What does a modern workplace look like and what have we learned from the past two years? Kevin Meuldermans is a Modern Workplace Specialist at Arxus. He takes a closer look at the most important trends of the past few years.
Within the Modern Workplace Tribe at Arxus, we focus on everything related to the modern workplace, and often specifically within the Microsoft 365 stack. We are less concerned with Azure, but focus on management tools such as Intune or Azure AD, for example. On the other hand, we also work on things related to security, such as Microsoft Defender.
From that perspective, we have seen the way of working change significantly over the past two years. There was a greater focus on flexibility and digitalization, but there was also the forced adoption of certain technologies. For many companies, it was a long and difficult search. In the meantime, the dust has settled and companies are once again faced with a choice: which changes will they keep, and which will require fine-tuning.
As a company, it is important to think carefully in advance about where you want to go. It has never been more interesting to migrate to the cloud, especially now that Microsoft is going to build its own datacenter in Belgium. Many customers are worried about how to make that switch to the cloud. As an inside partner of Microsoft, we can only recommend that you look and listen to your competitors. Or look for a partner such as Arxus to guide you in this step. In doing so, don't forget your own vision, where you stand in your maturity and where you want to go in the long run.
More and more companies are open to giving their employees more flexibility, but there are still many questions about exactly how to do it. When they look at how the way of working has changed, they often look at technological solutions. But actually, as a company you have to look more at the small things. These have changed the most in recent years.
Take the etiquette rules among colleagues. Before corona, you would have simply addressed them in the office if you had a question. That happens less and less. You can ask yourself if it's a good evolution. Why don't we spontaneously approach our own colleagues anymore and why are we so afraid of disturbing them? Technology should not be a blocker in this, but should strengthen collaboration.
We also see a great evolution in the area of meetings. Because we spoke to each other more digitally, long journeys became a thing of the past. This time was often filled with new meetings, which did not always benefit productivity. At Arxus we teach companies to look at their meetings objectively. Are they all necessary, and doesn't your employee need more focus time in between? Which meetings require a physical presence? And how do you ensure that everyone has a say in digital meetings?
On the one hand, you can solve some of these questions by equipping your meeting rooms with the right technology. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself whether you would not be better off holding creative and strategic meetings in which non-verbal communication is so important. As a company you will have to make conscious choices in the type of meetings and the spaces where they take place.
A final fact that CEOs are increasingly concerned with is the security of their company. Security is one of the big challenges thanks to massive digitalization in recent years. Not only have we started using more technology, we are also working more digitally. Especially in certain sectors, such as education with digitalization, the topic is booming.
Companies are searching for how to secure all data now that employees can and want to work from anywhere. It is our mission within the Modern Workplace Tribe to optimally combine flexible work and data security.