Today, many business leaders are embracing a permanent shift to hybrid working, but to make the model truly successful in the long-term they must learn from the experiences of the last twelve months and put in place measures to empower employees to work at their optimum.
In particular, investing in the right technology will be essential to building a long-term hybrid model that works both for businesses and their employees. Audio technology has played a major part in the remote working experience, with research by EPOS and Ipsos showing that in 2021 the average worker spends over 7 hours a week on activities related to sound and meetings, an increase of two hours compared with the same study conducted in 2020.
The EPOS research also revealed a major discrepancy between the expectations of business leaders and employees around where people will be working in the future. More than half of all global decision-makers in workplaces surveyed believe employees will work more from the company address in the future than they do currently, compared with just 26% of employees.
Already many decision-makers are recognizing the importance of audio, with 86% planning to invest in audio in the next year, for example, 32% more employees will be offered headsets or personal speakerphones
While the hybrid model may mean fewer people commuting every day, the desire to work on the go is unlikely to change and businesses should enable those who want to work on the go with the best possible tools to do so. For those switching regularly between the home, office and elsewhere, flexible audio solutions enable them to make the most of their time. As we move to a hybrid set-up, meetings themselves are likely to become a hybrid experience with video collaborations solutions will become integral to enabling the digital workforce to become more collaborative, instantaneous, and intimate.
“Forward-thinking businesses making hybrid working plans must invest in the right technology to help curb the pain points their employees have been facing and continue to face ”, says Jeppe Dalberg-Larsen, President at EPOS. “Audio technology needs to be at the heart of this investment. While we may not know exactly what the future will look like, we know that the workplace is no longer simply a physical space, it is wherever you are. Businesses that succeed in our hybrid world will do so by listening to the needs of their employees, customers and other stakeholders. Only by doing this can we navigate the hybrid model. By audio technology that performs, wherever and whenever we do business, we can be professional as always.”