Following more than three years of remote and hybrid work, employees are now faced with the consequences of a return to office mandates, as employers hope to reel workers back into the office in the coming months.
While some companies are seeing a steady return of employees, many other employers, managers, and human resource teams are having a hard time convincing employees to make a full return back to the office.
In fact, while a whopping 90% of companies plan to introduce return-to-office policies by the end of the year, following an August 2023 Resume Builder report, many workers are refusing to give up their schedule flexibility and remote work autonomy. In the same report, a robust 30% of companies have threatened to fire employees who are unwilling to comply with in-office mandates and requirements.
Many in the industry now call this new trend the Great Resistance, a possible new workplace trend that sees employees either jumping ship by resigning and looking for new work or simply refusing to abide by new in-office requirements.
Shifting How Employees Work, Communicate & Collaborate
Amid all the obstacles employers and companies are currently facing, outside of financial and economic pressure caused by rising costs and higher prices - workers who are challenging the new status quo could further add to productivity and output concerns.
As part of this "new normal" that could see droves of workers return to offices across the country in the coming months, executives and team leaders are hoping to find solutions in technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help reshape the way employees work, communicate and collaborate during their day-to-day activities.
Among the droves of employees looking to work from home permanently, easy online job scams and social media scams are now considered to be among the top scams for 2024, according to research provided by ExpressVPN, putting job seekers in another tight position while looking for new employment in an already competitive market.
Nonetheless, more than half of companies across the world have introduced digital tools and software as part of their strategy to increase employee productivity and overall output. This is following a December 2023 study polled by more than 11,500 employees in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
The London-based market research firm 3GEM, the company behind the poll, found that roughly 57 percent of employees have already started using generative AI tools in the office at least once per week. Furthermore, the poll showed that more than 22% of workers are using public generative AI tools at least daily, while 28% of people said they have yet to start using such tools at all.
While some employees are fearful that such AI tools could make their jobs obsolete in the coming years, companies continue heavily investing in the long-term potential of artificial technology due to the high productivity output they provide workers and teams.
Although it's still unknown to what extent AI will continue to develop or whether some of these platforms may ultimately replace employees once and for all, a study found that more than half of businesses - 56% - reported that productivity levels have positively improved since incorporating more AI-based digital tools.
These estimates closely resemble other research conducted by MIT Sloan School, which found that generative AI tools can help improve highly skilled worker's performance by more than 40% compared to those employees that don't use it.
Elsewhere, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that customer support agents witnessed a fourteen percent improvement in productivity and performance when using generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) AI tools.
For many businesses, this is only the beginning of a bigger transformational process that could help them overcome skill shortages, increased demand, and the odd chance workers refuse to return to the office.
However, this shouldn't be an end solution. Instead, experts believe that executives and team leaders should become more comfortable with the abilities of AI and technology and how the partnership between tech and human capital can ultimately bring a production shift within the creative and collaborative office environment.
Resist Nostalgia, Embrace Transformation
Technology's presence in the workplace continues to escalate year after year as new tools are brought to life, and highly skilled employees are finding comfort in marrying both real-world experiences with digital ones.
As demand for these tools continues to grow over the years, employers will need to look towards office tech tools that can help to support a creative workplace and, more importantly, help provide employees with a robust digital ecosystem that allows for seamless collaboration and communication.
Office Automation System
The integration of office automation systems has been around for years, and it's only recently that we've started paying more attention to these systems and tools. In a nutshell, office automation systems or OAS oversee the accurate transfer of data, information, and resources between employees, enabling faster communication, improved data storage and management, and overall reduced costs.
Think of tools that help to automate certain processes, such as electronic publishing, document processing and storage, office management, and electronic communication or collaboration.
The best everyday example of OAS could be something such as Microsoft Office 365, a product suite that helps to ease organization workloads with tools such as Microsoft Teams, and the assortment of resources provided by Azure AI, which helps to automate and facilitate administrative, financial, data and training tasks. Today, there are dozens of OAS tools available, from accounting software such as Xero to no-code office automation services such as BetterCloud.
Information Technology (IT)
Companies are spending a lot of money to have the most cutting-edge IT infrastructure. In fact, statistics show that businesses in the software, tech hosting, and cloud services industry are spending as much as 19% and 16% on IT infrastructure as a share of their revenue, respectively.
Information technology and network tools include both hardware - in-office and remote servers, to software tools - email services, remote reporting, and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). All of these tools help to provide automated service solutions for employees, keep networks safe and encrypted, and help with technical issues and troubleshooting support.
Something as small but seemingly complex as a VPN can help employees access endless information, resources, and tools that might otherwise be restricted in their location or not yet freely available.
Artificial Intelligence
By now, it shouldn't come as a surprise that artificial intelligence is making its way into offices across the world. AI is quickly becoming an essential part of every team, helping them to automate repetitive tasks and further strengthening their creative capacity by optimizing workflows and supporting process ideation.
Outside of the somewhat traditional facade that AI tools provide offices and teams, other aspects of this evergreen sector are further helping to detect risks in companies' long-term development strategies, helping to gather and sort through vast amounts of consumer data, and further improving decision-making.
On top of this, there are new AI protocols that are helping offices become more energy efficient, monitoring energy consumption and air quality, identifying sources that require maintenance, and automatically helping to reduce overhead costs for companies.
Artificial Intelligence, at its core, is more than having a quick solution for companies. This technology helps empower them to make more data-driven, informed decisions, facilitates the management of workflow and projects, and furthers the need for more efficient and sustainable workplaces.
Cybersecurity Infrastructure
It's estimated that roughly 69 percent of IT leaders and company executives are expected to increase their cybersecurity spending between 10% and 100% in 2023, according to a survey of more than 200 senior cybersecurity professionals by Infosecurity Europe.
Even more surprising is that 20 percent of professionals are anticipating budget increases of between 30% and 49% in the coming months, with the hopes of introducing more advanced cloud security infrastructure and incident reporting.
In the wake of the information (overload) era, where employees are soon to return to the office, companies are fast looking to increase their spending on keeping both the virtual workplace and customer information out of the wrong hands.
More than this, the rise of scams has already begun looking like a losing battle for some organizations, especially with the increase in government account takeover scams and the rise of deep fakes created by artificial intelligence.
Across the workplace, cybersecurity efforts are being introduced at a rapid pace, with tools such as Dell Technologies PowerProtect Cyber Recovery and safe networking solutions, including SD-WAN and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). As more of our work and everyday life moves online, we can only expect to see an increase in cybersecurity infrastructure taking shape to help protect us and our digital footprint.
Interconnected Office Technology
Linking every aspect of the office, both inside and outside the workplace, requires a robust system that can help to bring everything together in one secure place. One of these solutions has been interconnected office technology, almost something like Amazon Alexa for Business, but on a much wider and more sophisticated scale.
With interconnected office technology, team leaders can efficiently control the workplace with on-demand participation from all collaborators and third-party members. This would further enable them to track things such as customer engagement and overall satisfaction following a recent social media campaign or interaction via a chat room or phone call.
Where necessary, technology can be used to help make automated adjustments, such as decreasing or increasing spending on social media ads in areas that are receiving a higher click-through rate or minimizing potential barriers to communication between customers and teams.
Elsewhere, this technology can be applied to help manage supply chains, informing both employees and customers about potential shortages or informing them of delays in their delivery due to unforeseen circumstances that are out of their control. With integrated office technology, teams have more control and freedom to adjust their strategies based on real-world data and customer information.
Finishing Thoughts
The office environment is rapidly changing and has been experiencing a transformation throughout recent years. Technology is only further fueling this change, helping employees to automate tasks, improve their performance, and ultimately boost their productivity.
For employers, technology is not only a way to improve their bottom line but instead can help them find more suitable and modern ways of helping employees adjust to the return to office and implementing advanced solutions that can help them make more informed decisions without compromising on their creativity, collaboration and collective drive for innovation.
