Modern Workplace Webinar

Auxilion will host a webinar on the Modern Workplace at 11am on Thursday, April 28^th. We’ll be discussing crucial workplace issues including Employee Engagement, Governance & Compliance, IT Roadmaps and Business Processes.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, workplace technology was evolving at an extraordinary speed. Covid then accelerated developments across the board, bringing change programmes and initiatives forward, in some cases by years. This was particularly true with regard to hybrid and remote working.

While we remain in a pandemic, we now have some visibility on what post-pandemic working life will look like. It will involve a blended approach to work, with hybrid for some and totally remote working for others. This means that the focus on workplace technologies will remain. Technologies around collaboration and communication will be particularly important. There will also be a renewed focus on productivity and security for remote working and on employee engagement.

Employee Engagement

There are a range of important factors in keeping employees engaged with their work. There has been much discussion of employee mobility and the so-called “great resignation.” Keeping employees engaged and providing them with the upskilling and career development that they want will be essential for all organisations. The emerging future of work is stress testing what people are looking for and expecting from their jobs, and what employers are willing and able to provide.

The fact that so many employees are considering changing roles emphasises the importance of making sure that they can communicate and collaborate effectively and efficiently in their current roles. If people don’t feel that they can work together effectively, they’ll simply move to new roles.

Governance & Compliance

Governance and compliance is another crucial aspect of the rapid evolution of our working practices. At the beginning of the pandemic, organisations had to be set up for remote working almost overnight. The most important thing was to get people connected as quickly as possible. The extraordinary circumstances meant that there wasn’t the usual focus on governance, planning, and testing. There wasn’t the usual caution around network security and policies.

Now that people are either returning to the office or remaining in hybrid or fully remote environments, organisations need to re-examine their overall strategies around IT, security, and people and practices from a governance and compliance perspective. There were cases where companies were using Microsoft Teams, for example, setting up sites left, right and centre. People didn’t have visibility on how many sites they’d set up, what workflows were in place, what restrictions were in place, how open they were to security breaches and security attacks. All those areas of governance and compliance need to be adapted to support new IT strategies. Tools such as Microsoft’s Governance 365 are available to support this process.

Roadmaps & Processes

Once your IT strategy is in place, it’s time to focus on delivery by defining your IT roadmap. It’s important to focus on data, the cloud, security, and analytics. Consider any gaps that may need to be filled or any potential difficulties in delivering on your IT strategy.

It’s also essential to re-evaluate and update your processes. It’s often said that processes should be at the heart of an organisation. You need to adapt current processes or introduce new ones to support new ways of working. You will also need to retire old processes that may no longer be fit for purpose. Older processes that you’ll be continuing to use must also be linked to new ones so that you have a comprehensive overview and an effective system overall.

Many core processes require detailed strategies in order to function efficiently. For example, processes around people joining, moving within, or leaving an organisation are often manual. They can create substantial costs in terms of human time and in terms of error. There are many different factors that can complicate these processes. You need to ensure that you have your policies and processes in place around your human capital and that everyone involved in these processes truly understands and abides by them. You also need to review them in the context of our new working reality and adapt them if necessary.

Critical Questions 

In our webinar at 11am on Thursday, April 28th, we’ll be focusing on the critical questions: what does the future of work look like? How is it going to impact your IT strategy, governance and compliance, and processes? Do you have the roadmaps in place to deliver on your IT strategy? Are you in a good position to get from where you are to where you need to be? Join us on the 28^th and we’ll work through these questions together.