The new demands of the 2020 workforce

The workforce of 2020 is undergoing one of the biggest shifts in modern industrial history as a result of Covid-19. While many industries are having to place their employees on standby, those organisations who need to ensure business continuity are asking many of their employees to work remotely from home.

This comes at a time when our employees’ expectations for engaging workplace experiences were already changing rapidly. The ways in which we work as teams and the timelines of projects are becoming more dynamic and complex. We also have heightened expectations for intuitive tools and technology for making our work lives easier.

To help your organisation prepare for the new workplace landscape in 2020 and beyond, here are some of the key drivers of workplace experience and the solutions that can keep your workforce engaged and productive.

Creating business continuity through connectivity

Keeping the wheels turning is obviously one of the biggest priorities for every business right now, but disruption is inevitable when so many of our employees aren’t able to work from the office. The biggest immediate question is: how do we keep our employees connected to the business and their work, as well as our customers?

This begins with your network management and monitoring to understand who and what is accessing your data. Achieving this visibility can be difficult when employees are working from unassigned devices at home, which is why assigning device assets is so crucial for monitoring and maintaining connectivity.

Driving productivity and creativity

For better or worse, our employees’ productivity is now inextricably linked to the tools and technology they rely on to complete their tasks each day. A 2019 study found our employees already waste an average of 2.4 hours a week grappling with inadequate or ill-suited technology, and 80% of the people surveyed felt they don’t currently have the technology to do their jobs properly.

Our organisations are connected and run by applications, so it’s essential to ensure each employee has a complete toolkit of applications to complete their unique role. This is particularly the case for your “creators” who need powerful devices for running the next-generation software that allow them to create the new products, services, content, and innovations that your business relies on.

Facilitating conversations and collaboration

While face to face conversations will always be valuable, we need to find ways to continue conversations when we aren’t physically in the same room. Likewise, our projects cannot be hampered because of the time it takes each team member to relay information back and forth. In fact, we know from one study that 83% of workers now depend on technology to collaborate.

Rather than relying on email chains to keep track of communication, organisations are increasingly turning to cloud-based tools such as Slack or Microsoft Teams for tracking projects and having dynamic real-time conversations. They’re also leveraging new meeting tools from Skype and Zoom to put people in the same room – no matter where they are in the world.

Seamless and intuitive security

It is an inevitability that your organisation will suffer at least one data breach or cyber attack this year, if it hasn’t already had several. While IT leaders may be aware of the risks, your employees are actually the weakest link when it comes to security strategies, with 34% of data breaches now being attributed to either careless or malicious insiders.

At the same time, we can’t ask our employees to spend their workday monitoring for security threats. They need devices and security systems that can do this work for them in the background, with minimal interruption required for data and network access. While protecting the network and infrastructure is still a vital priority, without robust in-built endpoint security, your users and your data are exposed.

Meeting the new demands of the 2020 workforce requires a commitment to providing the best available tools and technology to your employees so they can get their work done and continue serving your customers. Here at Southern Cross Computer Systems, we’ve partnered with HP to bring you the next-generation devices that will keep your employees connected, engaged, and secure.

HP’s Elite Dragonfly powered by 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 vPro processor is the world’s lightest compact business convertible with the performance capabilities for powering your employees’ most demanding applications. Equipped with features such as HP Sure Start Gen5, this self-healing BIOS prevents firmware attacks that can completely devastate employee PCs.