The Return of the Office - are you ready?

Phew! Your organisation successfully transitioned from an open-plan office-based environment, to a distributed ‘working from home’ self-isolating workforce.

Were you ready?

Perhaps, with a tight and considered collaboration strategy, Cloud-based architecture, and recently deployed fleet of laptops, you were ready. Perhaps the transition was seamlessly executed. Or, perhaps you weren’t. Maybe the cracks began to show as thousands of users hammered your VPN links to connect back into your aging on-premise infrastructure. After a mad scramble to find a suitable collaboration and video-conferencing tool followed by around-the-clock upgrades and user training you managed to keep your teams in sync.

My guess? - Somewhere in between: lots of lessons learned along the way and over the course of the month of March your organisation adopted and adapted to a totally new culture.

 Your IT Team’s challenge was to ensure that no-one was isolated during isolation.

When offices start to reopen, what will the next challenge be?

Whichever best describes your transition period, your IT team’s job is to ensure that no-one is isolated during isolation: that teams can collaborate as effectively as ever, securely, reliably and from the comfort (or discomfort) of their home-office (bedroom). As offices start to reopen, what will the next challenge be?

In Australia, the daily number of new coronavirus cases continues to decrease:

Bondi Beach has re-opened and society is getting ready for its first freshly-poured pint and trip back to the office (separately, of course).

A lot has changed, in business and in our personal lives. Will the handshake ever make a comeback? Will we be less anxious about ‘wasting a whole weekend indoors’ on sunny days?

… I’ve no idea.

However, two observations I feel a little more equipped to explore are these:

Observation Number One:

This morning I logged on to my laptop, and my first meeting was a team catch-up to discuss priorities for the day. The meeting took place on StarLeaf (naturally). This was quickly followed by another meeting with an external party. The meeting was scheduled by another company and thus took place on Microsoft Teams . The rest of my week includes meetings on platforms such as Cisco Webex and BlueJeans (to name a few), followed by a Friday evening ‘pub-quiz’ on Zoom. – Sound familiar?

So what?

I’ve now had a taste for seamless video. My expectation, and I am certain the expectation of your colleagues, is that one can instantly and seamlessly switch between different video-collaboration technologies from a single device: my laptop. No need to change rooms, no need to change cameras, or microphones: I simply flick back to Outlook, and click ‘join’ on the next invitation. One device: any meeting.

One device: any meeting.

Observation Number Two:

I am all over the place. Literally. At 9am I am in the Blue Mountains talking to a colleague. At 10am I am in Melbourne helping with a partner feedback session. After lunch, Perth, and at 6pm I am in London getting a company-wide update from our CEO. (It’s really magic when you think about it… London, in April, in shorts...) In times gone, a ‘full day of meetings’ meant a couple of meetings with 1-2 hours in between to allow for trains, buses, taxis and aeroplanes. In contrast, today, a one-hour meeting takes one hour out of my day.

With these benefits, it is no surprise that video usage across even just the StarLeaf platform has increased x10 in the last month.

So what?

I’ve had a taste for the jet-less jet-setting (and not to mention airport-less lobby). My realisation, and no doubt the expectation of your colleagues, is that we can be far more productive and waste far less time, effort, and carbon, when we are equipped with videoconferencing.

Waste less time, effort and carbon, with videoconferencing

So what does this mean for my organisation’s return to the office?

Users will expect to use more video, with more people: i.e. higher volume, and a broader range of technologies.

• Ensure that your video meeting rooms can seamlessly connect with any other organisation, regardless of who sent the invitation to meet, or which platform they have chosen to use

StarLeaf’s room systems uniquely include ‘MultiJoin’ technology: which ensures that meetings are always easy to join, regardless of the platform used (StarLeaf, Zoom, Teams, Webex, BlueJeans etc.).

• Video meetings are the new norm. Expect users to choose high-quality video over face-to-face even when back at the office. Ensure that your meeting rooms provide the high-quality expected and can reliably join meetings back-to-back-to-back…

With a 99.999% up-time SLA, StarLeaf ensures that users can reliably connect all day every day. High-quality microphones and cameras ensure that users can be seen and heard clearly – this prevents ‘video fatigue’ which results from straining to see and hear people for a long period of time.

•  Are enough of your meeting rooms video-enabled?

As we return to open-plan offices across the globe, it is important that there are enough video-centric spaces to support users’ new found passion for virtual meetings.

Covid-19 has forced organisations to adapt. One consequence of this adaptation is a dramatic cultural shift in how workforces succeed. Your IT Team’s next challenge will be continuing to liberate workforces, and not inadvertently re-fastening the collaboration shackles.

Stay ahead of the curve, and learn more about StarLeaf’s multi-platform meeting room solutions, our 99.999% reliability SLA, and our unmatched security story, here: Multi-Join Huddle Room.

Or, learn more about it in this 49 second video: