Sparked by pandemic-era changes, the workplace has rapidly shifted to hybrid work. Yet for businesses to succeed with the new model, organizations need to trade up siloed workplace planning for a more extensive collaborative process that engages IT with its functional business counterparts.
Foundry reached out to the CIO Experts Network, a community of IT professionals and technology industry influencers, to identify the types of tools, inter-departmental processes, and best practices for building a winning strategy to empower hybrid work.
What was clear is the need for new levels of engagement on everything from transparent strategy review, joint needs analysis, prioritization of actions, a shared vision, and clear communications that enable effective decision-making, according to Kieran Gilmurry (@KieranGilmurray), CEO at Digital Automation and Robotics Limited.
“Hybrid work, improving employee experiences, and partnering on digital transformation initiatives require an agile collaborating model,” adds Isaac Sacolick (@nyike), president of StarCIO and author of Digital Trailblazer. “It starts with business and IT co-writing a vision statement around a proposed initiative and defining who the customers are, their workflow needs, automation opportunities, user experience factors, and the strategic importance of the program. When there’s an aligned vision, it often results in better, faster, and more secure solutions.”
Start with the vision
Communicating the hybrid work vision is central to fostering new levels of inter-departmental collaboration. Top leadership in IT and business must be onboard working to actively reinforce the company’s hybrid work strategies and goals. “When the team begins to share a vision and gets a sense of belonging, disruptions, and resistance to change starts disappearing,” says Dipti Parmar (@dipTparmar), chief strategist at Dipti Parmar Consulting and co-founder at 99stairs.
Clearly defining objectives as well as key performance indicators can help align each department around shared goals, create transparency, and provide a sound basis for improvement and evaluation, advises Scott Schober (@ScottBVS), president and CEO at Berkeley Varitronics Systems Inc. The cross-functional team tasked with designing and executing hybrid work must focus on a strategy that ensures no staff member is disadvantaged either by working at home or from the office.
“A true hybrid business is likely to be a culture change for many businesses based on output so where employees work from needs to be purpose-driven,” adds Alex Farr (@AlexFarr_IT), chief technology officer at Christie Group.
Assembling the right tech stack
Technology obviously plays a critical role, both in enabling hybrid work for the enterprise and in connecting the cross-functional stakeholders involved in mapping out the right plan. IT leaders should concentrate efforts on providing continuous support to remote teams, selecting the optimal collaboration platforms along with tools for networking, and connectivity, and for guaranteeing unified and “equal” remote employee experiences, says Elitsa Krumova (@Eli_Krumova), a global thought leader and tech influencer.
Security considerations must be at the forefront, including technologies and strategies that trust, but verify user identities and that ensure a minimum baseline is required before network access is granted, explains Sawan Joshi, founder of TriStep.io. In addition to establishing the right permissions, IT organizations need to address a plan for patching and malware updates, implementing real-time detection sensors as well as deploying hardware controls that enable safeguards based on specific policies, Joshi adds.
A common platform for cross-functional communication is a must. A high-end solution such as a service management platform allows teams to track their operations on maintaining hybrid work from a centralized system. “There are also visual collaboration tools that enable teams to create diagrams detailing their hybrid work-related processes that make it easy for cross-functional team members to understand,” says Will Kelly (@willkelly), a writer focused on DevOps and the cloud.
Implementing agile cross-functional project teams to direct specific initiatives allows for more flexible and dynamic collaboration. A unified digital workspace, which functions as a virtual module for each department, can be customized with tools and features specific to each group’s unique needs while at the same time, providing a forum for easy interaction and access to general company resources.
Gamification of collaboration—creating challenges, competitions, and rewards to mark achievements—can help make teamwork fun, notes Gene De Libero (@GeneDeLibero), principal at Digital Mindshare LLC. “Also regularly gather feedback from all involved departments to refine and improve the collaboration processes and tools,” De Libero says. “Use this feedback to make data-driven decisions and foster a culture of continuous improvement.”
Beyond processes and tools, it’s important to make sure the entire workforce, working within a hybrid model, is clear about their roles and responsibilities. All of that is easier when people are in the office, as once they are working remotely, there is too much ambiguity.
“Roles change, responsibilities merge, and everyone needs to be crystal clear about what they need to do,” says Ben Rothke (@benrothke), senior information security manager at Tapad. “When that’s done, hybrid work becomes more beneficial and less confrontational.”
Click here to learn more about Cisco’s vision for empowering hybrid work.
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