The future of work: Does your organisation have what it takes to come out on top?

According to Cisco’s Workforce of the Future survey, nearly nine in 10 workers want greater ownership in defining how and when they use the office space, favouring a blended mix of office-based and remote work. In order to meet the demands of an evolving workforce, employers will need to put in place the right policies and equip workers with the necessary tools to optimise performance, productivity, and unified communication and collaboration.

While journeying towards digital innovation, business leaders should begin by developing a nuanced understanding of their future workforces and future-proofing their digital strategy accordingly.

Dr Michael Gorriz, group CIO, Standard Chartered, discussed the organisation’s digital transformation journey against the backdrop of the pandemic: “We have deployed tools that foster collaboration, such as whiteboarding and other video and communications tools. Such technology allows us to interconnect on an international scale seamlessly.”

To that end, business leaders must focus their investment on the right technologies. As such, solutions that facilitate remote work have been a major focal point for IT executives in Asia.

SECURING THE HYBRID WORKFORCE

Another aspect to consider is security. According to Cisco’s Accelerating Digital Agility Report, 87 per cent of chief information officers (CIOs) and IT decision-makers (ITDMs) in Asia Pacific, Japan and China highlighted that empowering a distributed workforce with seamless access to applications and high-quality collaborative experiences is important or very important.

“To reinforce their security posture, organisations need to leverage solutions that provide them complete visibility across the endpoint, users and applications to quickly implement policies and secure control points,” Mr Menon highlighted.

Cisco has been a long term advocate of a range of cybersecurity solutions to help secure remote workers and ensure business continuity is not disrupted. By enabling customers to operate safely and reliably, the American networking firm is helping people and businesses – across industries and in both the public and private sectors – stay connected no matter the time and place.

A PEOPLE-FIRST APPROACH

The shifting nature of work has also given rise to a focus on culture. Workplaces of the past valued getting the job done above all. Today, growing conversations around wellness, connectedness and mental health have spurred executives to re-consider the way things are done.

Promoting well-being, resilience and empathy at work is key to mitigating stress, retaining talent and ultimately optimising employee performance.

“In the transition to a hybrid workforce, we need to acknowledge the inevitable shift in work culture, norms and expectations. Employees today are more likely to value trust, increased flexibility and a stronger emphasis on mental well-being,” explained Mr Menon.

According to Mr Menon, collaboration tools not only enable better productivity, but also play a role in enhancing mental wellness by helping employees better manage their time.

“We recently announced advances to our Webex People Insights feature to enable teams to work smarter and drive more inclusive work experiences. The feature aims to help users uncover blind spots with regards to the way they work, how they use time and whom they work with,” said Mr Menon.

And while technology can help narrow this culture gap, Mr Menon suggests that trusted relationships built on genuine connections using the right technology is key within a people-first approach to business.

“Collaborative and data-driven technologies can also help gather customers’ direct feedback and input as part of the hybrid work strategy. These insights inform leaders and sales teams on the evolving needs and challenges of customers to enable them to better support customers in achieving their business goals,” he said.

FOCUSING ON THE BIGGER PICTURE

Companies are also no longer approaching transformation from a tactical perspective. Instead, many are focused on addressing key issues such as connectedness and enterprise security. Cisco found that CIOs and ITDMs are already investing additional expenditure to optimise investments made for business resilience during the pandemic – more than half of CIOs and ITDMs globally predict that up to 50 per cent of their IT budget will be spent on investments like network security, cloud applications and cloud security.

For digital transformation efforts to be successful, organisations need to ensure that they implement a well-considered, flexible and scalable tech strategy. A robust gameplan will enable them to adopt the appropriate technology tools and infrastructure as well as people policies that meet business needs.

After all, as Mr Menon shares, a successful company is no longer one that just embraces digital transformation, but one that builds digital resilience to be prepared for tomorrow’s biggest challenges. “Organisations across all industries have an opportunity to aim for new levels of technological innovation to create better experiences for their customers and their workforces and drive a new era of growth,” he said.

Successful organisations are then able to empower and engage employees no matter where they are located, while driving new levels of innovation, collaboration and security amid changing tides.

Learn how Cisco helps organisations develop greater digital agility and resilience to enable their digital transformation journeys.