During this time of remote work, many companies have continued their business operations by  giving their employees the technology tools that keep them collaborating. 

As we gradually get back to business as usual, what we call “as usual” may have changed as well. The last few months have shut down businesses or hindered their efforts to keep up their operations. Even if your organization was one of those that was already on board with collaboration technology, you’ve seen firsthand just how much people rely on each other when they can’t be in the same office, where they’re just a few feet away from asking a question, giving an answer, or providing an update. 

Our post-COVID-19 era, if we may optimistically call it that, is one that will find thousands of organizations wanting to improve their collaboration environment for those working on-site and off. The following factors will impact and shape the new normal in the workplace: 

Well-being: The offices you return to won’t be like the offices you left before the shutdown. Here are some ways you’ll maintain social connections while also providing for your employees’ well-being through recommended best practices and guidelines they must follow:

• Support monitored social distancing throughout the workplace, including collaboration spaces. A conference room that was designed to hold 10 people might now only have chairs for five participants at a time. 
• Share safety protocols like frequent hand washing, social distancing, contact tracing, and the frequent cleaning of common devices and furniture. 
• Create new spaces and redevelop existing ones to include touchless control and BYOD (bring your own device) capabilities.

Video collaboration: For people to work from home and on site, they need reliable, simple-to-use collaboration technology that integrates with their company’s network and applications. Having that high-quality, user-friendly technology also improves the experience for those connecting with them from various locations. Here are some areas to consider as you address a digital workplace equipped with video collaboration:

• Look at the ways your staff has used collaboration spaces and how those use cases are expected to change. Prepare for more activity-based workspaces while keeping in mind they might not follow the design you had in mind before COVID-19. Even with enhanced cleaning measures in place, people may not want to use the touch-enabled devices that book rooms, start meetings, or engage video.
• Provide a consistent user experience for those working from home. Standardize on a UCC solution that is easy to use and has the features that will accommodate your different user types.
• Consider non-traditional spaces like manufacturing floors as candidates for video collaboration.

Security: The expansion of the work environment to off-site locations, including the home, means that cybersecurity must also expand to include remote workers on a much larger scale than you may have previously anticipated. However, on-site work continues to be a mainstay of company operations. As your business transitions back to the offices, you’ll need to help your talent interact with on-site technology in a way that keeps information secure.

Consider these areas as your IT team focuses on your company’s information security:

• As you add UCC solutions for in-room and remote collaboration, review the cybersecurity features of those providers. Understand the built-in permissions and privacy protocols of their solutions so you know what steps to take to keep your information secure.
• Prepare for a resurgence of BYOD. Expect your staff to prefer using their own devices to interact with and control collaboration room technology.
• As you give access to company services to remote workers, consider how that access affects the security of those on-premise or cloud-based services.
• Address the home LAN with cybersecurity measures that protect company information, including documents and chat files.

Automation: In the workplace, many employees are booking common rooms and using a variety of control and collaboration devices that are also being used by their colleagues.

By automating in-office functions like scheduling and room control, you can improve the collaboration experience while also minimizing health risks by reducing the number of touch points. Some ideas for incorporating automation technology in your workplace include:

• Deploy virtual digital assistants like Alexa for Business to create a touch-free experience in collaboration spaces. Through voice activation, people can start their meetings and the devices that allow them to connect with remote colleagues, share documents from their personal devices, and wirelessly connect their devices to room displays.
• Offer personalized wayfinding employees and visitors through a combination of mobile apps and digital signage. This minimizes foot traffic by efficiently guiding people to their destinations.
• Automate workspace assignments so that employees know when and where they are scheduled to be on site. These assignments can be based on each person’s need to use on-site resources as well as their work preferences.
• Use remote concierge services to schedule, launch meetings, and monitor meetings. User management applications like AVI-SPL Symphony can do this, as well as remotely monitor and manage rooms, devices, the network, and the conference infrastructure.

Intelligent buildings: Intelligent building technology anticipates and responds to the way people work, and it streamlines their interactions with spaces and the kind of technology they need to use. These systems give insight into how spaces are being used so that a company can use the analytics to decide if it needs to reconfigure spaces and/or build new ones.

• Design responsive environments driven by AI and ambient computing. These rooms anticipate what devices and applications will be needed based on who schedules them, who is using the room, and the meeting purpose. Facial recognition tells system how you like the temperature and lighting in a room, and the preferred way of starting a meeting.
• The Internet of Things (IoT) and occupancy sensors, thermal cameras, and Wi-Fi tracking show the density of people gathered in various areas throughout the workplace. They provide alerts when they anticipate collaboration sessions will go over the approved number of participants. That information can be used to provide intelligent space scheduling that shows available rooms for supporting the required number of in-person participants while also maintaining social distancing.
• Integrated workplace management systems do the heavy lifting by monitoring spaces, down to the device level. This ensures that only rooms with functioning technology are available to schedule, and it lets the support team know when an issue needs a resolution. These systems help staff resolve these issues before an end user experiences any difficulty during a meeting. 

AVI-SPL is helping organizations like yours determine what your “new normal” work experience will look like as you  collaborate across offices and remote locations. If you have any questions about the issues shared in this post, or would like to discuss your organization’s collaboration strategy, contact us.

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