What is hybrid working and how does IT facilitate it?

What is hybrid working?

Hybrid working means that people work partly at home and partly at the office. They usually only visit the office a few times a week and do the rest of their work at home or at another location of their choice. It turns out that, partly due to the benefits of modern technology, we can actually do a lot of work anywhere.

Collaborating on and in documents, having access to an entire application landscape or holding meetings and conferences via, for example, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex: it's all possible. Ultimately, hybrid work increases our options for work-related choices in time and space. It also leads to a different division of work weeks. The ratio of working from home to being in the office is moving towards 50/50, while working from 9 to 5 is no longer the dominant norm. This makes both individual employees and organizations more flexible.

The office as a meeting place

Does this mean that the office will become something from the past? And that you will have to miss out on those pleasant conversations or productive physical moments with your colleagues from now on? Experts do not expect this. The office will continue to play an important role in the hybrid future.

The physical office will probably develop more and more into a place to meet and connect. Sometimes you just need to sit around the table and look each other in the eye. The office of the future will primarily be a place to gain energy and inspiration. The added value of the office shifts from offering a place to work to providing a space where people can work together, connect, share knowledge and network. The focus will therefore lie much more on the wishes of the user.

How do you facilitate hybrid working?

Hybrid working is therefore not a fleeting phenomenon, but the dominant form of work of  the future. But how do you facilitate hybrid working? In any case, make sure that you arrange the following things properly.

1.    User-friendly technology

Technology plays an important role in the successful implementation of hybrid working. So make sure that it is user-friendly, accessible and meets the needs of the users. For example, systems and applications that do not work well together and cannot communicate with each other are disastrous for your employees' experience. Make sure that the technology is right and clear to everyone, and above all that IT is an addition to the optimal performance of everyone's task rather than a frustration or hindrance. Good connections and high availability of applications are a good example of this.

2.    Harness the power of the cloud

The cloud offers plenty of opportunities to give employees access to the right data, documents and applications anytime, anywhere. Create a good (managed) document management system in the cloud that is easily accessible from the hybrid workplace. Sharing information and working (together) on documents has never been easier, thanks to solutions such as Teams and SharePoint.

3.    Reserve space for physical meetings

Although working where and when you want is attractive, human beings remain social and cooperative animals. Physical meetings are therefore crucial for team spirit, motivation and unity in a team. You should therefore, as an IT manager, regularly reserve space for formal and informal contact moments. Think for example of joint brainstorming sessions about the possibilities and challenges of hybrid working. Or brainstorming sessions about new IT solutions. Drinks (possibly virtual), a lunch or workshop outdoors are good examples of informal activities.

4.    Ensure good connectivity

We work more and more data-driven. This means that we are taking strategic decisions and designing business processes based on insights derived from hard data. Technologies such as AI and machine learning enable us to access huge amounts of information quickly and automatically. But a data-driven way of working requires good connectivity. You need to have the required equipment and connections to get data to the right place quickly. Investing in connectivity is therefore a must to make hybrid and remote working a success.

5.    Think about safety

Hybrid working also brings new security challenges. You have to deal with more external users and devices within the network that demand access to data. You also have less visibility into what users are doing when they work from home instead of the office. Do they always install the latest security updates on their devices? Do they open any suspicious attachments? And do they always send important information and documents using a secure connection?

The solution is a clear and unified authentication and access policy that uses MFA and clearly defined user roles and access rights. Set minimum security requirements that a device or user must meet to access the corporate network or certain data. Creating security awareness among employees through training and workshops is also a good way to make hybrid working more secure.

How does Eurofiber BE help?

Eurofiber is happy to help you make hybrid working a success and has the expertise and the right tools for this.

We facilitate hybrid working with the following solutions:

• A reliable and vital infrastructure that allows you to move data quickly through the network and integrate all your key applications and systems.
• An uptime of 99.9 percent, ensuring that important tools, applications and systems are available virtually anywhere, anytime.
• 24/7 surveillance and monitoring to ensure safety at all times.
• Lightning fast fiber-optic connections that provide optimum connectivity and facilitate the fast and safe transmission and reception of data.
• A private cloud separated from the internet. This allows for a direct connection to the cloud without using the public internet.

More information

Would you like to know more about hybrid working and the solutions Eurofiber provides to facilitate this way of working of the future? Then feel free to contact us without obligation.