{"id":457752,"date":"2020-12-18T11:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T09:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=457752"},"modified":"2020-12-18T11:00:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T09:00:04","slug":"the-workplace-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/457752\/the-workplace-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"The Workplace of the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Graham Parker, Intelligent Workplace Executive at Dimension Data<\/em><\/p>\n

The global pandemic restrictions and lockdowns may have lifted for South Africa, however, it is very likely that a large percentage of the local workforce will continue to work from home well into 2021.<\/p>\n

The lockdowns may have eased, but two central themes have emerged over the past few months.<\/p>\n

Remote working has proven to be an effective and productive model for employees with many organisations re-evaluating their operational models to embed a more sustainable and permanent approach to working from home.<\/p>\n

The reality is that the working from home model that has slid out from under the perception that employees take advantage or don\u2019t do their jobs properly.<\/p>\n

Instead, it has translated into considerable savings on real estate rental and maintenance costs as well as having a positive effect on societal issues such as road congestion and pollution.<\/p>\n

It has also put employee wellbeing at the forefront of the business agenda which, for many, has shown a marked increase in productivity and employee output as they fast adjusted to a newly balanced life.<\/p>\n

According to the NTT Ltd.\u2019s 2020 Intelligent Workplace Report \u2018Shaping Employee Experiences for a World Transformed\u2019<\/a><\/strong> almost 74% of organisations agree that employees would prefer to have the choice and flexibility when it comes to where they work.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, around 35% of enterprises have adapted their IT policies to help employees work within more agile operating models, more than half (52%) have deployed new communication and productivity tools, and 46% have increased security to ensure that employees and systems remain secure.<\/p>\n

There have been steady shifts from traditional working models that have helped both business and employee adapt to the workplace of today, a workplace that may well define the future.<\/p>\n

From the moment that the pandemic first forced companies and individuals to work in isolation from variable locations, working models have evolved.<\/p>\n

Gartner, Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Mastercard, PayPal and Nielson are just some of the global brands that have adopted a long-term remote working strategy to allow for employees to work flexibly, and in ways that match their preferred methods of productivity.<\/p>\n

The statistics from the NTT survey are not alone in backing up employee remote working preferences either. The Global Workplace Analytics survey<\/a><\/strong> found that 73% of employees feel they are more successful when working from home, and 76% want to continue doing just that.<\/p>\n

These changes in approach and attitude mean that organisations have to establish new workplace strategies today in order to prepare for the office of tomorrow.<\/p>\n

They have to take the employees entire work and life experience into account, creating a holistic working environment that\u2019s capable of handling virtual offices, collaboration and engagement.<\/p>\n

The Intelligent Workplace report found that almost half (48%) of companies are already undergoing reviews of their office design so they can optimise it for changing employee requirements, and that around 60% were set to install video conferencing and video collaboration spaces in a bid to tie remote and office environments together.<\/p>\n

But this is only one part of the equation.<\/p>\n

Organisations must focus on all the threads that weave into the structure of the new workplace.<\/p>\n

They need to focus on providing the distributed workforce with the right tools to get the job done, but also on employee wellness and engagement.<\/p>\n

A shift to ensuring activity-based work initiatives are provided can mitigate against potential employee disconnect or feelings of isolations, and are supported by intelligent solutions that empower people.<\/p>\n

Businesses need to go beyond the technology, making sure people can really leverage it to the benefit of themselves and the business.<\/p>\n

The providing of training, and a commitment to culture and employee motivation to embrace new systems will show individuals how to use workplace analytics to understand their pain points and their potential.<\/p>\n

Through this businesses are able to implement the necessary tools and systems to allow them to better prioritise and customise their work styles.<\/p>\n

There are unavoidable challenges when enabling a remote workforce, some have been ironed out throughout the course of 2020, but others still need to remain a priority as organisations move into 2021.<\/p>\n

Agility, cost-efficiency and security are critical to ensuring that the distributed workforce enjoys an enterprise-grade experience, consistently.<\/p>\n

This will introduce advanced collaboration, document sharing, remote conferencing, and steady engagement tools that can really connect people across multiple locations and continents.<\/p>\n

Dimension Data has introduced the Smart Workplace<\/strong><\/a> to tick all these boxes for the business.<\/p>\n

Bringing together the skills and solutions from across the organisation, this solution delivers true innovation while empowering people and companies.<\/p>\n

This is further supported by the Intelligent Workplace platform that helps organisations lay the right foundations for the future of work.<\/p>\n

Foundations that weave together the essential elements of purpose, people and process so that businesses can be bolder in decision making around company and human impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remote working and collaborative business learnings will define the organisational landscape for the foreseeable future, writes Graham Parker, Intelligent Workplace Executive at Dimension Data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":457754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-457752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-dimension-data"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457752"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457758,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457752\/revisions\/457758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}