{"id":235823,"date":"2021-03-02T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/?p=235823"},"modified":"2023-06-19T11:17:32","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T18:17:32","slug":"hybrid-work-is-here-are-you-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2021\/03\/02\/hybrid-work-is-here-are-you-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"Hybrid work is here. Are you ready?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At Microsoft, we believe that hybrid work<\/a> is the future. Moving forward, every organization will need a new operating model for hybrid work\u2014one that doesn\u2019t rely on old norms, like the 8-hour, 9-to-5 workday. Employee expectations have changed for good<\/a>, with more than 80 percent of managers saying they expect more flexible work from home policies post-pandemic, and more than 70 percent of employees saying they plan to take advantage of them. To compete in this new world, leaders need to embrace extreme flexibility in when, where, and how people work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every customer I talk to wants to empower people for a world of work that is dynamic, fluid, and cloud-powered. They want to find ways for people to work not just from anywhere but at any time, with solutions that allow both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. And it\u2019s a \u2018whole organization\u2019 shift. From IT, to HR, to operations, to marketing and manufacturing\u2014this is a conversation that requires leaders across the entire organization to come together to rethink work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As students of the new world of work, we\u2019ve been experimenting and sharing what we learn as work evolves. Today, I want to share our approach to empower your employees around the world for a flexible work<\/a> world. It\u2019s a three-part strategy: First, create policy to empower people for extreme flexibility. Second, reimagine physical spaces. And third, invest in technologies that connect people anywhere and anytime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a look at each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create policy to empower people for extreme flexibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The choices you make today will impact your organization for years to come. It\u2019s a moment that requires a clear vision. You need a plan and policies that put you on the path to extreme flexibility. These decisions will impact everything from how you shape culture to how you attract and retain talent to how you respond to changes in the environment to future innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many organizations have already stepped forward with strong stances on flexible work. Twitter declared<\/a> its workers could work remotely \u201cforever.\u201d Dropbox announced<\/a> it will essentially eliminate office space for focused work, transforming physical locations to cater to meetings and collaboration. Spotify hopes<\/a> to lure talent with New York and San Francisco-level salaries for employees working remotely anywhere in the world. And at Microsoft, employees can now work from home up to 50 percent of the time<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empowering people for extreme flexibility begins with answering critical questions: Who will be able to work remotely? Who will need to come into the office, and for what amount of time? When people do focused work, where will they do it? What about collaborative work? And in a world where ongoing disruption is part of the new normal\u2014with natural disasters, geopolitical events, and global health crises\u2014you need to be prepared to respond to sudden changes. New, flexible policies take the answers to these questions and codify them, providing clarity and guidance to employees as they experiment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reimagine your physical spaces<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019ve determined your policies for extreme flexibility, use them to guide your approach to physical space. From here on out, we will no longer rely solely on physical spaces to collaborate, connect, and build social capital. But space will still be important. We\u2019re social animals and we want to get together, bounce ideas off one another, and experience the energy of in-person events. Moving forward, office space needs to bridge the physical and digital worlds and meet the unique needs of every team\u2014and specific roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purposeful design<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At Microsoft we\u2019re surveying employees and looking at everything from social graphs to employee traffic patterns to understand how to equip teams with the spaces they need, knowing those needs will evolve over time. Sales teams who need to come to the office infrequently can use a hoteling model to book workstations for the day or hour, while engineering teams may need dedicated collaboration spaces and workstations. To accommodate remote workers, we\u2019re exploring offsite coworking hubs. Because we know how we work will continue to evolve, we\u2019re building flexibility into every space we design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Connecting the physical to the digital<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also critical to think about bridging the gap between in-person and remote experiences. Working together when everyone is in the office is fairly straightforward. And over the last 12 months, we\u2019ve figured out how to get things done when everyone is at home. It\u2019s how to handle that messy middle\u2014when some people are physically together and others are joining virtually\u2014that\u2019s going to be a challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s state-of-the-art Microsoft Teams Rooms include high-quality audio and video to help everyone be seen and heard. Meeting room cameras deliver high-definition video streams and optimize the view by framing the people in the room or following the active speaker. Intelligent speakers identify who in the room is speaking, and individual names and profiles are represented in meeting transcripts. Features like live captions, live transcription, raise hand, reactions, and chat help people follow along and offer opportunities to chime in non-verbally or without interrupting the speaker. Digital whiteboards\u2014accessible both in the room and at home\u2014foster collaboration and co-creation. People onsite can ink directly on a Surface Hub or from their own phone or laptop and remote participants can draw on the same shared digital canvas. In addition, our Intelligent Capture cameras can capture, focus, resize, and enhance analog whiteboard images and text, so remote attendees can clearly see brainstorming in real-time, even when someone is standing in front of the whiteboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All of this is available today in Microsoft Teams Rooms<\/a>, but we\u2019re just getting started. We see a not-so-distant future where meetings become immersive experiences that allow us to \u2018be there\u2019\u2014from anywhere and at any time. Our vision for the future includes changes to meeting room layouts; the addition of multiple screens create dynamic views of participants, chat, whiteboards, content, and notes; and enhancements to in-room technologies to help remote participants track and participate in the flow of the meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n