- February 2, 2021
-
Georg Dauterman
- 4 min
The past year presented many challenges for businesses of all sizes to overcome. A global pandemic, financial fallout, and the need to rethink traditional workplace models to maintain operations were all a part of what 2020 threw at us.
Our collective shift to working from home has been made possible because of technological advancements over the past decade. It’s an ongoing experiment that will test how we function, collaborate, and grow moving forward.
The Modern Workplace has arrived, it isn’t going anywhere, and that’s a good thing.
What does the “Modern Workplace” mean?
Buzzwords tend to appear out of nowhere, often have technical origins, and are used to impress others. There was a time when “Modern Workplace” was a textbook example of a buzzword, but it has entered the business lexicon through its unexpected and widespread adoption throughout 2020.
We view the term as one that defines businesses that embrace collaboration and technology that cause positive change. It’s more than which platforms you choose to adopt. It’s about how you use them to create a collaborative and flexible business culture that leverages technology for productivity, efficiency, and positive experiences that foster growth.
From our point of view, the Modern Office consists of 4 key components:
Modern business tools
Software and systems that aren’t bound to a physical location, while offering a secure and efficient day-to-day experience is the most critical component of the Modern Workplace. This includes computers, laptops, mobile devices, and virtualized desktops hosted in a public or private cloud.
Improved collaboration
Platforms enabling effortless collaboration between employees, including voice and video communications, file sharing, and co-authoring of information offer actional insights and productivity.
Security and compliance
The Modern Office lacks a traditional network perimeter that can be safeguarded by contemporary methods. Security must be approached differently, with end-to-end solutions that equally guarantee the safety of your employees and business data.
Actionable Business intelligence
Your data is more valuable than ever, and many tools that fit into the Modern Workplace help you understand your data in ways that allow for decisions based on insight into your business that weren’t accessible in the past.
What we’ve learned and how we’ve grown
Valiant has always had a vibrant and well-established office culture. Our office is a place where we work, learn, and celebrate our successes together. It means a lot to us, but like most fortunate enough to have the ability to work remotely, we shifted to a hybrid work from home model last March.
The rapid shift was a bit chaotic as we adjusted how our team and clients work, filled with unknowns and the need to deliver solutions on the fly. Embracing the ideals of the Modern Workplace a year earlier paid off in dividends. The ultimate lesson learned is that our office is not our business. Our people, philosophy, and mission we set out each day to accomplish are.
The most important takeaway has been the need to set clear goals and expectations for us while using newly found flexibility to provide exceptional service to clients, many of whom are experiencing similar scenarios within their businesses. It’s been a learning experience for me, our entire team, and our clients – and we’ll all grown as a result. Defined expectations and metrics to monitor mean more than hours spent on a task and have the added benefit of aiding better-informed decisions.
Where does the Modern Workplace go from here?
For our team and many of our clients, the next step is leveraging the systems already in place to help create a truly hybrid business culture. Our team members who are 100% remote must have the same experiences as team members who spend time in our office.
Our vision of a truly hybrid model means the continued decoupling of location and performance, an ever-growing focus on security and compliance, further cultivation of training materials that enable ourselves and our clients to do more – more collaboratively, efficiently, and secure than ever before.
Interested in learning more? Join us during our upcoming live stream, The Modern Workplace Defined, this Thursday at 10:30 AM!
Didn’t get a chance to watch us live? No problem! All of our live streams, webinars, and original video content can be watched on our YouTube channel.
