EP91: Supporting the Back-to-Office policy
Peter Pan of the podcast becomes a man reaching the maturing point in his life of 40 years and Steve is amazed that there is no party on the horizon. Then they get serious about discussing how technology and the cloud can support the business as the business develops a Back to Work policy.
After confirming that to get started you need a corporate policy to be able to design a set of processes and technologies that will support the organisation in its New Way of Working. Steve and Marijn talk through the roles and personae that will require a different level of support from IT. The great resignation is discussed and how we are losing innovation opportunities because more preparation and organisation is required for meetings to be successful
In an age where the employee is such a corporate asset and often the centre of the innovation process from tweaking a policy to defining the R&D of the company... the employee is feeling the power. Many companies are starting to feel the pain of not having folks on-site when they need them. Employees find working from home suits them, but there are times when the team need to be on-site and collaborate face to face.
There is a revisit of the pandemic 2 years ago and forced a change in the company working from home meant somehow equipment from chairs to monitors all had to be purchased from home.
Today the Way of Working needs to find a way to minimise the changes from home working to Office working and the key attributes of meetings need to be transparent to all employees. Even if it is just about equivalency during the meeting.
Change is so important and the K from ADKAR becomes important as we need to help users gain the knowledge and change their perspective during meetings to understand that not everyone is sitting by their side... how many people point to their screen during a meeting and assume everyone else can see their windows
As IT we can help the company design their infrastructure to support how the company will deliver a Digital 1st environment.
Steve points out that if everyone is equal then unless the company is going to invest heavily not everyone will have the best monitor and camera at home and at the office. So finding the common denominator as the online meeting policy and documenting the expectations and associated training is one way for IT to support the home working policy.
Of course, one way to encourage back to work is to ensure the Office experience is better than the home experience. However, that needs to be balanced against the quality of the meeting to ensure it is getting the greatest value for the business. For example, ensuring that people have access to the right knowledge to be most effective.
Tool knowledge is key but also a personal understanding goes the differences between Collaboration, Presenting, Brainstorming, and ensuring that everyone knows and understands how to encourage innovation during meetings. In fact, the reality is that the Meeting owners need to plan and ensure the right tools are available for everyone and they know how to use them.
AI and Cortana could be a big player using insights to identify who will be in the office and set up meetings to support active projects
Martijn drops his golden nugget by stating his perception is that for Hybrid work you need Hardware, policy, the right application and ensure people have digital literacy and understand the technology to move forward. Meeting owners have responsibility for the success of Hybrid meetings.
A great Digital First meeting experience is achievable.
For this company, we need a digital-first definition to drive policy and delivery of the right hardware.
Creators and Guests
Host
Marijn Somers
Microsoft MVP. Freelance Microsoft 365 expert focusing on user adoption and governance. Trainer. Licensed watchmaker.
Host
Steve Dalby
Podcaster "Office365Distilled" Driving Collaboration Business Goals, Speaking about Governance, Whiskey taster and imbiber all round father and good guy.
