Meet Me At The Digital Water Cooler
Maintaining connection in the remote/hybrid workplace
If we’ve learned anything in the past couple of years, it’s that tech tools are vital in the remote/hybrid workplace. “A specific location is simply no longer a pre- requisite to working effectively or building a company culture,” wrote researchers Holger Reisinger and Dana Fetterer. “What’s more important is getting the right tools and technologies and using them effectively.” Their research found that 85% of the global work population believes that having constant access to high-quality technology — and developing a strong sense of confidence in their mastery of that technology — allows them to excel at work. And what is that technology? Laptops, of course, are powerhouses in the remote toolbox. And workers with employer-provided amenities like headsets and access to professional audio devices — rather than consumer-grade microphones and speakers that were built into their laptops — felt more included in meetings. But the real game-changers are productivity software and apps. In 2020, Zoom video conferencing was one of the most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with more than 500 million downloads. Strange to think that it has been around since 2011. Microsoft Teams began in 2017; by the start of 2022, it had 270 million users. Cisco WebEx, Google Meet and GoToMeeting are longtime heavy hitters in the cloud collaborative world. And now there’s a virtual snowstorm of productivity software and
apps — all crafted to meet specific needs — and most are easily integrated to work with the powerful, top-rated systems mentioned earlier. So how do you find your way through? First, determine your needs. How? Identify your organization’s top priority: Is it seamless face-to-face videoconferencing? Real-time col- laboration on complex projects? Implementing a solid task schedule with multiple deadlines? A combination of some or all of these? Then, research, research, research. Look to neutral, comprehensive online resources that frequently update databases of systems — what they offer, pros and cons included. Some worth noting are pcmag. com, TechRadar, TechnologyAdvice, Integrated Research (ir.com), BusinessNewsDaily and GetApp.com. That will get you to a short list. Your ultimate choice should be responsive, robust, secure, supported by reliable customer service and cost-effective. Most software as a service, or SaaS, systems are sub- scription-based and provide a range of products based on the number of users and time allotment, and some offer freemium features. SaaS can improve productivity through simplification. It removes complexity by giving organizations access to the most up-to-date, secure versions of critical software — without the need to install, maintain or update it. The system should also fill out the work experience.
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