takes this concept to another level and simplifies the office workforce’s transition to a remote workforce. It is known for bringing resources, knowledge, learning, communications, and insights into an integrated experience. Viva can be best experienced using Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps that people use in their daily lives. It is intentionally designed to support employees and facilitate them with the tools that they’re already using for their work. Microsoft Viva includes the following initial set of modules: Viva Topics– Harness knowledge and expertise -It is an AI-powered solution that automatically organizes content and expertise across your systems and teams into related topics such as projects, products, processes, and customers. -When you come across an unfamiliar topic or acronym, hover. No need to search for knowledge—knowledge finds you. Viva Connections – Amplify culture and communications. -Easily discover relevant news, conversations and tasks to stay engaged and informed in the flow of work. -It provides a personalized feed and dashboard to help you find all the helpful resources you need from Microsoft Viva and other apps across your digital workplace. Viva Learning: Accelerate Skilling and growth -It is a central hub for learning in Teams with AI that recommends the right content at the right time. It also aggregates learning content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, an organization’s custom content, and training from leading content providers like Skillsoft, Coursera, Pluralsight, and edX. -With Viva Learning, employees can easily discover and share training courses, and managers get all the tools to assign and track the completion of courses to help foster a learning culture. -Individuals can build their own training environments and track their progress on courses. Team leaders and supervisors also have the option to assign specific learning tasks to individual members of staff. Hence, it’s a great way to keep your team growing in any environment. Viva Insights: -Give leaders, managers and employees data-driven, privacy-protected insights that help everyone work smarter and thrive. -It derives these insights by summarizing your Microsoft 365 data – data you already have access to – about emails, meetings, calls, and chats. According to  CEO Satya Nadella, “Microsoft participated in the largest remote work experiment ever seen during 2020, and now it’s time to prepare for a future where flexibility is the new norm.” Organizations will eventually access an aligned hybrid work environment that simulates the traditional workplace environment with Viva and retain an uninterrupted flow of work in a distributed environment. Would love to hear your thoughts on this! Kamlakant Kamal, Principal at Advaiya, is a technology enthusiast and has an experience of working with clients of different industry verticals. He has a great passion for technology and has expertise in developing innovative and robust technology solutions in response to business objectives.    Â