How IT and HR Leaders Energize Innovation by Partnering on Hybrid Work

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A successful hybrid work program includes effective online collaboration and information sharing so remote workers can be productive at home and feel like they are contributing as much as their onsite colleagues

Upgrading remote work solutions is an important first step to improving employee experiences, enabling near-real-time issue resolution when remote employees escalate problems, and establishing hybrid work as a differentiating employee benefit. Recent research shows that 66% of business decision-makers are investing in the technologies required to empower employees in a hybrid workforce.

Leading organizations are extending their hybrid work objectives because hiring and retaining talented people is needed to stay competitive and accelerate digital transformation. Today, organizations must drive product innovations, optimize business processes, improve customer experiences, and enable remote workers to take on more challenging work assignments. IT and HR leaders, including CIOs and CHROs, should partner on hybrid work to drive a second wave of hybrid work innovation and productivity benefits.

Take a customer-centric approach when evolving hybrid work

Providing employees with a reliable, high-speed, and secure remote access solution is a starting requirement to support a hybrid work program. CIOs and CHROs should take a persona-based approach when seeking the second wave of hybrid work capabilities enabling innovative collaborations, workflow optimizations, and more ambitious remote work assignments. 

Here are examples of remote work personas.

• Customer-facing professionals - Customer service agents, account representatives, sales professionals, and other employees who interact with customers regularly and must deliver a positive customer experience  
• Knowledge workers - Marketers, DevOps engineers, and data scientists who collaborate with onsite employees, remote workers, and third-party partners
• Operational managers – People with managerial responsibilities charged with improving operations and delivering quality services with hybrid working teams
• IT Service Management (ITSM) specialists - IT and information security professionals tasked to oversee infrastructure, resolve remote working issues, respond to employee requests, and proactively address security risks
• Enterprise service professionals - HR, legal, finance, and other service functions that have staffers responding to employee issues and requests 

CIOs and CHROs should review these personas and identify the types of experiences, technologies, and services the organizations can provide to support the second wave of hybrid work. Here are three examples.

1. Transform agile collaborations from virtual calls to AR/VR experiences

Hybrid work collaborations today use virtual meeting technologies like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, asynchronous messaging tools like Slack, and whiteboarding tools like Miro and Balsamiq. These 2D experiences will give way to the next generation of more immersive collaboration technologies like AR/VR, experiences with integrated real-time generative AI capabilities, and platforms that support interactive town halls of hundreds to thousands of people.

These collaborations will require IT to provide higher bandwidth 5G remote access options while HR should prioritize which departments and functions to pilot programs and learn best practices. 

Who stands to benefit the most: Customer-facing professionals, knowledge workers, and operational managers, especially for large departments. Also, businesses with integrated physical and real-world experiences, such as businesses in retail, healthcare, and education industries.

2. Expand operating hours, increase services offered, and improve operating metrics

Today’s business processes are a mix of automation, machine learning capabilities, and business decisions made by trained professionals. These business processes include back-office functions such as legal teams performing contract reviews, HW professionals onboarding employees, or IT teams responding to end-user requests. They also include industry-specific functions performed by wealth managers, marketing agencies, insurance providers, law offices, and technology managed service providers.

What do these service professionals have in common? First, they all compete to increase customer satisfaction, deliver more services, improve quality, and drive efficiencies. Second, people’s performance and contributions will be the differentiators as technology, automation, and machine learning become more ubiquitous.

CIOs and CHROs should seek how remote working professionals can expand operations, including service periods, offerings, and quality metrics. They can plan different scenarios, asking, “If we enable more remote working with these schedules and skills, then what aspects of our services can be improved?”

Who stands to benefit the most: All service professionals, including IT, enterprise, operations, and customer service.

3. Improve productivity by shifting more responsibilities to remote workers

Recent studies show that hybrid and remote workers are more productive, happier, and healthier.

These findings should invite CHROs and CIOs to seek a second generation of business process and productivity improvements by shifting work traditionally performed “onsite” to work that remote workers can perform equally or better.

Can a highly specialized sports injury radiologist perform a real-time MRI diagnostic from her home concerning a professional athlete injured in a remote location? How about requesting a remote field technician to guide emergency repairs of a factory’s malfunctioning equipment? Can a luxury goods retailer summon a specialist to advise a walk-in customer on product selection?

These examples illustrate a shift in capabilities, where highly specialized professionals can provide real-time services from their homes when the business really needs them. The trend starts with IT, HR, and business leaders recognizing that hybrid work is not just about improving the productivity of today’s business processes but expanding what responsibilities remote workers can take on with greater skill and efficiency.

Who stands to benefit the most: Customer-facing professionals, knowledge workers, and enterprise service professionals.

Executives can view the shift to remote and hybrid working as temporary or recognize where enabling more remote capabilities can drive greater efficiencies and innovations. CIOs partnering with CHROs can lead organizational thinking and challenge the status quo around hybrid work at a time when hiring and retaining skilled employees remains challenging.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Verizon.