With vaccines rolling out and the pandemic slowing down, businesses have begun experimenting with hybrid work, allowing employees to work from home for part of the week, while heading into the office for the rest. As you can imagine, this kind of flexible schedule will require some unique adjustments to existing technologies. Fortunately, Microsoft Teams is up to the task, as the collaborative platform has added some new features aimed at making hybrid work a bit easier for everyone in the office and at home. The unveiling of the new features came from a Microsoft post titled The future of hybrid work, which laid out a wide range of offerings the company will provide to businesses to make the transition to hybrid work a bit easier. It showcases the new features from Microsoft Teams, as well as a lineup of hardware — like cameras and displays — aimed at businesses transition to hybrid work. With cases falling though, business owners have been making decisions about what the future of work looks like. Some businesses have decided to go back to the office full time, but stats have shown that the majority of workers (54%) want some kind of flexible arrangements if they’re going to return. To make matters worse, many employees have insisted they would rather quit, while others are merely asking for the same flexibility to work in the office and at home, particularly after a year of proving it can be done. Fortunately, many company are on board with this kind of hybrid work schedule. Google, Facebook, and a wide range of other businesses have implemented programs to provide flexible options for employees when it comes to working from home. Microsoft Teams is honestly a great option, but there are other such platforms that can help you get started, like Google Workspace and Zoom. These web conferencing options are great and easy to use, so you can stay in touch with your team, no matter where they’re working. Additionally, resources like remote access software and VPNs offer a bit of security for your remote workers. Naturally, their at-home security setup won’t be much, but these two tools can give you the peace of mind you need to be confident that you won’t be the next big security breach. Simply put, the hybrid work trend is likely going to be the new normal, and getting on board with the right technologies can make a big difference in easing the transition.
