Modern Working in 2022: 6 Things to Prepare For

As your organization embraces the new year, how are you preparing for changes to modern working?

Millions of businesses have altered the way they work, and we can expect some of these shifts in the workplace to become permanent. Each business is different, and its context is unique. However, the following six predictions can help your organization plan for changes to the modern workplace this year.

6 changes that could affect modern working in 2022 

Here are six of the most important trends in the modern workplace that we can expect to develop over the next year—let’s take a look at what they mean for businesses and how you can prepare:

1. Hybrid working becomes permanent

While in many places workers are now returning to the office, hybrid working will become a permanent feature of the modern workplace in 2022. Although the exact numbers are not yet known, Gartner predicts that around 40% of employees will work remotely at least part of the time post-pandemic.

How to prepare: If you haven’t already, you will need to set up policies and experiment with different home/office balances for modern working. Investing in suitable technology is also going to be key.

The cloud is of course essential here, with environments like Microsoft 365, teams have a complete set of productivity tools that allow them to work from anywhere. Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) will also be invaluable, allowing your staff to work remotely and securely while utilizing your organization’s enterprise technology on their personal devices. You’ll also need to add Mobile Device Management into the mix to ensure you have control over how employees access your content, data from outside the office, and what they can do with it.

2. More collaboration internally and externally

This year we can expect to see growth in the amount of collaboration happening digitally, both inside organizations (co-workers) and externally (customers, partners, vendors, etc.). And with businesses relying on digital tools for collaboration more than ever, it will become more mainstream to use platforms like Teams to work with these contacts, rather than traditional methods such as email and phone calls.

How to prepare: Companies that use Microsoft Teams can really benefit from learning about its latest features. For example, with Teams Connect, Microsoft will soon allow employees to collaborate smoothly with Teams users outside their organization. They will also be able to start using the new ‘Mesh’ for Microsoft Teams, which uses VR to create employee avatars and customizable digital meeting rooms for ‘face to face’ meetings.

 

3. More fluid work

In a knowledge-intensive economy, your staff doesn’t simply perform the same tasks over and again, in disconnected bubbles. Modern working involves touching base with a number of different collaborators throughout the day. So, the process of interacting with other employees will become much more fluid in 2022.

How to prepare: Identify processes and technologies that can support this more flexible and fluid modern working. And finding ways to support interpersonal collaboration and allowing meetings wherever people are based is vital. For example, the newly announced Microsoft Loop app provides a flexible canvas of work where employees can merge and sync work from multiple Microsoft apps and collaborate with coworkers more easily.

Looking for a Microsoft partner with world-class support, professional services and unique value-added services all under one roof? Get started with MessageOps today!

4. Digital assistants will grow

Chat bots and various other forms of artificial intelligence will play a growing role in business operations this year. The technology has matured, meaning it can take on many of the more manual and repetitive tasks your employees have performed in the past.

How to prepare: If you are not already using robotic process automation (RPA), chat bots or other forms of artificial intelligence, investing in this technology as soon as possible is essential. The modern workplace is going to rely on AI bots as the first point of contact with customers—from automating simple work flows through to supporting customers—and advanced tech is saving companies countless hours and boosting efficiency. Microsoft’s Power Virtual Agents is one example, which lets you build a chatbot to support customers and partners, and it can be embedded in other apps such as Microsoft Teams.

5. The ‘citizen developer’ concept will expand

With a generation of digital native employees entering the workforce, it’s vital to give them the flexibility they expect. Many will wish to create their own tools and apps to enhance their day-to-day work.

How to prepare: Microsoft’s Power Apps provide an effective way of achieving this. With Power Apps, employees can quickly create tools that boost their productivity and help the business work more effectively. Requiring no or minimal knowledge of coding, Power Apps is an excellent way of encouraging citizen developers.

 

6. Companies will look to retake control of the cloud

During the pandemic, countless businesses rapidly expanded their use of the cloud, which was vital to supporting them during the initial stages of remote working. But many companies have paid a higher cost than originally planned to use this technology. This year, many companies will start looking to regain control of these costs by renegotiating contracts with suppliers and trying to manage their cloud environments more efficiently.

How to prepare: Taking a more rigorous approach to monitoring cloud subscriptions is vital, and firms will benefit from continually scanning for spikes in their cloud bills. Technology like Inscape Multicloud Cost Management and Inscape Anomaly can support businesses with unparalleled visibility.

Technology to manage the modern workplace 

As these six predictions indicate, the modern workplace in 2022 will be radically different to anything we’ve seen before. And underpinning it all is reliable and secure technology that responds to your changing needs.

Most companies are now using the cloud to support modern working – letting them enable remote workers, tech-native Gen Z’ers or collaborative part-time staff. And staying on top of these ever-changing cloud costs will become increasingly important.

That’s where platforms like Inscape can help. Inscape is a cloud management solution that lets you monitor usage, costs and employee activity on all major cloud platforms. To learn more about how Inscape can help you respond to the changing requirements of the modern workplace, contact us today.