The Future of Work

I believe that working from home will continue. Those who have now tried this and have some space to work from home, are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.  

I should add that not all of our staff opted to work from home. One of our team found it easier to concentrate at work and was able to socially distance, as he was the only person occupying the entire development office. Another member of staff found that he preferred the routine of driving to work and being in the building. He also had another office to himself. Being based in the Midlands has the advantages of being centrally located – near the cities and near the countryside too. Plus, our car park is less full these days! 

I recognise that it’s also not viable for everyone to work from home and we’re ever grateful to the millions of NHS workers who have looked after my dad at this time, and many, many others. Yet for office workers that drive to work and login to their desktops, technology provides flexibility and has the possibility to change how we work forever. 

I believe that more employers will offer - as we will do, more flexibility for staff. Whether it’s working different hours, working from home, a blended approach – it has all worked for us. On a personal note, I’ve relished the ‘technology to the rescue’ aspect of how our working lives have changed and am excited about more new developments. 

Challenges with working from home 

I’ve enjoyed splitting my time between working from home and working in the office. I haven’t always found it easy working from home with three children and a dog keeping me on my toes! A lot of people I know have had similar challenges, and the schools going back will hopefully make this easier. 

Other than distractions, there are technology challenges I think businesses need to be aware of. It’s become more and more common for people to use more than just their work laptop. Mobile devices, both iOS and Android, are obviously an enormous presence in business today, but their capabilities and vulnerabilities are still a fraction of those of desktop and laptop computers. The management and security of mobile devices generally is handled separately from desktops and laptops, but there is clearly a movement toward consolidation. 

That’s where it becomes tricky for business owners to know which devices are being used to access company data. I read recently that there are 5 billion threats detected on devices each month, a number that’s grown significantly over the last few years. Securing devices and the data they contain is becoming more urgent, yet in a recent survey just 27% of organisations say they’ve completed a strategy for data protection! 

As we’re all using more devices, and as businesses grow, it gets more difficult knowing what data your staff are accessing, which devices they’re using and whether they’ll fall victim to phishing or other types of scams. 

Tools like Microsoft Enterprise Security and Mobility are crucial for protecting your staff and data, whether they’re in the office, at home or somewhere else remotely. We wrote a blog post recently about how EM+S can benefit your business (click here for a link to the post, I don’t want to spoil it for you here!) 

What’s next? 

AI and automation will have an even greater role in the way we work going forward. It’s being used by those working in finance, HR and marketing, and I’m sure we’ll see it even more in the next few years. Tools like IFTTT are connecting our most used applications and devices to give us greater functionality. Microsoft’s Power Automate is similar – we’re starting using it to get regularly used apps to “talk” to each other, saving time doing minor tasks. It can be a bit tricky to set up workflows, but there are a number of useful templates you can use!  

Computer programs are becoming more intelligent and saving us time. As examples, PowerPoint and Word have improved the ‘dictate’ functionality and those that are slower at typing can now open a document, click dictate and start work. PowerPoint has extended the ‘design ideas’ by introducing greater intelligence into matching words with icons, so that building a presentation that used to take hours, now takes minutes. The greatest benefit from technology is the way it evolves, adapts and develops – constantly improving how we work.