Remote working policies will continue to stay even as enterprises plan for employees’ return to work in the next 12-18 months, reveals a Future of Work survey by Xerox.
The Xerox survey of 600 IT executives from five countries shows an estimated 82% of the workforce in respondents’ organizations will have returned to the workplace in 12-18 months’ time. Organisations are investing in new resources to support a hybrid remote / in-office workforce, with 56% increasing technology budgets and 34% planning to speed their digital transformation as a result of COVID-19.
The IT leaders acknowledged they faced multiple challenges caused by the sudden transition to remote work. Around 72 per cent of the enterprises were not technology-ready for the new ways of working. Communication breakdown between teams and maintaining focus were the other pain points.
Organisations are now investing in new resources to support the remote working model. Over 50 per cent of enterprises are increasing technology and digital transformation budgets.
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The sudden transition to remote working revealed technology gaps
Technology issues formed the biggest pain point and hurdle to enable a smooth transition to a remote working model. Only 28% of the respondents said they were prepared to work from home.
The top IT challenges were remote IT support, inadequate workflow solutions, lack of communications and collaboration tools and lack of cloud-based solutions.
Enterprises will look to invest in new technologies and seek the capability to accelerate digital transformation, said the Xerox survey.
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Technology shift aimed at improving employee experience
With companies prioritizing investments in cloud and collaboration software, 70% of IT decision-makers globally are reevaluating their budget spend. About 58% of the respondents said they plan to change their work-from-home policy within the next year, highlighting the need for companies to support a hybrid workforce.
Enterprises prioritizing investments in cloud-based software (65%) and collaboration software (52%)
A Gartner survey in April found that 64% of enterprises are prioritizing employee experience more highly now than before the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Xerox survey concludes COVID-19 is feeding digital transformation plans and companies are placing a renewed focus on meeting employees’ needs with both hardware and software.
Recently Cisco company Appdynamics unveiled the results of its latest survey amid the pandemic. The latest survey ‘Agents of Transformation’ revealed the pace of approval for digital transformation projects: 74% of technologists report that digital transformation projects have been approved in a matter of weeks. In pre-pandemic days this would typically take more than a year to be approved.
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