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Let’s take a look:

1) The move to hybrid work, permanently (TechRepublic) 

This is a really interesting article based on a recent presentation given by Cisco’s CIO Jacqui Guichelaar. The article recognizes upfront that Cisco – as a huge global technology company with a fair amount of remote work-friendly technology – started with a leg up on most companies when it came to making the shift to remote work. But even with that advantage, it was still complicated and they faced their fair share of challenges.

Within 10 days, the company had a remote workforce, she said. “We’re lucky in many ways, but one of the really great things was we had a killer network and we’re a big, collaborative company and had many of the programs already in place to help us to trigger things like VPNs and split-tunneling to manage traffic as the volume increased during remote work.”

But the quote above begs the question – what about the majority of companies that are NOT global networking technology giants, and don’t have all that technology and expertise in place? Also – it’s somewhat baffling that a company the size of Cisco turned to VPNs as part of their remote work solution. Sure, Cisco has a vested interest in promoting the use of VPNs. But we’ve seen time and again from the past year that VPNs simply do not scale, and they introduce a host of security issues. 

The article then dives into Cisco’s vision for permanent hybrid work moving forward. 

Now, Guichelaar is focusing on the move to a hybrid workforce. “We’ve all learned work is not where you are, it’s what you do. We will not be going back to the office.” Everyone should have the right to make the personal choice about what works best for them–within the guidelines of the company, she said.

Surveys Cisco has done have revealed that 83% of employees want a hybrid model and that 98% of future meetings are expected to include at least one remote participant. Those who worked in a hybrid fashion during the pandemic had better mental health, Guichelaar said. This means having to “level the playing field” to make sure everyone feels included and has the same level of technology in their homes.

This is exactly where Virtual Application Delivery comes in. By giving every employee access to all of the business-critical applications they need to be productive, organizations can help level the playing field. They can also ultra-securely support the overwhelming demand from a majority of their people to work remotely or in a hybrid model.  

Read the full article on TechRepublic here. 

2) Videoconferencing challenge looming (TECHnalysis Research)

Speaking of Cisco (which owns WebEx), this article from analyst Bob O’Donnell at TECHnalysis discuss the various issues that organizations may face when trying to utilize videoconferencing for the newly-hybrid workplace. 

A big part of the challenge stems from the fact that a hybrid work model—in which time is regularly split between the office and home (or other remote locations)—is going to be the future for most organizations, at least for the next several years. What that means—as Cisco wisely pointed out at its recent Webex Suite launch (see “Cisco Extends Webex to Suite of Offerings”) is that roughly 98% of future meetings will include at least one participant that’s not located in the room. That, in turn, implies that 100% of potential meeting rooms need to be equipped to handle those remote members.

Some may argue that we’ve all grown accustomed to looking at our own individual screens during meetings, so it’s not really a requirement that every meeting room have a full videoconferencing unit built in. But O’Donnell points out the the videoconferencing hardware is only one of the potential issues. He goes on to discusss the high cost of videoconferencing and the difficulty of standarizing on one platform when we’ve grown accustomed to having to use multiple platforms depending on who scheduled the meeting. And finally, he brings up the issue of being prepared for the massive increase in video traffic on your organization’s networks. 

O’Donnell is an incredibly well-respected tech analyst who shoots straight and doesn’t over-hype things. This is a really straight-forward and clear breakdown of the issues that most organizations need to think about and prepare for, regardless of what their hybrid strategy looks like. 

Read the complete article on eWeek here. 

3) Lessons from One Law Firm’s Pre-Pandemic Shift to Hybrid Work (Harvard Business Review)

Before you think to yourself that the lessons from a law firm don’t apply to your organization, take a look at this article. Yes, the focus is a Califronia law firm (Hanson Bridgett) that started their move to a hybrid workplace before the pandemic – but the lessons are universal. 

Hanson Bridgett’s leadership didn’t foresee the crisis, but they had been looking to reduce fixed costs and spend the savings in creative ways to become more competitive. Now that people are putting their masks aside, the firm already has answers to many of the questions businesses are confronting.

In January 2018, Hanson Bridgett’s San Francisco headquarters occupied three floors at 425 Market Street. The lease on that space cost the firm $1.6 million per floor per year. Looking to free up budget, David Longinotti, then head of the firm’s real estate and construction section, began examining triggers in the company’s lease, including a negotiated option to give up one of the firm’s three floors. He formed a working group that called themselves “the breakout artists,” a cross-section of senior partners, new associates, and everyone in between in the firm’s real estate practice, to pilot various working modalities. Some lawyers would share offices with others, rotating office time with work-from-home time. Others would work mainly from home, reserving desks at the office (hoteling) when they felt they needed them.

The article highlights that, despite significant cultural resistance to the hybrid work experiment, productivity rose. But people’s perceptions of the hybrid model were still somewhat negative. They did an internal survey to see how people were feeling:

The responses to that survey showed the discomfort some employees felt at the idea of not having a desk to call their own, as well as their anxiety that by not being physically present in the office, their influence might wane and their careers might suffer. There was also some suspicion that people working from home would not be pulling their weight. Yet the consensus was ultimately that this was the right thing to do for most employees and the firm. To mitigate any discomfort, leaders held regular town hall meetings and provided clear and transparent communication.

From here, the article goes into a more in-depth breakdown of the steps the organization took throughout the remainder of the experiment, and how the experiment ultimately landed them in a place where they could increase productivity while saving an incredible amount of money. Unlike so many articles that pontificate on whether or not a hybrid workplace is a good idea or not – this article gets into the specific tests and steps that were taken to get from point A to point B successfully. There is a lot that can be translated to ANY organization, and I highly recommend the read. 

Read the full HBR article here. 

4) Hybrid work doesn’t have to destroy productivity. Here are 3 ways to make it work (Fast Company)

You’ve got to love an article that comes right out the gate with a super clear overview and premise:

The majority of the workforce has been working remotely for almost two years. Not only have they figured out how to make it work, but many of them also want it to stay that way. The reasons are wide-ranging, but typically include fewer distractions, saving time, and enhanced well-being.

The article then goes into three areas that every organization needs to address to help make hybrid work as successful as possible:

1. Address incorrect assumptions about organizational dynamics
2. Employee engagement means committing to new norms
3. Worker engagement tips

The last section has a handful of really simple, easy-to-implement tips that can help increase employee engagement in a hybrid model. Things like:

Have a daily (or weekly), 15-minute virtual “stand up” meeting. Everyone joins a virtual meeting where a manager or team leader gives important updates and team members ask pressing questions. The goal is to get everyone on the same page and prioritize tasks, but then let everyone get back to work. 

This is a quick read with some easy to follow advice, which is definitely worth 8 minutes of your time.

Read the Fast Company article here. 

5) The 3 Hybrid Work Challenges Driving Employee Fatigue (Gartner)

I’m mixing it up with this last one and instead of highlighting an article and it’s learnings, I thought I’d bring attention to a webinar I came across that I thought would be beneficial. Only July 20th Gartner is hosting this webinar to help organizations address the issue of employee fatigue:

Discussion Topics:

• Determine if your current strategies exacerbate the 3 key employee fatigue drivers
• Empower employees and managers to co-create new patterns of flexible work
• Safeguard employees’ mental health and well-being by reducing the risks of overwork

One thing that stood out to me about this webinar is that it’s not just about the technology and how we can enable hybrid work – it’s also about the human aspect of hwlping to make sure your employees are adapting to this new normal in a healthy way. I’m looking forward to joining the webinar to learn more about what the world’s largest analyst firm has to say on the topic.

Register for this free webinar here. 

Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you aback here again next Friday. 

The post This Week in Hybrid & Remote Work – June 25th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

For now we’re going to avoid posting and discussing any of those articles largely because there’s usually not much substance behind the click-bait title. It’s common to see contrarian articles pop up once any topic reaches a fever pitch, and we suspect that’s what’s happening with hybrid work coverage. If that changes in the future, we’ll bring that to your attention and discuss it. 

For now, though, most press coverage about hybrid work seems to contradict the doom-and-gloom naysayers. Let’s dig in. 

1) Home-office, HQ, hybrid or work-from-anywhere? This is what businesses are planning (World Economic Forum)

Like most posts from the World Economic Forum, this article is jam-packed with stats, charts, and graphs. If you’re looking to have some great data at the ready for presentations or blog posts, this is a post worth bookmarking for that reason alone. But one of the points the article makes caught my eye in particular:

The reinvention of the office and a new hybrid work model could address social gaps and provide a more inclusive recovery for all.

Salesforce’s Gavin Patterson suggests that the reinvention of office culture is poised to make bigger social waves, “This isn’t just about the future of work. This is about the next evolution of business culture and of society – business helping to build a resilient platform for positive change and growth.”

What are some concrete examples of that “positive change” that hybrid & remote work is brining around? 

Many workers have made big wins from remote work such as savings on transport, better work-life balance and more autonomy. Managers have had to trust their staff more, and zoom calls have been a great leveller – removing barriers for those unable to attend in person. Remote working was highly requested (but often refused) by disabled people before the pandemic; online working now offers a much more inclusive experience.

The article goes on to talk about how the future of work is accelerating the development of inclusive tech, is helping with the mental health of employees, and many other benefits. It’s a great, data-driven read, so check out the full article here.

2) Hybrid or Remote Work? These Two Data-Driven Activities Will Help You Decide (Inc.)

Sticking with the “data-driven article” theme, I came across this article from Inc. columnist Rebecca Hinds who has been crushing it with some of the best articles on prepping for hybrid work in the past couple of months. Per usual, Hinds dives right in and gets to the point in her opener:

Many companies are basing their hybrid or remote work strategy on instinct. Yet it’s dangerous to let your intuitions or–worse–biases drive your strategy. The companies that will thrive as they transition to new hybrid and remote work models will adopt a data-driven approach. As a leader, here’s how to use data, not your gut, to make important decisions about your remote or hybrid work strategy moving forward.

Hinds then outlines three concrete ways you can harness data to inform the right hybrid work strategy for your organization. At a high level, these include:

• Conduct an organizational network analysis
• Understand your company’s work graph
• Embrace a data-driven perspective

The “work graph” is a particularly fascinating idea, and Hinds goes into detail about how this approach is utilized at Asana. This helped put the work graph in context, and you’ll really start to think about how this could be applied to your organization. 

Read the full article here. 

3) Deutsche Bank Unveils Hybrid Model for Post-Pandemic Work Return (Bloomberg)

It wouldn’t be a TWIH&RW post if we didn’t include at least one article about yet another large company outlining their plans for hybrid work. This week, it’s Deutsche Bank.

[Deutsche Bank] Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke said a range of 40 to 60% of working from home makes sense.

“We need to find the right balance which will make all of us together more efficient and effective,” according to the memo. “To support new ways of working we will make targeted investments in our real estate and upgrade our digital infrastructure to facilitate increased collaboration.”

That “real estate” mention caught my eye in particular. This is something I’ve always been fascinated with – the massive amount that companies pay in real estate. Obviously for a company like Deutsche that expense is less of a factor than it is for a startup, but as this article shows – it is indeed still a factor, even for large multinational orgs. 

Deutsche Bank has repeatedly highlighted it wants to cut costs by reducing office space as the pandemic has shown that increased work-from-home arrangements don’t lower productivity. The lender expects to achieve “further savings” from an accelerated “rationalization of its real estate portfolio.” 

Read the full article here. 

4) ‘No-one knows the right answer’: Digiday Research shows return-to-office strategies are in flux (Digiday)

Always a sucker for a good survey, this one caught my eye. I also love the blunt headline – “no-one knows the right answer.” Refreshing. 

One section that I thought was particularly interesting discussed the data about how much respondees misjudged the return to work:

The report also highlighted people badly misjudged how quickly things would return to normal. For a previous poll in January, 38% of the same number of respondents said they expected to do in-person meetings within three months. But when surveyed in April, fewer than 20% had actually done so. Meanwhile, 20% of respondents said in January that they expected to attend in-person conferences in three months’ time, whereas in reality only 4% ended up doing so.

There’s a lot of good stuff in here, and some fun data that goes beyond the typical remote work survey – so check out the full article here. 

5) Getting People Back To The Office: 5 Critical Factors For Hybrid Work (Forbes)

This article provides a really good overview of factors that organizations need to think about as they plan their strategies moving forward. But before we highlight those, this section stood out to me. It talks about how “none of us are unscathed” by the events of the past 18 months – something I think we all need to be mindful of as we deal with our colleagues:

None of us is unscathed and the ‘return’ will be stressful, no matter where you’ve been working. According to Gallup, in April 2020, a high of 70% of people reported they were ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ working from home, and this percentage leveled off to an overall average of 56% by February 2021. But some have never left: Front line and healthcare workers remind us not everyone has been home. In addition, those who work in labs, warehouses or manufacturing have likely been toiling away in places other than their kitchen tables. Regardless of the location of our work however, the landscape of the workplace has changed.

As for the 5 critical factors, at a high level the article covers:

• The Tension Between Individual and Organizational Needs
• The Tension Between Short Term and Longer Term
• The Question of Control
• The Need for Connection
• Compel, Don’t Cajole

We read a LOT of these articles offering advice, and I found this to be a truly unique take on the steps an org should consider. Check out the full article here. 

Thanks again for joining us for this week’s roundup, and we look forward to seeing you back here next week!

The post This Week in Hybrid & Remote Work – June 4th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

Moving forward into the “digital workplace” has been an engaging, highly-discussed subject, but with these discussions come additional questions. What are the best practices for keeping teams engaged and communicating with each other? How can you streamline the new onboarding process for remote workers? Should you bring on a 3rd party to assist with a complete security audit of your network infrastructure to shed light on any potential gaps or vulnerabilities that could be maliciously (or accidentally) taken advantage of? The list of new challenges goes on.

When it comes to researching and evaluating options for these new remote workers, a secure digital workspace is absolutely vital. Many businesses had their internal structures & workflows come grinding to a halt when COVID-19 hit the globe. Moving entire teams & integrating them into a fully remote setting has been a seriously difficult task – especially when it was completely unexpected. While flexibility and the ability to adapt are critical in times like these, so are the right digital workspace tools that can empower your teams to continue business as usual.

The major challenges that business leaders are facing with these new changes are the areas that they were not prepared for – what do we do when an office location has to close and teams have to move remote? Not only are there logistical nightmares that need to be addressed when having teams move remotely, but security concerns as well. Do we have a network that’s prepared to handle thousands of users working from their personal laptops from dozens, if not hundreds of locations? Do we have a process in place for our teams to connect to work from a personal device – whether that’s a laptop, a phone, or a tablet? Even more specifically – what if we have users who are on a variety of operating systems? Whether that’s through a Windows, Apple, or a Google Chrome device – security is key.

Before hybrid and remote work became the “new norm” of today, it was easy to envision your network security as a physical barrier around your building. When your employees left the building, the desktops & servers stayed behind – safe & secure. But with employees being spread out across cities, states, even countries – what now? How can we safely and thoroughly protect critical business information that’s being accessed through personal IP addresses across the country?

Luckily, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) makes this simple. With data centers built on custom-designed hardware, each optimized for security & performance, GCP enables an extremely flexible, yet highly secure cloud infrastructure. The application & network architecture is designed for maximum reliability and uptime, and because the data is distributed across numerous servers & data centers, data is always accessible in case of machine failure.

With data encryption at every step, the GCP infrastructure security works across multiple layers: hardware infrastructure, service deployment, user identity, storage, internet communication, and operations security.

Some of Google Cloud’s features include:

• Strong authentication
• Centralized Cloud Access Management (Cloud IAM)
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
• Integrated Device Management
• 3rd Party Application Access Controls
• Comprehensive Admin Security Center
• Compliance across a variety of areas:
  • HIPAA
  • GDPR
  • EU Model Contract Clauses
  • COPPA

And when you pair Google Cloud’s in-depth security schema with a secure virtual application delivery platform like Cameyo, you benefit from even more layers of security for your remote & hybrid workforce. Cameyo securely delivers all of your business-critical apps to any device, from any HTML5 browser, so that your people can stay productive from anywhere without compromising your corporate network or data. Cameyo’s ground-up approach to security includes:

• Zero Trust – Cameyo’s Zero Trust design prevents users from carrying threats into your network, regardless of their device.
• Browser Isolation – Application sessions take place in the browser eliminating the risk of malware from the end user’s device impacting your network.
• Reduced Attack Surface – Cameyo’s single architecture and RDP/HTTP Port Shield Technology significantly reduces your attack surface without 3rd party tools. 
• No VPNs – Cameyo’s NoVPN technology enables users to securely access internal web apps via any browser from behind the firewall while keeping devices separate from the corporate network. 
• Port Shield – Cameyo’s Port Shield protects RDP and HTTP/S ports from brute force and ransomware attacks.

Regardless of your organization’s approach to enabling remote & hybrid work, together Google Cloud and Cameyo provide an in-depth security schema that ensures safe boundaries between any device and your corporate network & data. And all that security doesn’t come with a hefty price tag or deployment/management burden. Both Google Cloud and Cameyo enable you to be up and running in minutes – not weeks – while dramatically reducing the costs associated with delivering secure remote work. 

Want to see Google Cloud and Cameyo in action for yourself? Request a demo and we’ll be happy to show you how quickly you can be up and running, then we’ll set you up with a free 30-day trial so you can test it out.

The post Embracing Cloud-Based Security to Enable Hybrid & Remote Work appeared first on Cameyo.

So rather than simply rounding up the best remote work articles and posts of the week that we think you shouldn’t miss, we’ll now be incorporating the top hybrid work stories we come across each week, too. We hope you find this useful, and as always, leave a comment below and let us know which topic(s) you’d like to see us post more about. 

With that, here are the top remote and hybrid work stories of the week that we think are worth your time to read:

1) The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready? (Microsoft)

If you’ve been wondering why hybrid work is such a hot topic, Microsoft lays it out quite clearly right up front:

With over 40 percent of the global workforce considering leaving their employer this year, a thoughtful approach to hybrid work will be critical for attracting and retaining diverse talent.

So with that in mind, this report from Microsoft is a stellar resource in terms of hard data around the future of the office. How good is the data? Check out the methodology:

the 2021 Work Trend Index outlines findings from a study of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries and an analysis of trillions of productivity and labor signals across Microsoft 365 and LinkedIn. It also includes perspectives from experts who have spent decades studying collaboration, social capital, and space design at work for decades.

There is a TON of good stuff in this report’s synopsis post, and the full report is even better, but we’ll just highlight this one group of stats:

Employees want the best of both worlds: over 70 percent of workers want flexible remote work options to continue, while over 65 percent are craving more in-person time with their teams. To prepare, 66 percent of business decision makers are considering redesigning physical spaces to better accommodate hybrid work environments. The data is clear: extreme flexibility and hybrid work will define the post-pandemic workplace.

If you only read one thing this week – go checkout the Microsoft 2021 Work Trend Index here. 

2) The Fluid Office – Rise of the Hybrid Work Environment (Norwest Venture Partners) 

This was a really interesting one because the data presented began with Norwest Venture Partners’ annual benchmark survey of all of their portfolio companies, which yielded plenty of interesting data on it’s own – but then they decided to expand the survey to an additional 1,000 enterprise employees. So they first share this initial data set:

We learned that most of our companies are adopting a flexible remote working model, at least for 2021. In addition, approximately 70% of our respondents plan to increase their remote workforce long term, though only 8% plan to shift entirely to remote working. In the near term, most of our companies will adopt a hybrid approach. 

And then they dig in much deeper after the additional 1,000 respondents to focus on 4 big trends that they’re seeing:

1. Most employees like the flexibility of a hybrid workplace, but believe that their companies may not be ready

2. Office spaces still serve a great purpose, even in a remote-work-friendly arrangement

3. Remote employees still crave connectivity and well-being-focused support

4. In a hybrid work environment, collaboration requires extra effort

Check out the full report from Norwest here: The Fluid Office – Rise of the Hybrid Work Environment

3) 1 In 3 Remote Workers May Quit If Required To Return To The Office Full Time, Survey Finds (Robert Half International)

We’ve seen a lot of data about people’s preference for remote work and the flexibility it enables, but this survey from Robert Half International – the world’s largest staffing firm – drops a huge stat. Over one-third of professionals – 34% – indicated that they would quit their existing jobs if told they needed to return to an office full time. BUT, the data also shows that not everyone wants to stay fully remote, either. This truly gets to the crux of the hybrid work argument here:

What Workers Want
Nearly half of all employees surveyed (49%) said they prefer a hybrid work arrangement, where they can divide time between the office and another location. Even if given the opportunity to be fully remote, professionals expressed the following concerns in doing so:

1. Relationships with coworkers could suffer: 28%

2. Decreased productivity while at home: 26%

3. Fewer career advancement opportunities due to a lack of visibility: 20%

And if you’re a sucker for an infographic like us, here’s one I expect to see a lot of people referencing in slide decks about the shift to hybrid work from remote work:

Check out the full announcement from Robert Half here.

4) JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon annual letter: How Wall Street will remote work, for better or worse (CNBC)

This article stood out to me because it does a great job of illustrating that even though many business leaders are recognizing that the way we work has forever changed, and even though they’re making massive changes to their businesses as a result – it doesn’t mean they like it. JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon certainly falls into that camp. Here’s the CNBC recap of this article:

• In his closely read annual letter to shareholders, Jamie Dimon says he expects no more than 10% of JPMorgan employees to permanently work from home.
• But he did say remote work trends facilitated by Zoom and Cisco, and accelerated by Covid-19, are here to stay and the bank’s real estate will be reduced.
• Dimon is particularly worried about how work from home could negatively affect new employees, slow down decision making, and impede company creativity.

Despite his concern about the impact remote & hybrid work will have on the company culture, the building of teams, and the training of new people, Dimon still revealed a major piece of news that really drives home the hybrid work movement:

Dimon said JPMorgan will “quickly” move to a more open seating arrangement and digital technology will be used to manage seating and conference rooms. He estimated that for every 100 employees, the bank will need seats for 60, on average. “This will significantly reduce our need for real estate,” he wrote.

That’s a big reduction in the amount of real estate that JPMorgan will need, and that’s coming from a CEO who has been very hesitant to the shift to remote work & hybrid work. And if you think about the number of small-to-medium size businesses who could similarly shed real estate costs and dramatically change their company’s financial situation, this will continue to be a very attractive option. See the full CNBC article here. 

5) Tech leaders form Digital Workspace Ecosystem Alliance (VirtualizationHowTo)

Okay, this one’s a shameless plug – but I promise it’sa. relevant one. One Tuesday we – along with 9 other companies – announced the launch of the Digital Workspace Ecosystem Alliance (DWEA). The term “Digital Workspace” has been co-opted by thousands of technology providers, all of which try to define the Digital Workspace in a way that skews the definition towards the particular technology they deliver. This causes confusion for IT buyers and delays their ability to create and deploy a cohesive Digital Workspace strategy. 

The DWEA aims to simplify the navigation of the ecosystem of solutions so that organizations can identify and select only the technologies that address their particular requirements, rather than saddling them with the cost and complexity of products & capabilities they don’t need. 

Here’s what VirtualizationHowTo had to say about the Alliance:

All too often really great technology vendors work in the same industry or business sector and never collaborate on a common purpose to further the common good. The obvious reason for this is competitive differences. However, when businesses are able to set aside these competitive differences and come together to achieve a common goal, it can lead to tremendous benefits for everyone involved. 

It is great to see successful technology leaders working together for the greater good to promote a better understanding of the often convoluted and confusing solutions and technologies in the realm of Digital Workspaces. I applaud Cameyo for its efforts to form the Digital Workspace Ecosystem Alliance. It will be great to see the continued positive effects from the Alliance as they help to provide clarity to IT buyers and promote a better understanding of the evolving technology landscape making up the Digital Workspace.

For more coverage of our announcement, check out our News Room to read articles from Computerworld, VMblog, IT Business Edge, eChannelNEWS, ChannelBuzz, and more. 

Thanks for catching up on this week’s hybrid & remote work news with us, and please consider sharing this post if you think your followers & networks would find it interesting. 

The post This Week in Hybrid & Remote Work – April 9th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

Just don’t forget – hybrid workspaces will increase the need for digital workspace tools that ensure your people have a seamless, productive experience no matter where they’re working that day. 

With that in mind, let’s dig into this week’s stories. 

1) The office of the future is about people not places (ZDNet)

This article caught my attention because it went beyond the stats about how many organizations are planning to keep remote and hybrid work after the pandemic, and instead talks about how this will increase the importance of human interaction when we have it. It’s not about wasting people’s time and the company’s money by forcing everyone into an office every day – but it IS about maximizing the time that people DO get to spend together.

“There is something magic about human interaction in the room that, however clever Zoom is, you can’t replicate,” says Coby. “I think we’re going to end up with a situation where people come into work for things that are team-building.”

I also loved this section where they talk about how the pandemic has, in many cases, helped us all become a bit more human and sympathetic with our co-workers:

“Things happen that you’ve just simply got to deal with – and everybody will see that, and is OK with it. And in many ways, it’s made people more human because everybody genuinely wants to help people who’ve got particular pressures on them. I think that’s really important,” he says.

2) Remote work 1 year later: The pandemic sent tech workers home — when and how will they return? (GeekWire)

This article provides a great recap of the remote & hybrid work plans of some of the largest companies in the world, so if you’re looking for the latest and greatest on that front, it’s a good read for that reason alone. But this piece jumped out at me, and I realize I’ve seen this being discussed more and more recently:

Pay cuts and more: The Wall Street Journal took a look at another year ahead of remote work and decisions being weighed in corporate board rooms, such as whether the salaries of employees who have left high-cost cities should be reduced. Tax concerns have come into play for migrating employees at companies such as Facebook and Lyft, and Microsoft previously announced that benefits and pay could be impacted by the company’s compensation scale by location.

Let’s just go on the record now and say that this is an idea that will backfire spectacularly for the companies that implement it. The idea of telling your people that they’re going to get paid less for the same job, for bringing the same value to the company as they did before, just because they’ve chosen to move to a less expensive location – that’s not a winning strategy, to put it politely. There are thousands of companies now willing to hire your best employees and allow them to work remotely, so don’t give your a people reason to go looking. 

There’s a lot more that’s worth reading in this article, and lots of good stats, but the topic of reducing pay for newly-remote workers is a topic I’m going to keep an eye on. 

3) Under pressure, IT workers brace for more complexity (CIO Dive)

There’s no doubt that IT has been under immense pressure for the past year. This article does a great job summarizing the impact that pressure is having on IT. 

• Eight in 10 technologists say their job became more complex during 2020, a consequence of quick innovation and a sprawling technology stack, according to a report from AppDynamics. The report included interviews with 1,050 global IT professionals.
• The increase in complexity took a toll on IT pros; 89% of technologists say they feel “immense” pressure at work. Upholding IT through a pandemic, 84% of technologists found difficulty switching off from work.
• In 2021, after most organizations increased their reliance on digital platforms to operate, three-quarters of technologists say IT became more complex as a result of their response to the pandemic.

We see a lot of this with new prospects we speak with here at Cameyo. IT desperately needs to simplify systems, but they can’t do so at the expense of security, their people’s productivity, or the bottom line. All the more reason to evaluate digital workspace solutions on simplicity, security, experience, and cost-effectiveness. 

BTW – this article is a good reminder to drop your IT people a nice note and show them your appreciation for all they do. 

4) Read urbanism expert Richard Florida’s response on how big cities will thrive during the new era of remote work (BusinessInsider) 

This one is outside of the usual tech-specific articles we usually include, so I won’t spend a bunch of time on it, but it’s an interesting read. If nothing else, here’s one big bonus of the so-called “exodus” from big cities:

The silver lining for places like New York and San Francisco is that the pandemic is making real estate more affordable to this group of people.

5) The Phases of Remote Adaptation (wrkfrce)

Okay, this one is from Jan. 28th, but I just stumbled across it and it’s absolutely worth the exception. We (like everyone else talking about remote work and hybrid work) quote Darren Murph of GitLab a lot. But there’s a reason for this. I think this article is the most crisp, clear breakdown of the stages every organization can expect to go through when adopting remote and hybrid work:

The amount of disruption is generally tied to two maturity factors: culture and tools.

To better understand this, we’re using this page to detail the phases of remote adaptation.

• Phase 1: Skeuomorph
• Phase 2: Functional
• Phase 3: Asynchronous
• Phase 4: Intentionality

I also appreciate that Murph is always focused on helping organizations understand that this is a transition – the shift to remote work does not and cannot “happen overnight.” 

It’s important to frame one’s transition to remote in terms of phases, as opposed to an all-or-nothing approach. Breaking adaptation down into smaller chunks creates less overwhelm. The goal for any suddenly remote company should be to graduate from one phase to another in a sustainable and efficient manner, instead of what will otherwise feel like a massive leap from nothing to mastery. This is iteration in practice.

Despite the 4 phases he outlines above, the article is still a fairly quick read. You can treat it as a killer primer/overview, or you can really dig in by working through the many videos, handbooks, and other resources the articles links out to. Trust me – bookmark this one. 

Thanks for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you back here next week! As always, if you’re looking for guidance on how to simplify and secure your people’s access to all of their business-critical applications for remote and hybrid work, book a quick demo and we’ll show you how Cameyo’s secure virtual application delivery platform can help in 20 minutes or less. 

The post This Week in Remote Work – March 5th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

1) Ransomware threats to watch for in 2021 include crimeware-as-a-service (TechRepublic)

If you follow the topic of remote work technology, you’ve no doubt seen tons of articles in the past 9 months about the dramatic increase in ransomware targeting remote workers. This week Blackberry’s research team introduced a new report that recaps the security threats of 2020, provides expert advice on what to expect in 2021, and a 5-step recommendation. 

Ransomware has become an increasingly virulent threat targeting businesses, government agencies, schools, and even individuals. As ransomware attacks gained greater traction and variety in 2020, so too will they bring about more developments in 2021. A report released Wednesday by BlackBerry highlights several trends to watch for in the year ahead.

For BlackBerry’s “2021 Threat Report,” researchers and security professionals at the company were asked to offer their cybersecurity predictions for the upcoming year. In response, they advice organizations and users to stay vigilant to the following threats as 2021 progresses.

This is the first time I’ve seen reference to the term “crimeware-as-a-service”, which is a very apt moniker. Be sure to scroll to the end of the article for the 5-step recommendation from the Blackberry researchers. And check out our primer on zero trust security for remote work here. 

2) What Everybody Thinks About VPN but Nobody Talks About (Security Boulevard) 

I know, I know – it may seem like we bash on VPNs a lot. Don’t get us wrong, there’s a time and a place for VPNs. But enabling secure remote work at scale is not that place, which is confirmed by yet another report – this one from the folks at Cybersecurity Insiders:

The 2021 VPN Risk Report is based on a survey of cybersecurity professionals—with more than half of respondents at the director level and above—who offered insight into their remote access environments, how and where users are connecting, the challenges they’re facing, including the rise in VPN vulnerabilities, and whether zero trust will begin to play a role in their remote access strategy.

Their answers revealed that IT leaders have been in a real bind. They need to provide remote access to applications in the data center and cloud, but the technology they’ve relied upon for decades is exposing them to risk—and they know it. Here are some of the report’s key findings:

Companies are aware of VPN risks, but they’re using them anyway.

VPNs have been used for remote access for nearly 30 years and they remain practically ubiquitous. In the survey, 93 percent of respondents reported that they are leveraging VPN services. Even so, 94 percent are aware that VPNs are vulnerable to cybercrime, with attackers targeting remote workers as they try to get access to business resources through the VPN. It would have been hard to miss the countless articles about VPN exploits in 2020, and the news of almost 500 known VPN vulnerabilities listed on the CVE database.

Check out the full article for all of the sobering stats. And check out our post from Brandon Lee on why it’s time to move beyond VPNs when it comes to securing remote work. 

3) The remote workforce is redefining mission-critical apps (TechTarget)

This is a greaet piece from Kerry Doyle at SearchITOperations about how the shift to remote work now requires that IT teams be ready to support legacy business and mobile tools as mission-critical applications. It drives home the fact that, when supporting remote work at scale, you have to now think of applications as mission-critical, just like your underlying infrastructure. 

Organizations of all sizes have long relied on the term mission-critical to designate key compute, storage and networking resources as essential or top priority. These systems must operate continuously, and at a high-performance level, to ensure that a company achieves its goals. As businesses rely heavily on remote workplaces due to pandemic restrictions, they must recognize that applications require that same high level of performance integrity.

There’s also a great section on the steps to take to support mission-critical apps. And what do you know, VPNs get a shout out (as the article calls out the need to assess the viability of VPNs, and looking at other solutions):

From the outset, assess VPN infrastructure viability, and consider adopting new tools to initiate or expand remote workplace access. For example, cloud-based enterprise application access defines which authorized remote users or devices can access an internal application, as well as limit network exposure.

There are some great analyst stats peppered throughout this piece that really drive home the straetgic importance of secure application delivery to your remote and/or hybrid workforce. 

4) How top companies are embracing a ‘virtual first’ approach to workplace culture during the pandemic (Fortune) 

Changing gears a bit, we came across this great article about how more companies are adopting a “virtual first” approach to workplace culture. And while all of the technology aspects of supporting remote work are important, the question about building and maintaining a strong company culture when many are remote is a very important one. The article share insight’s from Fortune’s “Reimagine Work Summit” and specifically a panel discussion titled “Building the Future of Culture and Communication.”

Dropbox’s efforts have been about “recogniz[ing] the importance of bringing people together for key interpersonal moments,” Simpson said. “We’ve created a set of really flexible practices that we’ve written up and shared in our ‘Virtual First’ toolkit—frameworks and guardrails for how to communicate with your teammates. I think it really helps create an inclusive environment.”

Check out the full article for some really interesting insight from leaders of four large companies who are all approaching remote work culture in different ways – but who all agree that “virtual first” is the future.

5) What does the future look like for mobile technologies in a stay-at-home world? (ZDNet)

Okay, this one really got me thinking.  The always-prescient Tom Foremski introduces a really good question about the impact of remote work on our need for/depence on our fancy mobile devices:

The entire world is vastly less mobile than it was pre-COVID-19 and this will continue to be true into the future. So why do we need super-expensive mobile technologies? We don’t need them as much as we did.

I’ll admit, I clutched my device a little tighter while reading this article and initially thought “but, of course we still need our devices!” – until I realized I was reading the article on my phone while seated at my desk, with two larger monitors right there in front of me. It certainly got me thinking. 

And what future for mobile phones? Working from home makes having a cell phone awkward. I still have to carry it about, or I have to keep running over to it to make sure I haven’t missed anything, and I keep putting it down somewhere that’s not easy to find. I certainly don’t need the latest digital phone if I’m not going to be out and about for 10 hours a day.

A mobile phone is not that useful when you aren’t that mobile.

Tom goes deeper to discuss how a reduced dependence on mobile devices could help with the current international tensions around the production of chips. Lots of good stuff in this article – I highly recommend checking it out as an interesting thought exercise in how the shift to remote work is changing many areas of our lives. 

Thanks again for reading, and join us back here next Friday for the next weekly roundup. 

The post This Week in Remote Work – Feb. 26th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

Some of their change of heart is purely circumstantial. The pandemic forced businesses that would never have considered remote work to adopt work-from-home (WFH) and hybrid workplace models like hoteling. They adapted out of necessity and soon found that it was viable.

However, there’s also a crucial technological aspect to all this. The existence of solutions like virtual private networks (VPNs) and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) made it possible—at least in principle—for organizations to support their workforces as they transitioned to remote work. As recently as a decade ago, when mainstream VDI solutions were still coming of age, it would have been harder to contemplate large portions of an in-house workforce moving offsite for an extended period of time.

As a result, even larger and more established businesses who were traditionally resistant to supporting remote work have made announcements about a permanent shift. Google has already said that it will be moving to a post-pandemic hybrid model. Facebook could migrate up to half its workforce to a remote arrangement within the next decade. And even financial companies like American Express and Capital One are sticking with large-scale WFH policies until at least late 2021.

Held back by aging technology

All the same, there are still many organizations that have resisted the adoption of digital workspaces. For all the widespread change in attitudes toward remote work, and despite the fact that they themselves have embraced it (willingly or not), a fair number of companies have continued to make do with VPNs and VDI solutions.

These technologies may have matured from the state they were in ten or even twenty years ago. Yet they were never designed to support remote work on a large scale. This has serious disadvantages for organizations that put VPNs, virtual desktops or desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solutions at the center of their remote work strategy.

For instance, VPNs struggle when it comes to performance and scalability. They can also be a serious security risk. Although they do help create a secure tunnel into the corporate network, they’re still giving clients unrestricted access to all or part of that network. That’s bad news for any organization trying to adopt increasingly popular—and necessary—zero trust policies. 

DaaS and VDI, on the other hand, are teeming with hidden costs. As part of a survey conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), 50% of respondents reported that more than 10 full-time employees (FTEs) were needed to oversee their VDI and DaaS solutions. Close to half of all VDI and DaaS deployments required third-party implementation services just to get things up and running.

Many organizations assume that these costs and caveats simply go with the territory. They want to be open to new workplace models and empower their remote workforces, but their receptivity and agility to change is framed by yesterday’s technologies. Fortunately, some digital workspaces offer a modern solution to this problem. 

Virtual Application Delivery is ideal for large-scale remote work 

Unlike VPNs and VDI/DaaS, Virtual Application Delivery (the successor to yesterday’s application virtualization technologies) arose and evolved in response to today’s challenges—cross-industry issues like mobility, security, flexibility and scalability. As a consequence, virtual app delivery platforms like Cameyo are inherently more cost-effective and secure.

• Lower costs: Virtual app delivery doesn’t require an army of FTEs for deployment and management. It also doesn’t call for huge rollouts of additional infrastructure. That small footprint and low overhead makes virtual app delivery easier to administer and much more scalable. Which all translates to far less impact on an organization’s budget.
• Higher security: Innovations like Cameyo Port Shield and Cameyo NoVPN are built right into the core of our virtual app delivery platform. By eliminating the risks that are normally associated with VPNs and VDI, these native features reduce the attack surface while also improving ease of use.

The proof of these advantages is borne out in dozens of case studies. For example: 

• Brazilian software company Tático ERP switched from classic VDI to Cameyo, saying, “Citrix was very complicated to deploy and manage. And even once it was deployed, it was very heavy on our server side, and also really heavy on our users’ devices.”
• Baldwinsville Central School District in upstate New York attested to the ROI of Cameyo’s application virtualization: “In just the first year, and talking about licensing fees alone, Cameyo is saving us $50,000 compared to VMware.”
• In Scandinavia, the historic retail chain Ur&Penn highlighted Cameyo’s ease of use compared to Nutanix Xi Frame and Citrix XenApp: “Right off the bat, Cameyo doesn’t require any complex infrastructure and you don’t need to hire a third-party engineer to set it up—so that’s a huge cost savings right there.”

The urgent, pandemic-related shift to remote work has certainly made society as a whole more receptive to new workplace models. But it’s also clear that organizations and employees everywhere still have a lot to gain from digital workspace solutions like Cameyo. See how you stand to benefit from accessing business-critical apps on any device by signing up for your free trial of Cameyo today.

The post How Remote Work Is Reducing Our Reluctance to Change appeared first on Cameyo.

Speaking of helping to navigate – I stumbled across this post with 20 great remote work stats that link out to sources. Check it out. Now onto this week’s news:

1) Out of the office: How the world adapted to working remotely in 2020 (GitLab Report) 

I know, we highlight the content coming out of GitLab a lot in this weekly series. But hey, they’re honestly cranking out some of the most genuinely helpful and in-depth material to help guide organizations on their remote work migration journey. They’ve been fully remote, and touting the benefits of fully-remote, since way before it was cool (slash mandatory). In their latest, GitLab provides free access to an in-depth 21-page report based on a survey of organizations after the first 9 months of the pandemic. 

In an effort to stay more true to the mission of giving you key information so you can determine whether or not it makes sense to click through, I’m going to hold back on quoting too much of this report. But this section legitimately gave me chills:

Remote isn’t the future of work; it’s the future of living
37% of respondents have optimized their lives to spend more time with their family or community. 30% are prioritizing the outdoors or exercise and health. And 26% are streamlining their schedules to reclaim more time in their days.

This sheds light on a nuanced reality: remote work is more about the future of living than work. Workers appreciate the flexibility to fit work into their life schedule as opposed to vice-versa, with many not needing to move in order to appreciate that optionality. The key is that remote work makes the day-to-day more manageable, with a series of minor quality of life adjustments amounting to a significant net improvement.

Wow. This is exactly the type of mantra organizations need to adopt as they prepare for a permanent remote (or at least hybrid) future for their workforce. It’s not about remote being the future of how we WORK, it’s about the future of how we LIVE. Could not agree more. 

There are literally dozens of hard-hitting stats covering everything from the demographics of remote workers to the shifting outlook that employers have about the remote future. And despite the dense information and 21-page length, it’s presented in a very easy to read and graphical, storytelling format. Go download it for free now – you won’t be disappointed. 

2) Salesforce declares the 9-to-5 workday dead, will let some employees work remotely from now on (The Verge)

This week’s “welcome to the party” award goes to… Salesforce! But to their credit, they didn’t just hop on the bandwagon. They’re definitely jumping into the fray in the fight to promote the fact that remote is not just going to be “allowed” – but that it can be (and is) extremely successful. 

“As we enter a new year, we must continue to go forward with agility, creativity and a beginner’s mind — and that includes how we cultivate our culture. An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks,” writes Brent Hyder, Salesforce’s chief people officer. “In our always-on, always-connected world, it no longer makes sense to expect employees to work an eight-hour shift and do their jobs successfully. Whether you have a global team to manage across time zones, a project-based role that is busier or slower depending on the season, or simply have to balance personal and professional obligations throughout the day, workers need flexibility to be successful.”

This just goes to show that even though not every big company has come out to make a big formal announcement – every company is thinking about this. And kudos to Salesforce for highlighting the decision as an advantage, not a concession.

3) Protecting Remote Enterprises in the Cloud (CXO Today) 

Those of you familiar with Cameyo know that we’re very outspoken about the need to ensure that security is built into the core of all the tools you use to enable your remote workforce (this is how we do it for Digital Workspaces). So this article jumped out at me this week as a great overview of everything organizations should be thinking about when it comes to securing remote work in the cloud. It covers topics from the evolving threat landscape for remote workers, understanding the security gaps in certain cloud environments, how to identify security gaps, and more. 

While the pandemic may have forced companies toward an acceleration into the cloud, C-suite executives embraced the opportunity to future-proof their organizations by building resiliency, honing budget management and adopting new processes and technologies. They quickly rethought their business, products and services and the infrastructure required to support their customers and employees in a contactless economy. Throughout the next two years, organizations will continue to shift to the cloud and increase their investments in IT infrastructure and applications, in addition to machine learning, AI and automation. This will create more agility and efficiency in business operations and provide a better digital experience for consumers. These changes will require a powerful, complex security posture that is both agile enough to evolve at the speed of business and robust enough to ensure protection against a rapidly expanding threat landscape that specifically targets the cloud.

Check out the full article here for some useful tips on formulating a remote work security strategy for the cloud.

4) Massive uptick in collaboration software usage in 2020 (ComputerWeekly)

This article digs into the data presented in a new report by Aternithy that digs into the massive growth in the adoption of collaboration software during the pandemic. That growth shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but it’s worth noting that Aternity also comes to the conclusion that this adoption is likely permanent – not merely something we’re all relying on in the short term to help get through the pandemic:

Aternity says the trend brings the future hybrid workplace into clearer view and is essential for two reasons: it probably portends that most companies will also delay office reopening until the vaccines are in broader distribution; and that the reliance on applications, specifically collaboration apps, for individuals and teams to remain productive, is permanent.

5) How to select an enterprise VPN that protects data but doesn’t drive users crazy (TechRepublic) 

Not to be too snarky, but when I first read this headline, my immediate thought was simply “Don’t.” As in, the best way to select a VPN, is to NOT select a VPN. If the move to remote work has taught the world anything about VPNs, it’s that they simply were not designed to support remote work on a mass scale. Also, as people work from home (usually on their preferred personal, non IT-managed device), VPNs create a direct connection between potentially infected personal devices and your corporate network. We unpack why it’s time to move beyond VPNs for securing remote work in this post.   

Thanks again for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you back here again next Friday!

The post This Week in Remote Work – Feb. 12th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

Granted, the term du jour at that point will likely be “hybrid work” – the model where people split their days between the office and home – and we’re already seeing that become a prominent topic of conversation as organizations of all sizes look to plan well in advance for whatever the future of work will look like. 

So with that in mind, let’s dig into this week’s stories:

1) Will hybrid work actually work? What companies and workers should consider in a post-pandemic world (USA Today)

 Bob O’Donnell of TECHnalysis Research is one of the most quoted and published analysts when it comes to B2B tech trends – and for good reason. His latest article for USA Today does a great job of breaking down the many questions organizations should be asking themselves NOW in order to properly prepare and put a long-term hybrid work strategy in place. It’s a great reminder that – just as the shift from working in the office to everyone working from home wasn’t a particularly smooth shift for most organizations – the shift from our current situation to a hybrid model will be similarly complex. 

The problem is that there’s no clear answer on how to best approach this challenge. One common theme that has emerged is the concept of hybrid work, which essentially entails people continuing to work part of the time at home and part of the time back in their offices. (Of course, the word “hybrid” can be interpreted in many ways, so there seems to be an enormous number of variations on this overall theme.)

When talking about both remote and hybrid work, “an enormous number of variations to this overall theme” seems like an understatement. But I think that’s Bob’s point – and he goes into good detail on the various questions orgs should be asking themselves to determine which variation of hybrid work will be right for them and their employees. 

There is no question that the pandemic has forced companies and individual employees to rethink their work practices, schedules, policies and more. And I am convinced that we will see important, positive changes to how we work coming out of our collective experience – not the least of which is a better sense of work-life balance.

I also believe that the ability to work from virtually anywhere – as long as you have internet connectivity – will provide us with new ways of working. Fully embracing a completely hybrid work environment without thinking through the critical details that might come with it, however, could end up being an expensive exercise in frustration.

One thing is certain – many people will never be going back to an office, period. They’ve moved to more affordable areas because they were told they could, so going back into the office regularly simply isn’t possible or expected. And even those who do go back into the office on a hybrid basis – they’ll have a similar need as their fully-remote colleagues – the ability to maintain simple, seamless access to all of the apps they need to be productive no matter where they happen to be working from on any given day. That’s going to be the one constant – everyone needs to be able to work within a single environment that stays consistent regardless of where they’re located. And that’s where Digital Workspaces can help. Check out our previous post on why Hybrid Work will actually increase the need for seamless Digital Workspaces moving forward. 

2) “We’re Not Going Back” – The Post-Pandemic Workplace is Hybrid (AllWork)

Sticking with the Hybrid Work theme, this post from AllWork discusses a recent presentation from an IDC analyst and why, even after people are vaccinated, hybrid work will become the norm. 

Will we all switch back to office work and forget about our newly equipped home offices? Will hybrid work be scrapped? Will spoke offices suddenly fall empty as workers return to city centres in their droves?

Mick Heys, vice president of IDC Future of Workplace and Imaging in Europe, believes not.

Presenting research from IDC for a recent virtual conference by the GWA, supported by essensys, Heys suggested that “change will persist” even beyond a full vaccination programme.

Why won’t we simply go back to the office like before?

Broadly speaking, it’s because there is a general realisation that flexible work has proven beneficial. In a number of ways, at least.

So, what are some of those benefits? IDC’s research found that:

…the benefits to both employer and employee are significant:

• It reduces the cost, time and stress of commuting
• This leads to a better employee experience, which improves talent retention
• Employers realise that remote work can and does work (although working from home is not necessarily the right solution)
• Employers save on costs associated with commercial real estate and facilities management

There’s a lot more to unpack in the article, but suffice to say that this one is a really good read that is chock full of great survey stats that help illustrate, once again, why remote and hybrid are the future of work. 

3) Remote working: Employees say these four things will make them more productive (Citrix Blog)

To really double down on this thread – here’s an article about hybrid work written by Brad Casemore, a Research VP at IDC, for the Citrix blog.

IDC foresees a next normal that will look different from the pre-pandemic normal. A hybrid workspace is materializing, with some employees reporting to the office, others working from home, and a significant complement working both at home and at the office. Again, this development carries implications for the network infrastructure that supports secure application delivery.

He goes on to explain:

CIOs and CTOs are realizing that those and other changes will be required to reap the full benefits of an engaged and productive distributed workforce. The WFH environment is different in many respects — socially and technologically — from the traditional office environment, which is architected and engineered to the purpose of work. As both applications and employees become increasingly distributed in the cloud era, each organization will have to give careful thought to how productive digital engagement can be established and maintained through optimized, secure network access to SaaS, IaaS, and on-premises applications for employees whose hybrid workspaces will represent significant departures from the fixed orientations of the pre-COVID period.  

You’re speaking our language, Brad. For most employees, one of the biggest things they need to remain productive regardless of their location or situation, is seamless access to their applications anywhere, on any device, from the cloud. This is not the ONLY issue that needs to be solved for organizations to thrive in an era of hybrid work, but it is a big one. Luckily enabling this no longer requires the massive investments (of time, money, and people) of yesteryear when it comes to deploying heavy, complex virtual desktop environments – all of that is solved by simpler, more cost-effective Virtual App Delivery technologies. 

4) Remote working: Employees say these four things will make them more productive (TechRepublic)

This article approaches the hybrid and remote work topic from a different angle, with a greater focus on the current employee experience. A study of 1,000 enterprise employees revealed that:

While more than two-thirds (67%) of employees said they were getting more work done while working from home, 50% said a more flexible work schedule – such as being able to set their own schedules or having more freedom to change their routines – would help them improve productivity.

Now, this could simply be a reference to people wanting a bit more flexibility in their schedule so they can build in and work around their family duties, etc. But I think this touches on a much bigger topic that you’ve likely been reading more about – especially if you follow GitLab’s Darren Murph – which is asynchronous communication (“async” for short). Async is the process of communicating and moving projects forward even when people (especially largely distributed remote workforces) are not in the same time zone or available at the same time. It the removal of the expectation that – just because you send a message 5 minutes ago, doesn’t mean the other person will (or should have to) respond right away. 

I think that a lot of the issues and stats that this article covers could all be solved in large part by a better understanding and adoption of asynchronous communication. If you want to learn more about async, here’s the definitive tome on async from the GitLab team.  

5) From Trend to Tactic: What‘s Here to Stay in 2021 (Insight Partners)

And now for something very different than the articles above, and quite fun. The smart folks at Insight Partners have put together a really well-produced, interactive report on the key trends from 2020 that will have the greatest impact on 2021. It covers six main topic areas, and it will come as no surprise that the feedback they gathered from experts on every one of these topics all points back to one big overarching trend – remote work. Here’s an example from each of the 6 sections showing how remote work continues to dominate every aspect of business:

Sales & Customer Success

Remote Selling is here to stay (even after the pandemic). Companies that train their reps in effective video and email communication and who embrace new technologies will have a significant advantage over their peers. Re-evaluate your tools to ensure that they’re meeting the needs of remote selling.

Marketing

The only thing that marketers can depend on in 2021 is that change is the constant. COVID should be viewed as the “great accelerator,” as many nascent disruptions simply got accelerated.

Talent

This year upended the workforce in many ways – and HR was central to managing through this disruption. Suddenly, HR leaders went from a supporting role to the center of the storm during a massive human capital crisis. From shutting down offices (nearly overnight) to dealing with employee health and safety concerns, a lot of responsibility fell on HR leaders’ shoulders.

Business Development

The acceleration of innovation in digital change looks to continue in 2021, and we may even see a permanent shift to this high pace. We already know that the virtual or hybrid workplace will be a permanent part of the office landscape.

For CXOs in the IGNITE community it’s more important than ever to be plugged in to the ScaleUp software ecosystem, able to access the technology that will drive change. This also means leaning on personal networks to learn from others and investing time in cultivating and growing new connections – even if they’re virtual for now.

M&A

As many companies reevaluated their product priorities through COVID and WFH, they made the decision that ‘buy’ was a faster, more cost effective way than ‘build’ for key roadmap items that were slightly outside of their core focus areas.

Product & Technology

What areas were accelerated?
REMOTE WORK
Prior to 2020 product leaders were on the fence about remote work, with some organizations supporting it, some fully embracing it, and others ardently focused on colocation as essential to problem solving and innovation. As the pandemic hit, companies faced the stark reality that their teams needed to be able to work from anywhere.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of This Week in Remote Work, and we hope to see you back here next Friday. In the meantime, please share with the community in the comments below what great articles you’ve been reading lately!

The post This Week in Remote Work – Feb. 5th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.