Hybrid working trends that will gain ground in India

Both 2020 and 2021 will go down in history books for many reasons. One of those is that the business world has become more distributed than ever -- customers, partners, and employees worked from their own locations and rarely been offices. As business leaders and HR organisations acknowledge, the work from anywhere model did not impact productivity over the past one and half years, and it is expected to continue in a post-pandemic world.   

As a response to the on-going crisis, many businesses redesigned their operations and reinvented the way they work, and in the process adopted a hybrid working model. Like rest of the world, India Inc. too adopted this model giving their employees flexibility, choice, and a fulfilling work experience. As higher workforce productivity turned out to be one of the prime benefits of the remote model, in the current scenario, more and more companies are looking forward to implementing newer work operating models.   

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According to NASSCOM’s Return to Workplace Survey, 70% of organisations in India are looking at a hybrid work model. And IT Services and Global Capability Centers (GCCs) are likely to be the early adopters of a long-term hybrid work model. For hybrid working to succeed truly, organisations must have the proper framework, insights, technology, and workspace investments in place to ensure they match the dynamic work styles of an increasingly distributed workforce.    

Collaboration will be the key   

As businesses thrived through motivate, collaborative, and productive teams, creating the best environment for deeper engagement and collaboration will be vital to the new hybrid working era. Group collaboration and social connections with colleagues and others will lead to exchange of ideas, with resulting innovation.   

According to Poly, the global communications company, organisations realise that their employees can be productive no matter their work location, provided they have the right collaboration tools. And to ensure that the hybrid working model is successful, companies should invest time in mapping out hybrid work strategies.   

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The company further predicts that this collaborative infrastructure will also complement the greater adoption of asynchronous work practices, a trend triggered by the pandemic. It will not just redefine how employees collaborate with one another but also help businesses rethink hiring practices and tap into a more global and diversified talent pool.  

Investments in technology set to increase   

For organisations, the key to successfully enabling flexible and working from anywhere is the ability to provide hybrid workers with the same access to tools, applications, and functionality at home as in the office. 

Businesses will focus on investing in technologies that not only minimises disruption in the day-to-day working of their employees but also significantly improves their working experience. There will be a huge demand for pro-grade technology and collaboration tools that drive better user experiences. While enabling hybrid work, companies will also ensure that their employees have the tools they need to constantly delight their customers.    

Data security will be of prime importance  

In a distributed work environment, protecting an organisation’s data becomes extremely difficult. With the devices moving in and out of the company network, the chances of malware attack are very high. Making employees aware of such threats, help them understand the required security hygiene, and taking them through data protection policies will be the key.   

Organisations will have to regularly evaluate their cyber security and compliance processes. As Gartner recommended in its hybrid work report for CIOs, organisations should address issues around the integrity of data, security, technical capacity and capability, and business outcomes by reviewing employee behaviour.   

Apart from creating awareness, businesses will be looking to include the use of data encryption and data wiping in the security guidelines and provide time-to-time training on the usage of these solutions. With the dependency on the cloud services increasing due to the flexibility and resiliency, the enterprises will enhance their focus on protecting the data stored on the cloud.   

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Most importantly, zero-trust model will gain prominence, wherein every employee will continuously go through authentication protocols to access any data on the company’s network. And every user within the corporate setup will get restricted access to systems and applications required for performing their jobs.   

Bring Your Own Meeting (BYOM) to be the employees’ preferred choice   

One of the biggest trends to have emerged in this hybrid working model is Bring Your Own Meeting (BYOM). Seen as an extension of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), employees will prefer using their own personal devices while hosting or attending any meeting. This whole concept is helping both employers and employees do away with the hassles of a meeting and bringing flexibility, thereby creating an ideal environment for a smooth in-person or hybrid meeting experience.    

Apart from enhanced communication and collaboration, organisations are also set to benefit from BYOM model. They can recruit talent from anywhere and set them up with collaborative and efficient workflows.