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The U.S. Biden administration released soft guidance this summer to improve flexible working conditions for federal employees following the pandemic.
The British government took the matter to the next level with their open consultation, proposing a revision of flexible working regulations in England and Wales that would allow all employees to request flexible work.
These recent legislative actions are a precursor to what’s to follow for other countries in the public and private sectors, transitioning from a temporary response to a normalized life to remote and flexible work.
Precedent-Setting Legislation to the Future of Flexible Work
Nearly 60% of federal U.S. workers worked remotely during the pandemic. This is a dramatic increase from the 3 percent that existed before the outbreak. This resulted in government agencies discovering that they were able to still fulfill their mission requirements while working remotely.
With Great Britain’s open consultation focusing on long-term, flexible work policies, it is clear that perceptions of the workplace have changed dramatically. This is in contrast to previous generations who believed that peak employee productivity could only happen in an office environment.
These government entities make up a significant portion of the workforce in each country. The U.S. federal government, for example, is the largest employer with an estimated workforce of 2,000,000. This radical change will likely spread across the globe and be followed by industries in the private sector.
Workers Demand Remote Work Accommodations
Businesses have learned a lot over the past 21 months. We’ve also seen many innovations in technology that allow remote collaboration.
It is not surprising that employees have become more demanding and expect a new work culture. A recent study from Accenture found that 83% of respondents preferred a hybrid model of work, where they could work remotely at least 25% of the time.
Companies adapting to new ways to do business has highlighted the importance of employee satisfaction in order to combat the Great Resignation. In a recent study conducted by Intel and Lenovo, 60% of IT decision makers saw more than 10% improvement in employee satisfaction scores when they focused on technology.
Enabling New Flexible Working Models
Employers can enable the shift to flexible/hybrid work models by being proactive. However, it can be expensive and time-consuming to deploy and support the necessary hardware infrastructure.
Device-as-a-Service is one solution that is growing in popularity. This allows companies to outsource device asset management to an IT partner, reducing the cost of employee technology ownership.
The majority of businesses (63%) that were surveyed in Lenovo’s Future of Work Study expressed interest in DaaS subscriptions to help free up time and resources for strategic projects. A majority of IT decision-makers in large companies expressed interest in DaaS deployment to support their new hybrid work standard.
DaaS implementation can help businesses with distributed workers in many ways.
Reducing the cost of maintaining a fleet for remote workers.
This holistic solution allows users to adjust the hardware’s performance based on current business requirements.
Organizations can avoid costly downtime and energy costs, as well as security risks, by lowering their total cost to own.
Reliable, stable and fully customizable solutions that are flexible and can be adapted to any situation. This allows employees to stay connected and is a way to keep them supported no matter where they may be.
Assisting organizations in achieving their sustainability goals through the disposal of old devices safely and responsibly
The Takeaway
Flexible work policies and new legislation are just the beginning. Many in the private sector have already implemented new business models to accommodate this shift.
Businesses will need to look at new technology solutions to ensure flexibility, security, productivity, and productivity for their distributed workforce.
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