It goes without saying that the digital workplace has gone through some drastic changes in 2020. Not only has the technology we use daily and how we share data changed, but more than ever people are using digital workplaces at home instead of in the office. According to a study done by Stanford in June of this year, 42% of the U.S. labor force is now working from home and another 33% are not working at all—which is a true testament to how much the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted worker’s daily lives in one way or another. This means that only 26% of workers, mostly essential workers, are still working on their business’s premises.
This large percentage of workers doing their jobs at home is likely to continue even after the pandemic has slowed down, especially as organizations report increased workforce productivity. Here we’ll discuss some of the trends we’ve seen this year, and what we can expect to see more of in 2021. We’ll also take a look at how companies can be better equipped to handle all of the data protection and privacy concerns that increase as workers move away from a centralized location.
1. Work from Home Outlasts COVID-19
Workers have been clamoring for increased work flexibility for a long time and the global pandemic has greatly accelerated that process. According to a Gartner survey of 129 business leaders worldwide, over 80% of respondents plan to permit remote work after the pandemic. And in a PwC survey of 6669 CEOs, 78% agree that remote collaboration is here to stay for the long-term.
Part of what made this possible is the availability of cutting-edge remote unified communications and collaboration tools. Last year, we have seen the explosive growth of WFH-enabled services like Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams in addition to Yeastar Linkus Cloud Service and Cloud PBX.
The long-lasting global work-from-home movement will continue to drive the demand for UC&C applications and improve business productivity despite physical distance.
2. Video Conferencing Continues to Boom
Now more than ever before, companies are using video conferencing to connect with employees, customers, and partners. The popularity of video conferencing applications like Zoom and Microsoft Teams has skyrocketed this last year seeing profits double since the COVID pandemic, and this is expected to continue into 2021 due to the move from in-person meetings to online. Video conferencing makes it easy to work together and conduct business outside of the office.
With increasing market acceptance and demand, video conferencing will only continue to boom as a critical part of digital workplace collaboration.
3. IoT for Intelligent Digital Workplace
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a “system of systems” in which electronic devices, apps, and platform services are interconnected together to create new modes of collaboration and business efficiency. It has been changing the way people work for a while now, but with the influx of remote workers, the technology has a greater chance to shine.
Forrester Research predicts that at least 80% of companies will adopt new office safety and resource efficiency strategies in the post-pandemic era and IoT plays a critical role. Smart IoT applications like sensor-enabled space utilization, remote equipment management, and inter-platform collaboration will increasingly be the main empower to fuel workflow automation and employee productivity.
What This Means for the Workplace of Tomorrow
Digital workplace is all about the employees’ ability to do their job by collaborating, communicating, and connecting with others. The proliferated technologies such as Unified Communications, and IoT are poised to take monumental enhancement to how businesses will work in the near and far future.
Considering the long-lasting “work-from-home” movement and the growing “hybrid” way of working today, most businesses will need unified communications solutions that drive boundless team communications & collaborations, regardless of devices, platform and distance.