From remote work to hybrid work: the technology you need to link home and office

Welcome to the new and exciting world of hybrid work.

“Somewhere close to 60% of the workforce chooses the hybrid option,” said Gartner analyst Suzanne Adnams, “which means your ideal is to work from home and enter the office for three days. per week “.

If I had a dollar for every time I listened to “two or three days in the office” while reporting on this column, I would get a social distance steak dinner.

What is not so clear? Where will you go once you get to the office. It depends on your employer. Here are three possible options:

• Desktop of the same age: As always. You still have your own desk, but maybe now your chair and your partner’s are more apart.

• Hot desktop: The horribly horrible trend in which employees don’t have a permanently assigned desk. It’s also known as hoteling, flexing or desk swapping, and it’s becoming the leading hybrid option for one fundamental reason: it doesn’t make sense to have one desk per person if people only come in a few times a week.

• No desktop: The office is not for solo work, but for collaboration. So, instead of desks, there are ample group meeting areas, with a privacy phone booth here and there. Companies including Dropbox have committed to this route.

I certainly can’t tell you in detail what will happen to your business, but I can say that this hybrid life will make you even more dependent on your technological tools. The technology that allows us to work from anywhere (laptops and smartphones, video calling, Slack) is also the technology that makes this so messy.

Your classmates are on the white board in the office, but are you stuck at home in a small zoom box? He survives the commute to the office, only to discover that he left the USB-C dongle on the kitchen table. Hi Bob, Accounting, Stop calling your video call. This is not your basement!

But I have hope. Not only did we demonstrate our technological resilience when we started the Great Work At Home Experiment a year ago, but the manufacturers of our most dependent products are paying attention and adapting to the next phase. These are some of the biggest hybrid challenges and some potential solutions.

I’m back to the good daily commute, but on my hot desk I have nothing, not even a stained cup of coffee.

There are no two ways, you will need a bigger bag. And of course, anyone telling you a backpack is just for high school students is just wrong.

When you head to your building (assuming you remember where it is), you may need to remove your phone. Your employer may require Covid-era health records and other precautions, but it can also give you the opportunity to reserve your workspace using systems like Robin or Salesforce Work.com.

Congratulations, you’ve reached your “desktop”. I can’t guess the technology that will be available when you get there, but I hope it’s pretty bare, especially if you carry BYOL (you know, bring your own laptop).

A Salesforce‘s

redesigned spaces, for example, employees only get a desk and two monitors side by side, told me Jo-ann Olsovsky, head of information for the company.

At the very least, Salesforce employees will be able to store other belongings at the box office and easily get other technological peripherals (mice, keyboards, headphones, chargers) from the technology vending machines located around the offices. You don’t pay. Just swipe the employees badge, press the item button, and grab it from the bottom tray.

If your office vending machines only distribute obsolete Doritos, you can request things from your IT department. Regardless, you’re likely to drag your favorite computer back and forth. Undoubtedly, in your bag there will be more expensive equipment that you do not own (tablets, microphones, headphones with noise elimination).

For the little things (batteries, charging cables, a mouse, and various adapters to connect drives, memory cards, and cables to your laptop), you’ll need a dongle bag. Don’t have one yet? Ah, cal. What I just got, the InCase nylon accessory organizer, has mesh pockets and straps to organize different laces and adapters. Listed for $ 50, but I got it for $ 15.

I’m in the office with some colleagues. Other classmates are at home.

If you think going back to the office means the end of video calling, I have bad news for you. Expect most meetings from now on to have a video component and there will be even more cameras in the office, not just in the conference rooms.

“It’s hard for me to imagine going into an office now and all those little enclosed spaces that could have a phone that weren’t video-enabled,” Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell told me, adding that he expects some Companies put fashionable webcams on desktop stations as well.

Executives working on collaboration platforms at Microsoft,

Google, Slack and Zoom said the key need was for home and work employees to feel like they were on an equal footing when they are calling and working together. Here are the initiatives they have launched:

Microsoft computers: A system called Teams Rooms links conference rooms to remote users who want to join them. Voice recognition on new compatible speakers can identify who is speaking in a room and the person’s name will appear on the screen. You won’t be embarrassed from home: a new presenter mode removes the background of the video and places it in front of the presentation or places the presentation in a box over your shoulder in “reporter mode” .

Google Workspace: Google also powers office speakers and cameras, but as people leave home, they will also use their phones to make video calls. An update to the Google Meet phone app will allow people to better view video. An upcoming update to Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentations will include the ability to overlay voice and video chats while people work together on documents.

Flow: There will be an audio room feature, so users can quickly jump into a conference. Think Clubhouse, but for quick meetings. The company, which Salesforce agreed to buy, also adds a feature for sharing pre-recorded video messages. This could help a manager send an ad to everyone, whether in the office or at home.

Zoom: The Pandemic Star has its own conference room service called, tell me, Zoom Rooms. The company’s Zoom Rooms Controller app for iOS and Android allows people in the conference room to control meetings from their phones, without having to touch the shared keyboard or control panel in the room.

A bigger challenge: what if the face-to-face meeting includes some physical things, such as a blackboard? How do people at home maintain and contribute?

Google and Microsoft have tried to make it easier. Microsoft manufactures Surface Hub, a giant Windows desktop tablet that runs the Microsoft Whiteboard application connected to the cloud. Those participating in a Microsoft Teams call can view and add to the digital whiteboard. Same idea with Google Jamboard. Office people can scribble on the giant screen, and those who participate in a Google Meet video call can see and join. Zoom works with third-party hardware manufacturers to integrate the whiteboard.

Today I work from home: how can I share it with the world?

The advantage of all this getting stuck at home won’t be as bad as it used to be. You are already perfecting your setup and some companies even plan to continue subsidizing the needs of employees at home. And now that you’re used to communicating too much about your schedule and deadlines? You keep doing it, wherever you are.

Google has added some features to its calendar to help you, including what it calls “segmentable work hours.” You can make it clear to colleagues where you work from or if you do something else, such as exercising or getting around. Slack is also exploring adding more status options to indicate your whereabouts.

This return to the office may have a blatant name — hybrid work — but make no mistake, it’s as hybrid as Frankenstein’s monster. Remember that a year ago we went through a pretty cataclysmic job change and we will do it again. Don’t forget about the dog.

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Write to Joanna Stern to [email protected]