What Does Your “Remote World” Look Like?
CMMA BlogIn my last blog, I talked about our new “Remote World ” and how remote editing and production in media workflows have adjusted accordingly. I also shared a brief recap on some of Quantum’s M&E Technology Partners and their solutions that are providing advancements to facilitate these workflows.
Indeed, remote work has now become part of our everyday lives affecting many industries and types of work. Moreover, the home office is quickly becoming the de facto for many workers, especially those in technically oriented industries who have access to applications and systems that enable remote work in order to sustain business operations, and frequently attribute to higher productivity as well.
In fact, it’s estimated by Global Workplace Analytics that “25-30% of the workplace will be working-from-home multiple days a week by the end of 2021.” What are some of the drivers and upsides to remote work in addition to higher productivity? Some that top the list are cost savings in terms of office space, reduced travel expenses, and better use of available technologies.
Available Technologies for a Decentralized Workforce
The first two upsides have obvious implications of benefits to organizations. But what are some examples for better use of available technologies by a decentralized workforce?
- For starters, and for any remote worker, the ability to easily meet with coworkers or customers at a moment’s notice is an invaluable benefit. For example, WebEx hosted more than 20 billion meeting minutes in April, compared with 14 billion in March and 7 billion in February. We are now using all varieties of digitally based communication and platforms that bring us closer to one another and more frequently – and of course at a much lower cost. By removing the historic inhibitors to have more face time with customers and teammates, organizations can see improved collaboration and work output. Additionally, the creation of new and improved remote work environments can also lend to attracting geo-dispersed talent and improve employee retention.
- For the M&E industry , production professionals can leverage their home workstations in concert with a shared storage environment at the studio or post house. With higher video resolutions and bandwidth requirements, coupled with soaring capacity requirements for large video content, companies are using centrally located storage to help simplify collaboration by editors, colorists, visual effects artists and others. Quantum works closely with our partners in the Media & Entertainment industry to continue to improve this collaboration using our StorNext file system .
- Creatives teams are free to redefine their remote workflows, leveraging existing infrastructures, like centralized content archives and storage libraries , while using fast networking to remotely access and share content, along with specialized features and tools offered by MAM, Editing, VFX and transcoding platforms. And many of these tasks can now be automated and streamlined, minimizing manual oversight, and allowing the creatives to focus on their artistic work and contribution to completing projects. This of course enables final content to be completed more efficiently and quickly to meet deadlines and monetary objectives.
I think we can all agree on the obvious benefits of our new “Remote World” that include cutting costs for travel and office space along with an increase in customer and colleague meetings. For the more nuanced benefits, those effectively pertain to the workers, the people themselves. For many, working from home can increase morale by reducing commute time and stress, while creating “flex time” for family and hobbies. What’s new in your “Remote World”? Let us know , we’d love to hear what you’re doing. I understand baking is ‘de rigueur’ now. I think I’ll skip that and focus on learning a new language. Polish anyone?