RTO and WFH – WTF?

I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Tech sector companies often set the tone in a lot of ways. The big Return To Office (RTO) is picking up steam with all the “usual suspects” bringing people back in after as much as two years of Working From Home (WFH).

So, is everything going back to the way it was before? That’s almost always a losing proposition and certainly is this time around. For many of these Tech giants the RTO mandate is something like three days per week (many companies saw increased productivity during WFH, and many employees liked the freedom and are strongly requesting flexibility going forward).

This means many workforces will now be “hybridized” with some folks remote and some in the office on almost any given occasion. Additionally, many of these companies did research and determined the primary reason to bring folks into the office is meetings and collaboration. This seems like opportunity for those of us in the Pro AV sector, right? It’s a huge opportunity, however I am here to tell you that doing what you have always done will not get you what you have generally gotten up until now. Things are changing.

What’s The Future (WTF;) look like given these new conditions?

·???????Office layouts need to be replanned and programmed for increased collaboration

·???????ALL spaces need to support remote collaboration

o??Huddle rooms

o??Conference rooms

o??Training rooms

o??Multi-purpose rooms

o??Executive spaces

·???????Those remote participants might be joining in from

o??Home offices

o??Other campus locations

o??Automobiles (I do this at least twice a month, and you should always pull over if you use video)

o??Coffee shops, airports (usually once a month for me now) or project sites

·???????Participants can be on almost any platform

o??Specialized meeting spaces (Teams, WebEx or Zoom Rooms etc.)

o??Laptops

o??Phones

That’s a lot to plan for, if you have toughed it out up until now I will leave you with what I believe are the key takeaways for all of this change.

First, successful plans will build in flexibility (any platform, any venue) and usability (it can’t take too long to join a meeting or leverage the resources available)

Second, good planning will create equity for all the participants (if remote participants aren’t comfortable and contributing smart companies will find a way to make that happen). We’ve made it this far without me trying to sell anything to you but I will share that Lightware can help with products like our Taurus line that lets anyone leverage all the USB amenities of a space easily f