How to stay connected with your work-from-home employees: interview with CXApp
Author
Dan Bladen, CEO & Co-Founder
COVID-19 is impacting enterprises all over the world and we are currently experiencing the world’s largest work-from-home experiment. The need for collaboration and employee engagement is going to be more important than ever.
Now is the time to understand what impact COVID-19 has on future ways of working, ensuring that your workplace has the right infrastructure and tools to enable the next level of mobility, productivity and engagement.
This week on our ‘Future of Workplace Experience’ series, we are honoured to have Leon Papkoff, Founder & Chief Strategist at The CXApp to share his recent observations across the enterprise workplace industry during this pandemic situation, but also how things are going to change in the workplace. Some key takeaways and check out our interview below:
Communication remains crucial to ensure your team have the right tools to allow effective communications during this time or investing in ‘Smart Campus’ app that allows employees to have access to real-time communications.
‘Remote working’ will become the new normal so make sure remote employees don’t feel left out by investing in virtual technology and seamless work tech integrations – these are going to be more important than ever.
Creating a ‘touch-less’ environment and workplace hygiene will become priorities for companies to make employees feel comfortable going to work.
Top tips adjusting to ‘Working from Home’
We are technically in the largest global remote working experiment, here are some of the top challenges and tips to remain productive at home:
Communication is key: Make sure you and your team have the right tools to allow effective communications during this time, we have been using a variety of tools within our team and with our customers – Zoom, WebEx, Skype to Slack – you name it!
Plan your day ahead: Avoid back-to-back meetings, make sure to plan your day and make time to be away from our desk, it could be as simple as stretching your legs, dial in calls with your mobile phone rather than sitting at your desk.
How do you stay connected with your remote employees?
Increased demand for workplace apps: We have been getting a lot of interest in our ‘Smart Campus’ app, essentially a workplace experience platform that allows employees to have on-demand access to real-time communications and interactions with their office environment – from company updates, scheduling meetings to food ordering, it can be all done in one app and more resources need to be in the hands of employees to assist with remote working.
Keep work flow simple and provide easy-to-use tools, this can help keep employees engaged and productive while being away from the office. Take Adobe as one of our customer example, our Smart Campus app allows employees schedule and access their BlueJeans meetings instantly anytime, anywhere. This will remain seamless and integrated when things return to normal, employees can still easily book rooms and schedule meetings in the same way with our BlueJeans integrations.
How have companies reacted differently to Covid-19?
Company culture definitely plays a key role on how I have seen companies reacting differently to the current situation, it is really about the ability for business leadership to embrace the situation and make the best out of it.
Adobe workplace example: Adobe recently started a video feed on helpful tips for employees to adjust working from home – from adding natural greenery to their at-home work environment, flexible work station set-up to recipes from their corporate chefs.
How do you think the office environment is going to change?
Making interactions with work environment more seamless by allowing employees to access all resources in one app – from on-demand food ordering to meeting room booking.
Company policy changes to allow ‘remote working’ arrangements, meaning investing in virtual technology and tools is going to be more important than ever.
Creating a ‘touch-less’ environment will become a priority for companies, such as using mobile app or badges for meeting rooms check-in to reduce the amount of physical contact with work environments or surfaces.
Cleanliness will be a basic requirement in the workplace – a lot more cleaning and sanitization can be expected to make employees more comfortable being in the office and interacting with other colleagues.
Employees will be expecting ‘at home’ technology to be available at the workplace such as on-demand food delivery and wireless chargers.
