In the past, and until recently, employees would go to work, complete a specified list of tasks, and then go home. The next day, they would wake up, go to work, repeat the same tasks, and then go home. And so, it went day after day. The good old-fashioned 9 – 5 grind.
Then, suddenly, COVID decided to throw a spanner in the works. People could no longer work from the office, yet companies had to continue to trade in order to survive. This forced most companies to adopt a remote working policy.
What surprised us all about the adoption of remote working was how many jobs could actually be carried out from home. While some companies have since reverted back to the office base working model, many have retained the remote working model.
The image below gives you a brilliant visual representation of how the worker of yesterday has made the shift into the worker of the future.
As your employees evolve, so do their technological requirements to get things done in this new working environment. As you can see from the above diagram, there are some clear pros and cons for the employee of the future.
I want to share my thoughts on a few of the more notable points.
1- Work from anywhere.
Working anywhere is great for your team, but it also poses a problem for management. How can you give your employees access to the company information they need to get their job done? You can’t open your entire database to them as I am sure your company has sensitive information that needs to stay secure. Ideally, you would need to give them fast and reliable access to only the information they require while securing any confidential information.
2 – Shares information
Employees of the future, while working from anywhere, will need to share information with teammates. This opens the second concern. How do we maintain a high level of productivity among employees without sharing too much information across the world wide web? Especially if our employees are going to be working from what could be non-secure data connections.
3 – Relies on collaborative working
Working remotely can get quite lonely. The employees of the future still want to be able to collaborate as if they were in the office while working from anywhere. This touches on points one and two. How do we promote teamwork and collaborative working while still keeping our information secure from outside parties?
4 – The cost of adapting to accommodate the employee of tomorrow.
This point was not on the list, but I know every manager and business owner who reads this will have this question in the front of their minds. You have probably paid out a ton of money to get your company to where it was before COVID. Now I am here telling you that three years later you need to make another change. You can’t scrap your past investments, and after surviving COVID, you almost certainly don’t want to pay out more to adapt to the new demands of employees.
Thought-provoking stuff, right? Don’t worry, I am not here to ruin your day. I have good news.
The good news is the shift to giving your employee of the future the workplace of the future is achievable. The term people are using nowadays is Digital Transformation. VM Consulting’s Digital Transformation Consultants help you become Fit For Future in a way that does not cause too much of a disruption to your work processes and, most importantly, your digital transformation journey can be done in a way that does not require you to scrap all your current technological investments. A Digital Transformation Consultant will help you realign your current technology costs to ensure you can implement the right solutions for your company that are supported by a long-term Fit For Future strategy.
Vincent van der Walt – Sales & Solutions Consultant
Vincent is part of the sales team at VM Consultant. He has been in the technology sector for seven years and is passionate about helping clients be Fit-For-Future through Digital Transformation.