Future of Work
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF WORK?
The pandemic has changed not only how we work, but where we work from. Technology is enabling more employees to work from anywhere, affecting both worker productivity and organizational operating models.
Why have hybrid workplaces emerged?
Even before 2020, many organizations were investing in digital workplace technologies, but the global pandemic accelerated their adoption. Companies are increasingly adopting hybrid workplaces that provide their distributed, dynamic workforces with anytime/anywhere access to the resources and data they need to do their work. In addition to the flexibility these environments offer, they also help protect the health and safety of on-site employees with innovative technologies to support social distancing and enable health-related decisions and information-sharing based on actionable data.
What does the future of work look like across industries?
Different industries and types of workers have different workplace needs. Traditional office environments, manufacturing plants, retail locations, and medical facilities all have specific requirements for their ongoing business operations. Every sector faces its own unique challenges, and how each will react to future changes will differ.
What ties organizations together is an increasing reliance on digital technology to help employees deliver value. Organizations across industries and geographies have long looked to technology to help them become more efficient, profitable, and customer-focused. As remote work becomes more common, we will see a greater reliance on digital technologies to enable seamless productivity regardless of physical location.
What is the future of work for knowledge workers?
Knowledge workers, those who primarily handle or use information to do their jobs, were early adopters of remote and hybrid work models even before the pandemic. Many of these workers were already routinely working remotely, from home environments or from the road, prior to 2020. While many organizations with these workers were well positioned to shift to virtual environments in response to the pandemic, they will have to reinforce the intellectual property (IP) they have in-house with more targeted technology investments and more refined processes going forward.
How are companies evolving for the future of work?
Digital is the new normal—driving everything from business processes and tools to transformed customer experience. Decisions about digital transformation initiatives are driven by business outcomes and influenced by multiple business and technology stakeholders with different agendas and priorities.
In a future of hybrid work, the office may be less of a place to do work and instead provide opportunities to build connections within the company. Working from home (WFH) used to be a "nice to have" perk. In the future, it might be more standard. Knowledge workers could do most of their real work Monday through Thursday at home, then come into an office once a week to attend meetings, socialize with colleagues, and deal with any equipment or technology issues.
This realignment could save on real estate costs, but it will force companies to invest more in other areas, such as the overall employee experience. Technology will be an important delivery mechanism in this area, providing employees with a wider array of programs, services, tools, and other resources to reduce feelings of isolation and make workdays more engaging.
Collaboration technologies are another area of focus in the workplace of the future. In 2020, companies quickly focused on equipping workers with the hardware and software they needed to get basic tasks done at home. But in a workplace without boundaries, companies will need to do more to create access to different work experiences for different employees within the organization. Currently, remote connectivity is mostly following a one-size-fits-all approach. Going forward, different levels of connectivity, quality of service, and security must be addressed based on end-user requirements.
While the above is true for knowledge workers, the situation will be different for those in more heavily operational environments such as manufacturing plants, process facilities, refineries, construction sites, and others. In these workplaces, technology has a role to play in enabling greater levels of collaboration, efficiency, safety, security, and cost effectiveness. Automation will reduce the need for employees to perform basic operational tasks. Increased automation and the adoption of technologies such as augmented reality and remote collaboration will mean fewer workers will need to be located on site and potentially exposed to hazards in the workplace.
How is HPE evolving? What solutions does HPE provide for the future of work?
As technology is critical to enable employee productivity, HPE offers a range of solutions to support digital transformation across a range of different workspaces. And to help organizations quickly adapt more to the technology needs of the future workplace, many solutions are available via the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform so they can be quickly deployed in enterprise data centers, colocations, or edge locations.
HPE GreenLake cloud services and partnerships for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) enable you to power new ways of working with secure, scalable VDI delivered as a service. Configuration is tailored to the specific needs of different types of workers, speeding time to value and allowing you to align resources with demand. And they leverage technologies from key HPE partners including Citrix, Nutanix, NVIDIA, and VMware.
HPE Aruba Networking Remote Access Points (RAPs) and HPE Aruba Networking Virtual Internet Access (VIA) extend your enterprise network connectivity to mobile workers quickly and securely. In addition, HPE Aruba Networking VIA VPN offers robust, highly scalable VPN with zero touch provisioning, multi-level security, and remote management.
Expert IT consulting from HPE Pointnext Advisory and Professional Services offers design and implementation expertise to build a communication infrastructure that can support digital transformation and evolve with your business as you adapt to hybrid working environments. From network consulting to Internet of Things (IoT) services to client virtualization transformation services and more, HPE offers a variety of solutions to support your transformation to a digital workplace.