REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE

REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE HOW COVID-19 CRISIS COULD CHANGE THE FUTURE OF WORK

Even though many Middle East organisations have redoubled their efforts to bring employees back in the office, remote working has become a new reality. The pandemic and ensued lockdown left companies with no choice but to switch to remote work, which is now poised to become the new normal. Many surveys suggest that more than 50 percent of the global workforce continue to work from home, and a staggering 90 percent prefer the flexibility of continuing WFH in a postpandemic world.

With virtual teams and distributed workforces, what will be the future of work in 2021? Will this lead to a shift in IT investment priorities? What unique challenges will CIOs face within a hybrid model that combines both on-site and remote work?

There is no doubt that the workplace’s future will be different after 2020, says Stephen Gill, Academic Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai. “Although prior to COVID-19, a few companies had already embraced remote working, the sudden impact of the pandemic has certainly accelerated the switch to virtual workspaces. It has not only disrupted our jobs and our work environment; it has also prompted us to re-evaluate our roles as employers and employees, our objectives, our values, and how we achieve work-life balance.” While certain industries such as healthcare and logistics would need

Stephen Gill

Mena Migally

Fadi Kanafani

most of their employees to be on-site, organisations in other industries might consider going fully remote or hybrid. “A hybrid model will offer employees more autonomy to fit work around the rest of their lives, rather than organising their home-based routines in around their workhours,” says Gill. As we approach the end of 2020, it is becoming evident that the so-called new normal is set to be just normal, says Mena Migally, Regional Vice President, META at Riverbed. Consequently, companies are preparing for a largescale, long-term shift to remote work, where increasingly employees will ‘work from anywhere.’

Whilst the pandemic has demonstrated that many businesses could continue to operate outside of the traditional office space exclusively, an office environment does provide employees with invaluable human interaction and collaboration. Many organisations, including Riverbed, are shifting toward a hybrid and flexible workplace environment, in which many employees split their time between the office and working remote, he says.

Fadi Kanafani, Managing Director – Middle East at NetApp, also believes a hybrid workplace will be a reality for the foreseeable future as for many businesses not all employees will be required to work remotely – based on their role and responsibilities. “I believe more and more businesses will IN THE UAE AND SAUDI, 95% OF BUSINESS LEADERS WHO WE SURVEYED STATED THAT THEY ARE COMFORTABLE – BUT NOT FULLY PREPARED – FOR THE SHIFT TO REMOTE WORK, AND THAT THEY EXPECT, ON AVERAGE, 28% OF THEIR TEAMS TO WORK REMOTELY AFTER THE PANDEMIC.

have to offer employees the flexibility to work. We also see a stronger adoption of cloud technologies to allow organisations to maintain business continuity.”

Chris Pope, VP Innovation, ServiceNow, says the future of work is now. In his opinion, COVID-19 has created the perfect environment for innovation. “Practically overnight, the business world shifted to nearuniversal remote work — which we would have not previously thought possible — unleashing a new period of experimentation and innovation at work. At a time of great pressure, organisations have demonstrated that it’s possible to challenge established working practices and move quickly to adapt to new ways of working.”

Industry experts expect a growing number of employees to work outside the traditional office environment beyond 2021 as well. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly sped up digital transformation plans of most organisations and they have in a short span of time been able to implement technologies that have enabled remote working.

The recently released Riverbed Future of Work Global Survey 2020 paints a clear picture of where companies are, and where they intend to go. It is not surprising that globally, businesses expect a nearly 50% increase in employees working remotely post COVID-19.

In the UAE and Saudi, 95% of business leaders who we surveyed stated that they are comfortable – but not fully prepared – for the shift to remote work, and that they expect, on average, 28% of their teams to work remotely after the pandemic.

“I believe remote working is definitely here to stay considering

Chris Pope

Ehab Halablab

Alain Penel

the number of advantages, including lower overhead expenses and higher productivity as a result of less commute time and workplace distractions. Organisations also have the flexibility to create teams where skills are preferred over employees’ geographical location. Today’s UC applications have also made collaboration easier,” says Ehab Halablab, Regional Sales Director for Gulf, Levant & Egypt at A10 Networks.

Tackling the WFH dilemma

Remote work is here to stay. So now the question is, how do you manage your remote workforce? What tools and processes should you invest in?

“Firstly, companies must ensure that their access control policies ensure that all business-critical users and devices have access to the resources they need to perform their jobs. From there, businesses must also validate that these users and devices are secure. There are a number of security aspects that will only be magnified due to the sudden influx of devices connecting remotely to the network,” says Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East at Fortinet.

According to the Fortinet 2020 Remote Workforce Cybersecurity Report, nearly 60% of organisations revealed an increase in cybersecurity breach attempts following the transition to remote work, while 34% reported actual breaches in their networks.

While the shift to remote work is a challenge, it is also an opportunity for companies to build smart strategies to improve business continuity, employee retention, and overall growth, according to Kanafani from NetApp.

Businesses must provide remote employees with the right technology to conduct business activity and collaborate in a secure environment. In today’s business environment, remote working, resilience, and business continuity plans aren’t just the key to success, but the key to survival. Businesses must re-evaluate their IT infrastructure management, operations, and approach to automation, while accelerating their use of managed and cloud services – this provides not just the capability to effectively monitor and manage how employees access data, but they can also do it securely, he says.

Migally from Riverbed says in remote working scenarios, performance of applications can be impacted by several factors such as the reliability and bandwidth of employee’s home Internet connections, the need to utilise additional security related technologies such as VPNs, or even latency that could be introduced by having to backhaul all SaaS traffic through a central data centre. “It is imperative for organisations to address the performance of critical SaaS applications. In doing so, they will set themselves up for long-term success with the ability to radically accelerate time to market, increase competitiveness and drive revenue growth,” he says.

What will AI mean for the future of work?

AI and ML are already automating many repetitive and manual tasks and have enormous implications for the future of work.

“Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not entirely new, rapid technological advancement is definitely pushing the boundaries of what AI can do. AI has already begun to have a major impact on how people work and will continue to do so in the years to come. AI-driven tools are already executing some of the tasks that are usually performed by people and are also carrying out a few tasks that go beyond what people can do,” says Gill.

Pope from ServiceNow says AI can be used and adopted in many areas of an organisation but with a new workforce model and structure, the traditional boundaries and support mechanisms are challenged beyond their limits.

“As a consequence, improving employee experience, agent/work productivity, and ensuring service excellence, all become major candidates for driving outcomes for the digital worker. AI can therefore be used to empower and drive virtual agents and bots, deliver insightful and meaningful analytics, and drive continual improvement and measurement across services and processes,” he adds.