By Adam Coleman (opens in new tab)
Photo credit: iStock
Many of us will remember 2020 for masks, social distancing, loss in all its facets, and the upheaval of how we approached our daily lives in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. IT Decision Makers (ITDMs) and Business Decision Makers (BDMs) had a unique perspective, having been forced to quickly adapt to the situation and the needs of their suddenly remote workforce, as well as planning for the future amidst continued uncertainty. Between April – September 2020 we held recurring conversations with a select group of these decision makers in the US, UK, and AU. Their experiences during this time fell into four distinct phases:
Phase One: Reactionary crisis management
With days to respond, business leaders quickly faced the reality that their operations could not continue as they had been, and (for some) the very existence of their business was at risk. Pre-pandemic emergency plans assumed that disasters would be limited to specific places and that recovery would be about moving work elsewhere or using resources from outside the affected location. COVID-19’s global impact pushed conventional disaster plans past their limits, and in many cases new plans needed to be invented on the fly.
As the concept of a traditional office changed to support ‘work from home’ (WFH) scenarios, leaders quickly scaled tools, providing the hardware and/or equipment that employees needed to do their jobs remotely. Employees were granted access to virtually all tools they needed to be productive – even when that created redundancies or disregarded precedent. The focus was on saving the business.
Phase Two: Stabilization and early assessment
By May, most companies had been able to accomplish a full shift to remote work and were focused on optimizing the experience through fine tuning the following, depending on company circumstances:
- Rapid digital transformation: Companies didn’t try to adapt technology to how the company had previously done business. Instead, they scaled the technology, driving employees to adapt to it. Most companies stuck with technology they already had or were already deploying. This unorthodox way of bringing in digital transformation bought organizations both time and cost savings.
- Expedited software rollouts: Many of the decision blockers that stall software rollouts were thrown out to get employees enabled to work from home. Under the constraints of a pandemic, these companies found ways to work around technology challenges to keep the business running.
- Uneven geographic distribution: The uneven geographical distribution and timing of COVID-19 had both pros and cons: it was a major operational challenge for coordinating logistics overall, while allowing for fast discovery and adoption of best practices in some instances. Some companies used their experiences in China and Europe as a guide to prepare for COVID-19 in the US. This allowed companies to have communications and a procedure in place as new parts of the globe were placed on lockdown or as parts could open back up.
- Impact on budgets: Most companies shifted their business into a ‘safe mode’ to cut costs. Travel, new hires, contractors, special projects, and R & D were the first to get reduced or cut in the short term. Some companies also cut salaries, encouraged voluntary retirement, furloughed employees, or worse, had layoffs. Conversely, ITDMs indicated increased expenditure on hardware, as many employees who did not need portable hardware in the past now needed laptops. Some companies went so far as keeping end-of-life laptops and reimaging them to send back out to employees in need of devices to plug the short-term gap.
Phase Three: Efficiency and future planning
By June, decision makers had a sense that they could begin to transition into an office environment by September in some locations. They began planning which employees absolutely needed to be in the office, which could work fully remotely, and how the majority would most likely rotate between the two. This raised questions as to how companies could attract and retain talented employees in the future where on-site company culture/benefits may no longer be a key differentiator. Companies also began thinking ahead to the physical needs for a safe working environment.
Recognizing that a hybrid work environment was likely here to stay drove leaders to focus on how to better aid employees’ challenges to be both productive and collaborative from home. Having the same work from home experience themselves also challenged leaders about their prior (generally negative) assumptions and beliefs on the effectiveness of enabling remote work. While moving to work from home had driven higher employee output, many leaders we spoke to saw these productivity gains happening via longer working hours rather than increased efficiency. IT suddenly found themselves at the center of strategic decisions given how they were seen to have ‘saved the company’ at the outset, and were the department most able to enable better solutions for employees working from home. Many ITDMs see this greater inclusion in strategic decisions continuing in the future with some employees in the office full time, some a few days a week, and some fully remote needing commiserate support to enable optimal productivity in each scenario.
Phase Four: Stalled restarts and hybrid futures
By late September there was real frustration that a return to the office had not been possible and was not likely to be feasible for some time. BDMs particularly struggled with burnout given the sheer breadth of new challenges they had to cover, such as: employees relocating to new states or countries, client revenues falling, and the energy needed to connect with the employee base on a much more regular, personalized basis.
At the same time, leaders could see a very clear opportunity for companies and employees to mutually benefit from a flexibly located workforce. A future where employees can experience more flexibility of when and where they work can be coupled with set times planned for teams to be physically together in an office environment (such as town halls, social events, or for specific project needs). Working from home brought some companies closer together, providing new learning for the future. Leaders could talk directly with the employee base more often, while employees also had more direct access to leadership. Employees saw senior management having similar issues over time relating to working from home as they were experiencing, driving a greater sense of employee connectivity.
With employees now comfortable using remote tools, leaders were keen to understand how to enhance well-being, collaboration, and overall productivity experiences for employees. They were looking for metrics to provide a broad understanding of these three areas across the employee base, without intruding on privacy. And, they were paying particular attention to employee well-being because of the delay in returning to the workplace.
As companies look ahead in 2021, there are still many open questions about the best solutions for returning to the office in the near term, as well as how and where work may get done in the future.
Companies are trying to figure out what returning to the office will look like. A recent post by my colleague Meghan Stockdale looks at the employee view – Meet today’s remote information worker (opens in new tab). This and our research now belong to a larger body of work, known as the Future of Remote Work (opens in new tab) initiative, which includes over 100+ studies from across Microsoft that are now informing product design in a variety of ways.
This blog is the result of the hard work and shared collaboration of several talented researchers at Microsoft who all worked together on this: Tiffany Smith, Erin Arcuri, Hugh North, Brandon Haist, and Shelly Marston.
What do you think? How has 2020 changed the way you and your colleagues are working? Will it change your company’s approach in the future? Tweet us your thoughts at @MicrosoftRI or follow us on Facebook (opens in new tab) and join the conversation.
Adam Coleman is an experienced agency and client-side insights leader with a passion for bringing the voice of the customer into business related decision making.