Normalization of home office rethinks the new pattern of future work

From April 2022 to the middle of the year, under a new round of epidemic, residents of Shanghai, Beijing and several other cities were "trapped" at home and in the community. Local government agencies are actively promoting the "work from home" policy, requiring residents to "stay at home unless necessary" and maintain social distance. Many cities and companies seem to have been paused, but this is not absolutely the case. Flexible working, working from home, and hybrid working have become a reality for companies to ensure business operations and productivity, and for individual employees to complete their work.

We are fully aware of and support the country's insistence on the zero-COVID policy. At a time when we cannot predict when the epidemic will end, as business managers, we must think about the layout of future workplaces, corporate talent pools, and work business processes. Companies must think about how to cope with the uncertainty of this macro environment in the long term and how to consider future operating models from a long-term perspective.

Remote work is not a new trick, suitable "hybrid work" is the way to development

Over the past two years, many companies have gone through a long and repetitive process: from "working from home" to "returning to the office" and now "working from home" again. Companies are in a passive state of responding to the overall environment and policies. If a company or an industry has not yet realized the importance of establishing a "post-epidemic office model" that is suitable for its own development, the consequences are worrying.

Fortunately, Chinese companies are very positive compared to other countries and regions. Recently, an internal research data from Poly shows that in China, 61% of Chinese companies surveyed said they are fully prepared for the future of hybrid work. However, only 34% of companies have made short-term preparations and have not yet considered long-term hybrid office plans. I believe that rethinking the 3Ws: workplace, workforce, and work process can help companies take advantage of the turning point of this era to build their competitiveness.

首先，工作场所（workplace）的转型是最明显且立刻显现出来的 —— 分散的员工让传统的办公室格子间成为了“摆设”，无论是租金还是水电运营都成为了企业的负担。在混合办公趋势下，办公空间正在被重新定义，公司不得不适应政策下的零散的出勤模式，办公室会变成一个中心、共享区域或“社区”，而并非是每天打卡的地方。Poly博诣的调研显示，94%的中国公司计划重新设计他们的办公室布局以适应新的工作方式。过半数受访公司表示考虑在办公室中创造更多的开放空间(67%)，协作空间(57%)和安静区域(54%)。根据全球最大办公空间运营商之一的IWG集团预测，灵活安排办公空间的方式能显著降低企业的运营成本，包括租金、供暖及后勤人员等在内的传统固定经营费用，每年平均每个员工可省约66,878元。另一项研究揭示，得益于混合办公，减少外出通勤的时间能够效减少10%的氮排放量。

Secondly, the development of hybrid workforce will advance by leaps and bounds. According to Poly’s survey, 89% of Chinese companies believe that since switching to remote/hybrid work, employee productivity and satisfaction have greatly improved because they do not need to commute and can work at any time; 33% of Chinese companies surveyed said that the benefit of hybrid office is "a better balance between work and life", which is higher than the global average of 28%. From these data, it can be seen that the demand and expectations of Chinese local workers for hybrid office are higher than those of the world, and hybrid office strategy is becoming a key factor in attracting and retaining talents. In addition, as the post-90s and even post-00s enter the workplace, the new generation of "Internet natives" are undergoing major changes in work concepts and choices compared with previous generations of workers. According to the "Z Generation Workplace Status and Trend Survey Report" by Zhilian Recruitment, the "Z Generation" pays more attention to the office environment and abandons the "solidified workplace" with clear division of labor. 48.3% of the post-95s agree with "flexible working methods" (no clocking in, remote work, etc., using digital means to achieve efficient collaboration). It can be said that in the future, hybrid office is not only a way of working, but also a people-oriented human resource management concept. Brain drain and a lack of available talent can significantly impact a company’s ability to grow its business in the future.

When companies no longer restrict work locations, when potential talents are no longer limited to the same region, when more new-generation Internet natives enter the workplace, and even when we discuss virtual collaboration in the Metaverse one day, we can be sure of one thing: companies must be discussing how to more intelligently empower these "digital employees" with more optimized work processes, while ensuring efficiency and productivity, and bringing employees a better experience to retain these valuable talents. We believe that this is a set of enterprise operation strategy considerations that require the overall packaging of work locations, labor ratios, employee work portraits, digital processes, digital collaborative sharing, and technology and tools. We cannot hope that the epidemic will end immediately and return to the traditional work model, or worry about how to temporarily appease employees. Instead, we need to grasp the weak points of enterprise transformation as soon as possible, sort out the technical support and necessary means required by the enterprise, and gradually find a "hybrid" strategy that suits us.

Normalization of home and remote work has led to a closer software and hardware collaboration ecosystem

The normalization of working from home and working flexibly has made enterprises and employees have higher and higher requirements for the sound and video effects of audio and video products. Corporate executives are increasing their investment in audio and video technology, which is not only reflected in more professional cloud collaboration software, but also in hardware deployment to achieve better results. Poly's survey shows that 99% of companies have or are planning to invest in cloud collaboration platforms, including public cloud collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Tencent Conference, Feishu, DingTalk, or private cloud collaboration platforms customized by cloud service providers or network operators; more than 90% of companies said they have or are planning to increase their investment in hardware, including headphones, cameras, speakers, conference phones, etc.

Whether in the global or Chinese market, the development of cloud collaboration platforms is at the forefront, and more and more companies are deploying cloud collaboration platforms first. IDC said that 2022 will be a year of rapid changes in cloud conferencing. IDC's "IDC China Video Conferencing and Collaboration Market Tracking Report for the First Half of 2021" shows that in the first half of 2021, the cloud conferencing market size was approximately RMB 750 million, a year-on-year increase of 8.1%. IDC is optimistic about the growth of the market size.

Professional matters should be left to manufacturers in professional fields. I believe that many leading manufacturers think so, and so does Poly. We are also thinking about how to connect the ecosystem and let each company play to its strengths. In fact, during remote meetings, many users do not realize that clear and concise communication is a "software + hardware" cooperation battle - efficient and seamless collaboration can be achieved by the software side, and clear and high-quality audio and video effects are achieved by the hardware side.

It can be said that strengthening closer ecological collaboration is the booster for achieving hybrid office. Since 2019, Poly has launched joint solutions with ecological partners, including Microsoft, Zoom, Tencent Conference, Feishu, DingTalk and China's three major operators. The combination of Poly and ecological partners has implemented our core strategy of "in China for China" and embodies our determination to bring "undifferentiated experience" to users.

In April of this year, Poly strengthened its ecological cooperation with Tencent Meeting. Tencent Meeting further certified a number of Poly equipment terminals, including smart all-in-one machines, headphones, speakers, and meeting management systems, and worked together to promote the intelligentization of hybrid office and provide users with more out-of-the-box product capabilities and services. We hope to meet the needs of users in different scenarios and multi-user scenarios through the strong combination of ecological partners, provide users with seamless one-click conference and achieve equal and consistent conference experience.

Finally, in the face of the many challenges brought by the epidemic, companies should be more proactive in deploying how to organically combine remote work with office work. We believe that managers should not expect employees to return to the office as in the past, or to work flexibly and in a decentralized manner. This has a double-edged sword effect on team cohesion and corporate culture. Through an efficient cloud collaboration software platform, coupled with excellent hardware equipment with technological background, employees can be freer, more creative, and more confident. This is the goal of Poly and our partners in the entire ecosystem, and this is the value of remote home work.

Li Jinshui, President of Poly Greater China