Microsoft is reportedly considering a crackdown on remote working as the tech giant plots to get staff back into the office more.

According to reports from Business Insider, the company intends to tighten up in-office attendance requirements in the new year - a move that comes alongside a new performance improvement plan in the wake of layoffs.

Microsoft has previously said it wouldn't implement a full return to office (RTO) mandate unless faced with a drop-off in productivity. At the beginning of 2024, the tech giant announced a wave of layoffs aimed specifically at culling underperforming staff.

In this instance, however, the reported plans don’t represent a full RTO, according to Business Insider. The publication noted that the new policy will require most employees to head into the office three days a week as part of a hybrid work setup.

That's a bit tighter than Microsoft's existing policy that asked staff to come in at least half of the time unless they had manager approval. But the report notes that wasn't strictly enforced and most staff worked at home as much as they chose.

The stricter hybrid policy is a far cry from the full RTO mandate at Dell Technologies, as well as Amazon, which last year demanded staff return to a full five days a week in the office.

Amazon’s crackdown on remote working sparked an employee backlash, while staff at Dell Technologies voiced concerns about the policy in the company’s annual feedback survey.

Microsoft plans aren't set in stone

At this point, Microsoft is believed to be merely considering the shift — so any Redmond staffers should let their thoughts be known to higher-ups before the announcement is made, which is expected to be in September with changes coming into force in January.

ITPro approached Microsoft for comment on the reports, but did not receive a response by time of publication.

A spokesperson for the tech giant told Business Insider that it was indeed considering a shake-up, but confirmed no final decision has been made.

Most employees appear to favor working from home, and no wonder with research suggesting hybrid working leaves workers feeling happier and more productive.

Frequent headlines about RTOs — largely at tech companies as well as across the financial sector — have sparked concerns among workers that they'll be forced to start paying for commuting again and lose their work-life balance, and recent research suggests an increase in RTO mandates.

But they risk employees quitting in favor of companies with more flexible working arrangements, according to a survey of British professionals.

A survey conducted by Hays in April 2025 suggested 48% would consider finding a new role if faced with a full RTO mandate.

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Nearly half of British companies are fed up with hybrid working and say they expect employees to be in the office every day in the coming year.

A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) shows a shift away from the working practice, with 48% saying staff would return to the office in this survey versus just 27% of firms predicting fully in-person work in 2023.

Hybrid working has been under assault this year, with a rise in return to office mandates — notably Amazon and Google — and a tightening of workplace rules on working from home.

These moves come despite employees generally favoring the flexibility and other benefits it offers.

The BCC study showed that 41% of businesses polled have asked staff to spend more time on site over the last year, with just 17% believing it increases productivity — despite research showing the latter is true.

"Hybrid working has become a fixture of modern working life since the pandemic and is valued by employers and their workforce," said Jane Gratton, Director of Public Policy at the BCC.

"But it does not suit everyone and, for some firms, a full onsite model may be the best solution for the business."

Differing sectors, differing needs

Notably, the report highlighted clear differences in attitudes toward hybrid working based on sector.

A majority of manufacturers and customer-facing companies — 62% and 61% respectively — expect staff to spend all of their working days in the office or on site next year, versus just 27% for business-to-business (B2B) service companies.

A similar pattern follows with opinions on productivity, the report found. On average, 41% of companies said hybrid working had a negative impact on productivity compared to 49% of manufacturers.

"We’re seeing a clear shift towards more firms requiring full on-site working, but it’s by no means a uniform picture," said Gratton.

"The trend is being led by manufacturers and consumer-facing businesses, while around two thirds of B2B service firms continue to operate hybrid models."

RTO mandates have an impact on staff

Companies need to be wary of imposing strict return to office (RTO) mandates, especially with regard to talent. Two-thirds of those surveyed said onsite working hasn’t impacted recruitment or retention, but 9% have seen staff depart following rules changes.

Similar research on the impact of RTO mandates and talent retention from Hays showed nearly half of UK workers would consider quitting rather than heading back to the office full-time.

A key factor here was due to the high cost of commuting, but work-life balance was also a big talking point for many workers, the study found.

Notably, women were more likely to quit as a result of RTO mandates than male colleagues, while two-thirds said they plan to leave their firm within the next year to pursue opportunities at companies with suitable hybrid working policies.

"Hybrid working can help firms attract and retain a skilled and engaged workforce," Gratton said. "However, some employers are identifying significant benefits of bringing all staff together again onsite."

Gratton urged employers to adopt a flexible approach to working policies which take into account the desires of the company and staff.

"How and where people work is likely to continue to evolve in the years ahead," Gratton added.

"A flexible working approach makes good business sense but, to drive economic growth, managers also need the flexibility to do what’s right for their business.”

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HSBC has told UK staff they risk bonuses unless they return to the office as the financial services giant cracks down on hybrid working policies.

According to reports from Bloomberg, HSBC told employees that those who don't come into the office at least three days a week could end up earning less money due to reduced bonus payouts.

As part of the move, HSBC reportedly told workers it would make use of internal attendance data when making future decisions about compensation.

Notably, the company isn't shifting to a full return to the office. Instead, the bank aims to enforce existing hybrid work policies introduced 18 months ago.

These policies require staff to spend 60% of their time in the office, or at a customer’s office.

HSBC UK refused to comment on the reports when approached by ITPro.

The return to office battle continues

HSBC is by no means the first financial services firm to implement more robust hybrid working policies. Lloyds said at the beginning of the year that in-office attendance would come into play when deciding bonuses for some senior staff, according to reports at the time.

Tying attendance to work benefits does raise some problems for those taking a stricter approach, however. Last year, Dell Technologies warned staff that they risked missing out on promotions if they failed to come into the office at least three days a week.

The move was met with a fierce backlash from staff at the tech giant, and prompted a nosedive in workforce morale, according to an internal survey conducted in the wake of the policy change.

RTO crackdowns vary in severity

While RTO mandates at most other companies tend to require a minimum of around three days in the office, some have taken a harder stance on the matter.

Amazon ordered staff back for the full five days a week, even though it lacked office space for everyone, while JP Morgan has also required all staff to return to the office five days a week.

Others are seeking to encourage rather than force employees to come back to the office - with Google dangling potential perks and benefits for staff.

Back in 2023, Google reportedly offered discounts at its Mountain View hotel in a bewildering move to help staff "re-transition" back to the office and also offered free e-scooters.

Similarly, other companies have offered perks including free lunches, raffles to win prizes such as a car, or even allowing pets to join their owners at corporate headquarters.

While surveys suggest perks do help — Robin's Return to Office research showed 44% of staff polled saw catered lunches, wellness events, and guest speakers as a real draw.

Broadly speaking, bosses remain keen to encourage staff back into the office, but employees overwhelmingly favour flexible working, with three-quarters saying they would turn down work that didn't offer at least a hybrid option.

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Google has warned remote workers will need to return to the office or else lose their jobs, according to reports.

Internal documents viewed by CNBC show the tech giant has informed staff at several units across the company that roles could be at risk unless they switch to a hybrid working setup.

This, the reports suggest, will require those within a certain proximity to Google office to come in at least three days a week. The move comes despite affected workers having previously been approved for fully-remote working practices, documents show.

A spokesperson for Google told CNBC that the company’s push to get remote workers back into the office are focused on specific individual teams and do not represent a blanket policy.

“As we’ve said before, in-person collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” the spokesperson said. “

“To support this, some teams have asked remote employees that live near an office to return to in-person work three days a week.”

ITPro has contacted Google for clarification on the policy.

Google is clawing staff back to the office

Documents viewed by CNBC showed employees in the company’s technical services unit were told to shift to a hybrid working schedule, with remote employees being offered paid relocation expenses to move within 50 miles of an office.

Others have been offered a voluntary exit package.

The same policy applies to its ‘People Operations’ division, according to an internal memo. Again, those living within 50 miles of an office were warned they must switch to a hybrid setup or their role could be eliminated.

This isn’t the first time Google has attempted to buy out employees in recent months.

At the beginning of the year, the tech giant began offering voluntary buyouts to staff, with remote workers specifically told this would be their only option unless they returned to the office three days a week.

RTO mandates have become a battleground for big tech

Google isn’t alone in pressing staff to make a return to the office, either - even in a hybrid capacity. The rise of ‘RTO mandates’ has become a contentious topic in the tech sector, with a number of firms having clashed with staff over the shift back to a more regimented in-office approach.

Dell Technologies, for example, saw staff push back against plans to implement a full return to the office. In July last year, an internal staff survey at the tech giant showed employee satisfaction had dipped significantly due to the policy.

Notably, Dell initially told remote staff that any refusal to switch to a hybrid setup could result in them losing out on promotions or opportunities at the company.

Elsewhere, Amazon has taken a stern approach with its own RTO mandate. First announced in September last year, CEO Andy Jassy told staff it was switching back to a five-day week.

The policy change once again prompted a backlash among staff, with an internal staff survey showing a huge volume of complaints.

Google hasn’t adopted as rigid an approach as industry counterparts on the matter, however. The company has gone to some lengths to encourage staff back into offices across the US, and in 2023 even offered discounted rooms at its Mountain View campus hotel.

At the time, the company said the move would give staff “an extra hour of sleep” and “less friction” getting to the office.

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Young tech professionals who entered the workforce post-pandemic expect on-site work to be paid more than remote options – and they're demanding it should still include flexibility such as condensed hours or part-time work.

According to the 2025 Global Workforce Entrants Study, conducted by the British Standards Institution and the ResPublica think-tank, the 200 million-odd people worldwide with no experience of the pre-pandemic workplace have different expectations of work.

Nearly half of younger tech workers want a hybrid working structure, with one-in-five preferring to be fully remote. Similarly, more than seven-in-ten believe that jobs requiring their full-time presence should be paid more.

"Hybrid working is not for everyone. But for the generation that entered the workforce during the pandemic the experience has been largely positive," said Mark Morrin, principal research consultant at ResPublica.

"Hybrid workers are more likely to have been promoted and more likely to have had wage increases compared to their site-based peers. But there is some indication that hybrid roles might lead to, or reinforce, a sense of isolation or lack of workplace confidence."

Young tech pros value work-life balance

Notably, younger tech workers rank work-life balance more highly than job stability or financial incentives. Seven-in-ten say a hybrid structure is good for their mental health, with a quarter going so far as to say that social anxiety would impact their decision to take a job fully onsite.

Younger workers do see the social benefits of the in-person workplace, however.

Nearly three-quarters made friends in their first job, more than half found a mentor, and a similar number say they engage in social activities with colleagues at least once a month.

Employers need to take the results of the survey seriously, said Susan Taylor Martin, chief executive of the BSI, else they risk losing valuable talent.

"The results provide a strong counterpoint to the culture war narrative of a lazy generation; instead we have found a cohort thinking very carefully about what they want from life and work and understand the trade-offs involved," she said.

"They are our future leaders. Organizations thinking about how to attract, retain, and get the most from their talent will surely benefit from starting from a place of understanding and empathy about the circumstances that shaped their newest starters and continue to inform what they want from their careers now."

The tech industry generally favors remote work. A survey last month from ScienceSoft, for example, found that eight-in-ten software engineers will be working at least partly from home by the end of this year and that 21% would quit if forced to work full-time in an office.

Around the world, more than three-in-ten IT workers have already done so, according to analysis from Randstad, with the figure rising to 40% in the UK.

A study by the firm noted that IT workers rate flexible working more highly than other industries, with eight-in-ten saying they considered flexibility vital, compared with just two-thirds of their counterparts in other sectors.

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Faced with a full-time return to office (RTO) mandate, some employees might shell out for a season ticket, expand their office-casual wardrobe, and otherwise accept their fate — but half of professionals surveyed would consider simply quitting.

That's according to a survey about the ongoing debate over RTO mandates and hybrid working, with recruitment firm Hays revealing that 48% respondents in the UK would consider quitting rather than heading back to the office.

That figure tracked higher for women, at 58%, than men at 42%, according to Hays.

Some major tech firms have already faced employee backlash as a result of RTO mandates. A survey of Amazon staff affected by its office attendances last year suggested nearly half of staff planned to quit ahead of the RTO deadline.

Around two-thirds of respondents also said they planned to leave the firm within a year to pursue opportunities at companies whose policies align with their preferences.

A key factor in the pushback against RTO mandates is the cost associated with commuting, according to Hays. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of workers specifically highlight commute costs as a major reason they favored working from home.

The study found that working in the office full-time would increase costs for 88% of workers. Similarly, the impact of these costs on general finances would also be more significant for women (59%) than men (41%).

Pam Lindsay-Dunn, chief operating officer of Hays UK and Ireland, said the research highlights that enterprises are at “serious risk” of losing top talent as a result of strict RTO mandates.

“Our research clearly shows how highly professionals still value the option to work from home," she said.

Previous research into the topic of RTO mandates from the University of Pittsburgh warned of a potential ‘brain drain’ at enterprises pursuing these policies. Researchers found companies taking a strict stance on the matter typically lose their top talent as a result, with female employees and top-performers often among the first to jump ship.

Lindsay-Dunn added that employers should address potential employee concerns and other vital considerations prior to making a decision on the topic of mandatory office attendance.

"Before making any significant changes to their current working model, employers must look at the bigger picture and consider key factors such as the cost of commuting, work-life balance, employee wellbeing, productivity and the host of benefits that hybrid working can bring to their business, in order to retain talent in a tough market.”

Hybrid popularity

While big tech firms continue to push for a full return to the office, Hays’ research showed workers still prefer a hybrid work setup.

More than three-quarters (77%) of professionals surveyed work in a hybrid way, with a quarter of firms polled saying their staff came in three days a week, working from home the remaining two — a figure that has stayed the same from Hays' survey last year.

A further 22% of firms said they let workers choose their own working pattern.

Employees need not start drafting a letter of resignation, as hybrid working looks set to continue. While a fifth of companies polled said they have asked staff to come into the office more often, only 8% said they plan to introduce a full RTO mandate in the coming months.

Similarly, half of companies said they saw no difference in productivity between home workers and office staff, with 19% saying those at home were more productive and 14% saying those in the office performed better.

Remote work productivity has been a contentious topic in recent years, with critics of the practice suggesting staff typically perform better when collaborating in-person with colleagues.

Research from the University of Melbourne last year showed companies with flexible working did better on the stock market in the longer term.

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Eight-in-ten software engineers will be working at least partly from home by the end of this year, new research suggests, as workers double down on hybrid setups and push back against RTO mandates.

Despite the efforts of big tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle to corral people back into the office, there's strong resistance, according to a survey from ScienceSoft.

The study found that 21% of software engineers would quit if forced to work full-time in an office, and that half would start looking for a new job. Last year, previous research by the company found that 42% of software engineers were working in hybrid setups, while fully remote roles accounted for 38%.

“This shift highlights not just a continuation but a broad acceptance of remote work as the norm, reshaping how organizations operate, how teams collaborate, and how individuals build their careers," said Pavel Ilyusenko, ScienceSoft’s project management office head.

“During the Covid-19 lockdowns, software engineers transitioned almost entirely to remote setups. However, as the world emerged from the pandemic, the trend toward hybrid and in-office arrangements gained momentum."

Getting software engineers back into the office

The study noted, however, that employers are doing their best to entice software engineers back into the office. Incentives touted by some include subsidized commuting, free measles, or enhanced office amenities.

Some companies have even taken things further by adjusting salaries based on remote versus in-office status, or by making remote work a privilege earned through seniority.

This doesn’t always work, however, and some companies in the tech industry have fallen foul of imposing demands on workers. Dell Technologies, for example, was embroiled in a long-running spat with staff over its return to office (RTO) policy.

Half of Dell Technologies staff still chose to work remotely despite facing limitations on the career prospects, such as promotions.

Concerns over engagement - both internally and in broader communities - has long been an issue for remote workers, with some taking the opinion that remote or hybrid workers are disconnected from colleagues. Subsequent research into the issue shows this isn’t necessarily the case, however.

Ilyusenko noted that engineers can still remain visible and stay in the loop by participating in online events such as hackathons or webinars if they choose to do so.

It is critical they remain visible, he added.

"In the workplace, maintaining visibility and engagement remains critical. Active participation in virtual meetings and collaboration tools ensures that engineers remain connected to their teams and managers."

As for employers, ScienceSoft said enterprises need to find ways to optimize office space usage and deal with the difficulties of hybrid meetings, where some participants are remote and others are on-site.

There are also issues around compensation, thanks to disparities in regional cost-of-living and employee pay. Employers with offices in high-cost-of-living areas have higher workforce expenses.

The report's findings reflect those of another survey published this week, which found that 31% of IT pros globally have quit over a lack of flexible work options - four-in-ten in the UK.

Randstad found that IT workers typically value flexible working practices more highly than other sectors, with eight-in-ten saying they considered flexibility, compared with just two-thirds of their counterparts in other industries.

It's a tough time for software engineers

Software engineers and devs have had a rough time in recent years. Faced with mounting workloads and budgetary constraints, burnout and stress in these professions has reached boiling point, research shows.

Last year, developer burnout reached ‘epidemic’ proportions, according to research from Harness. Many of those noted experiencing a poor work-life balance and deteriorating mental health as a result of the strain of their roles.

Just over half over developers told Harness that burnout was a primary reason for their colleagues quitting. Similarly, nearly a quarter of engineers said they’re dealing with painfully long hours - with 23% reporting working overtime for at least 10 days a month.

To make matters worse in the profession, the arrival of generative AI has added a degree of uncertainty over the long-term viability of many roles.

With the adoption of increasingly powerful AI coding tools gaining traction at enterprises globally, it’s not hard to imagine some devs and engineers might be looking over their shoulders in the years to come.

The hype and hyperbole around AI job losses in these professions is just that, though, and there’s no indication that we’re going to see a widespread culling of devs.

That doesn’t mean it won’t be a long, hard road for many, however. Research from Gartner in late 2024 showed 80% of the software engineering workforce will need to upskill by 2027 to keep pace with the growing demands of generative AI.

Given this confluence of issues, it's safe to say engineers are justified in sticking by remote and hybrid work demands. They contended with a fully remote world during the pandemic, so enterprises can give them the small luxury of avoiding grueling commutes.

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Nearly half of IT workers in the UK have quit a job due to a lack of workplace flexibility, according to new research.

Analysis from Randstad shows 40% of UK-based IT pros have quit over a lack of flexible work options, while 31% of workers globally have done the same.

The study noted that IT workers typically value flexible working practices more highly than other sectors, with 80% of surveyed professionals stating that they consider flexibility “essential”.

This was also 13% higher than their counterparts in other industries globally, according to Randstad.

Notably, Randstad said flexibility is no longer regarded “solely as a benefit” at their workplace, and is now a deal breaker which shapes their career choices and has an influence on who they want to work with.

More than half (56%), for example, said they would quit their job if requests for additional flexible working options weren’t taken into account.

Randstad digital chief executive Graig Paglieri said the study highlights the changing nature of worker demands and urged employers to accommodate for this trend.

“Personalized work benefits and flexible options are essential not only for attracting top talent but also for retaining them in competitive markets,” he said.

“Policies should align with organizational, team and individual needs, ensuring a flexible and tailored approach.”

Flexible work options build trust

Nearly three-quarters (71%) of IT workers told Randstad that remote and flexible working options would “strengthen their sense of community” with colleagues, despite the distributed nature of the workforce.

Similarly, 68% said they would trust their employer more if they offered personalized work benefits. This not only included flexible work options, but flexible hours, intensity of work, and locations, the study noted.

Flexible working has grown in popularity since the onset of Covid in 2020. While at first workers across a raft of industries shifted to remote work options as a pandemic-induced necessity, they continued to demand a degree of flexibility in their roles as lockdown restrictions were lifted.

The issue has prompted a recurring back and forth between workers and employers in recent years, especially amidst the rise of return to office (RTO) mandates.

Several companies have faced backlash by cutting flexible and remote working options, including Dell Technologies and Amazon.

Randstad noted that employers must adapt to accommodate for flexible working options, or else lose out on vital talent. Nearly one-third (31%) of employers told the firm they now offer flexible work arrangements specifically for the purpose of attracting talent.

This, the study found, marked a 9% increase compared to the year prior.

Similarly, 34% revealed they have introduced flexible policies to improve staff retention and prevent valued employees from seeking roles elsewhere.

Leadership views on flexible work is also improving, according to Randstad. The study noted that 81% of leaders believe these practices can help create equity at work and have a beneficial effect on workforce morale.

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The workplace is changing. Key technological changes including the arrival and proliferation of IoT devices, remote working, virtual and augmented reality, and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) have meant the nature of how we do work is substantially different than it was in previous decades.

The traditional operating model for many businesses needs to be updated to take advantage of these trends. The future of work will increasingly require new levels of data literacy, understanding how to use tools like AI, and how to manage these workflows across a distributed environment.

Businesses and employees alike must adapt to these shifts in order to thrive in this rapidly evolving work environment, and staying at the forefront of this change is essential to ensure you do not fall behind your competitors.

Remote working is here to stay

The first major change affecting the nature of work is where the work itself actually takes place.

Remote and hybrid working models have become the new norm with an ever-expanding share of the workforce now clocking in and getting their work done virtually.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, between January and December 2019, some 12% of the UK workforce had worked at least one day from home in the previous week, according to a UK Parliament research briefing. The same research suggested that only 5% reported they predominantly worked from home.

The necessity created by the pandemic precipitated a ground shift towards remote working and looks to have had a more lasting impact on traditional working models in succeeding years.

In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic in September 2022, around 22% of the UK workforce said they worked at least one day at home in the previous week and around 13% worked from home exclusively, according to the Parliamentary research.

This has stuck, with data from the ONS reports revealing that, between 22 May and 2 June 2024, 14% of UK workers were fully remote, and just over a quarter (26%) had a hybrid working arrangement.

Although some business leaders have made statements indicating they plan on moving back to an in-person model, these figures reflect the fact that the attitudes of a significant proportion of employers and employees have fundamentally changed as a result of this experience.

As a result, businesses should be prepared to accept the fact that they need to invest in infrastructure that facilitates flexible working to accommodate employees both in the office and elsewhere.

A hybrid working model requires a variety of solutions, the first of which is a unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platform. UCaaS is a cloud-hosted service (usually by a single vendor) that offers a range of communication modes such as instant messaging, audio and video conferencing, email, as well as file-sharing.

These platforms can help simplify your organization's communication infrastructure and save you money, rather than using a combination of disjointed point services that need extra work to be integrated.

Project management tools have also become essential when trying to keep a distributed workforce on track to get their work done. They mean workers both in the office and at home can quickly see who is responsible for different tasks in the project and when these tasks need to be completed.

Security in the era of hybrid work

Remote work also introduces new cybersecurity threats such as using unsecured connections to access sensitive corporate environments. As a result, the use of VPNs has become widespread to mitigate the risk of employees exposing private data.

Device management is another key security concern for businesses operating on a hybrid model. Some businesses operate on a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) that allows employees to use personal devices when working.

These devices often lack the security measures that corporate devices are configured with and are thus far more vulnerable to cyber threats. In addition, if employees are not diligently managing their device’s software updates or antivirus protection they will be further at risk of compromise.

A distributed workforce also introduces observability challenges for IT admins. With a lack of IT oversight, personal or company devices may go unpatched or misconfigured for extended periods.

Potential security intrusions also may not be detected as quickly allowing intruders to cause more damage to the organization’s IT infrastructure in the long run.

With hybrid work set to be the model of choice for a wide number of businesses, ensuring you have robust cloud security, endpoint security, and network security is key, but this can’t account for the cyber hygiene of the employees using these tools.

As such, it is essential that firms continue to invest in cybersecurity awareness training to ensure employees are aware of the latest social engineering techniques that will be levied against them and best practices for handling private data.

AI is changing the work itself

AI has had a growing influence on business leaders’ thinking about how their organizations should operate since the recent explosion of enterprise interest in this technology.

As a technology, it can be almost universally applied across a wide range of workflows, automating routine tasks, generating content, and providing insights for informed decision-making.

Much has been made of the impacts AI-driven automation will have on the workforce, namely that AI systems will soon reach a level of maturity where they can replace a portion of the workforce.

These fears may have only become more real with the most recent trend in the AI industry: agents.

AI agents offer businesses the promise of fully autonomous AI systems that can plan, reason, and leverage internal tooling to independently complete tasks they are set by the user.

It is expected that these AI agents will proliferate across enterprises throughout this year, although a number of business leaders have stated that they see AI more generally as a force multiplier for employee productivity rather than a one-to-one replacement.

Instead, they have indicated that their main focus is teaching employees to use AI to get more done.

AI literacy has thus been a top concern for businesses in recent years as ongoing skills challenges limit their ability to properly harness the benefits the technology can bring.

But this will also require significant updates to any business’s IT infrastructure as AI workloads are expected to place unprecedented strain on corporate networks in terms of traffic and throughput.

Businesses need to not only future-proof their workforce but also their infrastructure to ensure their employees will be able to use AI to its full potential.

As such, they need to jointly invest in upskilling programs to mitigate the effects of the talent shortage and AI-ready infrastructure to make certain that they can keep pace with the rate of innovation AI is bringing to the workplace.

Every business is a technology company

Overall, technological advancements continuously shape the future of work with remote work and AI being two of the latest macro trends to shake up the business world.

Remote work, enabled by the cloud transformation, has redefined traditional office environments, which come with a series of infrastructure and security challenges that businesses need to adapt to.

Meanwhile, AI promises to revolutionize entire industries through automation, augmentation, and facilitating smarter decision-making across the enterprise.

AI isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about making work more engaging and meaningful for people.

Indeed, HP’s Work Relationship Index found that 78% of employees believe AI can reduce stress and improve the quality of their work, while 62% see it as a way to find greater satisfaction in their roles. When businesses invest in AI, they’re not just adopting new technology—they’re reshaping how their people work, collaborate, and grow.

The structure of your business and the work it does will continue to be reshaped as these technologies develop requiring constant adaptation to remain competitive and maximize the potential these innovations bring.

Work-life balance has become more important than pay when choosing or staying in a job, according to two new reports.

A recent survey by Randstad found that 83% of workers view flexible working options as their primary consideration ahead of job security and salaries.

Nearly half of the respondents said they had advocated for better working conditions, and a third said they'd actually left a job due to the lack of flexible work options.

"Many expected the challenging economic conditions of 2024 to temper talent expectations, but the Workmonitor shows the opposite has occurred," said Randstad CEO Sander van't Noordende.

"We have seen a new baseline established with talent continuing to hold multifaceted expectations."

Nearly three-quarters of workers said they'd be willing to take a cut in salary in return for a four-day work week, and 76% said they'd do the same for flexible working hours.

The report found that half of UK workers are now working flexibly, with most wanting to be in the office around three days a week and three-quarters saying they prefer hybrid work.

Notably, the report showed not all employers share the same views on the topic of flexible and hybrid working. Employers’ reasons for getting staff back into the office include improved collaboration and innovation and strengthening relationships between colleagues.

These three issues have been frequently cited by employers when implementing return to office mandates over the last year. Enterprises have also cited productivity improvements as a key motivation behind RTO mandates.

However, van't Noordende said employers need to be flexible if they're to keep the best staff.

"For today’s talent, the significance of work is complex and needs to be personalized. They are setting the terms on what truly matters to them as individuals and within their communities," he said.

"Successful businesses are those that will adapt and adjust to this new talent baseline. The solution lies in empowering our key resource: people."

Research from the University of Pittsburgh last year highlighted the risks of failing to offer flexible working, as well as the pitfalls of RTO mandates. The study found firms that implement strict working practices frequently experience ‘brain drain’, with many losing their most senior and experienced employees.

Workers are setting stricter boundaries

Ranstad’s study found employees are finding techniques to try and set stricter boundaries with their work.

These include clock blocking - blocking off times in their calendars to avoid meetings that could extend beyond their designated work hours.

Nearly six-in-ten millennials confess to doing this, along with 22% of Gen Z employees and 16% of Gen X workers.

Similarly, four-in-ten workers said they engage in coffee badging - starting their day with a few hours at the office before heading home to finish their work remotely.

Interestingly, 54% of those who have been caught doing it said their employers weren't bothered.

Workers aren't budging on flexible work

Ranstad’s recent findings correlate with similar research into flexible working arrangements. A study from the Global Payroll Association found that three-quarters of workers would turn down a job that didn’t offer hybrid or remote working options.

Most respondents even said they would prefer these options to a four-day week.

More than half reckoned they were more productive working from home, with 38% saying they were just as productive as they would be in the workplace.

Meanwhile, almost three-quarters said they were more likely to go ‘above and beyond’ for their employer while working remotely, perhaps committing to earlier starts or working later into the evening.

"It’s clear that a flexible working arrangement is now a key requirement in the eyes of many UK workers, so much so that no less than three quarters would now avoid applying for a role that didn’t offer some degree of flexibility," said GPA CEO and founder Melanie Pizzey.

"So whilst there may be a case to prove with respect to the impact remote working can have on productivity, it certainly seems that those firms who completely eradicate it from their professional offering could seriously reduce the talent pool on offer to them when it comes to hiring."

A third of younger workers say they'd rather quit their jobs than do more days in the office, according to a survey.

Education platform Kahoot surveyed 2,000 UK professionals revealing why so many workers are keen to stay at home — and why some can't wait to get back to the office.

The study revealed that 29% of 18-24 year olds would quit their jobs if faced with even a partial return to office (RTO) mandate, with 24% of 25-34 year olds saying the same.

Despite the love of working from home, there are complaints. Nearly half (46%) of respondents to the Kahoot survey said they believe they are more productive working in the office versus 26% who feel they get more done at home.

Similarly, a third think their coworkers are less efficient at home than in the office.

"The study shows that a third of UK hybrid workers would quit if WFH days were reduced, underscoring the lasting impact of the remote work shift," said Sean D'Arcy, chief solutions officer at Kahoot.

That fits with previous research that found business leaders could risk sparking a ‘brain drain’ when implementing strict RTO mandates. In a study by the University of Pittsburgh, researchers found RTO mandates can lead to a surge in staff departures.

Notably, the study found that the company’s best-performing staff are among the first to jump ship, with women and more senior skilled employees in particular opting for a career move.

The novelty of hybrid work may be over

D'Arcy said that while working from home remains a favored practice for many workers, the survey showed the shine has worn off hybrid working, revealing some downsides.

"Yet, the novelty of remote work has faded, with many employees reporting video call fatigue, productivity drops, and privacy concerns," D'Arcy said.

Indeed, many of the complaints seem to stem from video calls, with 55% of respondents said they suffer video-call fatigue. Respondents also said they feel less tolerant of poor video-call etiquette like meetings being crashed by children, eating and drinking on camera, or faking a technical issue to ditch out of a call.

Indeed, 87% of those surveyed said at least some of their video meetings aren't needed, with a quarter reporting that at least half could have been an email. A third of respondents also feel video calls are less useful than in-person meetings.

The research also raised concerns about security risks, with a third of UK workers who were surveyed saying they have overheard work-related calls in public places, with confidential information leaking on screen or via calls.

That doesn't mean the hybrid work experiment should come to an end, D’Arcy said, but that meetings — whether Zoom or in person — need to improve.

"Rather than forcing employees back to the office, employers should focus on improving hybrid work by optimizing meetings, keeping them shorter, more purposeful, and engaging," he added.

A record number of tech workers are looking for a new job this year, as the benefits offered by employers decline.

In a survey carried out for career hub Dice, 47% said they were actively seeking new roles, marking a sharp rise from 29% last year.

Overall pay is rising, with the average technology professional salary hitting $112,521 in 2024, a 1.2% year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, AI and machine learning expertise is commanding a salary premium of up to 17.7%.

Silicon Valley maintained the highest tech salaries, despite a 7.3% year over year decline.

Manufacturing was the sector where tech salaries showed the highest growth, at 15.1%, while consulting, software, and banking/finance remained the highest-paying industries, each with average tech salaries of more than $125,000.

Notably, mid-career professionals with three to five years' experience saw 6% salary growth. This growth hasn't translated into increased satisfaction, however, with tech workers’ satisfaction with their compensation hitting a new low in 2024.

"While compensation remains important, tech professionals are increasingly focused on the total package — from benefits to job security to professional development opportunities," said Art Zeile, CEO of Dice parent company, DHI Group.

"This presents both challenges and opportunities for employers looking to attract and retain top tech talent in 2025."

AI and machine learning are seen as the most significant technological change of the past two decades, cited by 36% of tech professionals with over 20 years of experience. Cloud computing and virtualization, at 15%, and mobile technologies at 8% rounded out the top three.

Tech professionals working in these areas are not only earning more than their peers not involved in AI work, they also reported higher job satisfaction levels.

However, the report found that six-in-ten tech professionals feel underpaid — the highest percentage ever recorded in the survey. This, Zeile noted, may be linked to the fact that companies have been reducing benefits across every category, from health insurance to professional development opportunities.

"We're seeing a clear disconnect between what tech professionals value and what they're receiving from employers," he said.

"Organizations that can bridge this gap, particularly in areas like remote work flexibility and professional development, will have a significant advantage in attracting top talent in 2025."

Training and education opportunities dropped by six percentage points in 2024, with remote work options declining by four percentage points year-over-year.

Meanwhile, only 36% of tech professionals received merit raises, down from 41% in 2023.

"The reduction in benefits, particularly in areas like professional development and flexible work arrangements, may be contributing to the unprecedented levels of job seeking we're seeing," said Zeile.

"As we mark twenty years of tracking tech careers, it's clear that while we've made progress in some areas, companies need to recognize that in today's tech hiring market, they need to deliver on the total employment package to find and retain the best tech talent."

Some do see improvements on the horizon though, with women in tech with over two decades of experience nearly 1.5 times more likely than their male counterparts to say work culture has improved over the past 20 years.

"This finding suggests real progress in workplace culture," said Zeile. "However, with only 48% of all seasoned tech professionals saying culture has improved, there's still significant work to do in this area."

It feels like barely a month went by last year without some form of public spat between staff and employers over remote working policies.

Indeed, 2024 was the year of the return-to-office (RTO) mandate, with a host of big tech firms pulling the rug out from under staff and forcing them back to the office.

Chief among these RTO zealots was Dell Technologies and Amazon, with the latter having imposed a full return to the office five days a week. CEO Andy Jassy justified the move under the auspices of improving workforce collaboration and team synergy.

“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” Jassy wrote in a letter addressed to employees.

“I’ve previously explained these benefits, but in summary, we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.”

A long-winded justification complete with all the usual tropes from executives looking to return to a time long passed. They conveniently forget the record-breaking profits during a period of fully remote working.

Perhaps the lavish office spaces they’ve spent billions of dollars on are starting to get dusty.

Naturally, Amazon employees weren’t exactly delighted with the company-wide mandate. An anonymous survey signed by hundreds of staff showed widespread disapproval for the move, but the company is charging ahead full-steam nonetheless.

It’s this aspect of the RTO debate that’s so frustrating and will continue to sow discontent in 2025. Dell Technologies wasn’t dissuaded from its own plans despite clear pushback from employees and the impact it had on morale.

Executives want a return to the status-quo, so surefire in their belief that pre-pandemic working practices will be the key to eking out every last penny during what has been a challenging economic period.

A complete disregard for the myriad of readily available studies highlighting the perils of RTO mandates shows the clear disconnect between the average worker and those running the show. Any failure, stutter, or penny lost can’t possibly be due to the failings of leadership – instead we're told it’s down to Joe or Jane Bloggs in marketing working from their home office.

Eric Schmidt’s infamous Stanford University interview perfectly encapsulated this disconnect when claiming Google’s performance in the AI race was due to remote working practices. He retracted his comments, but his comments laid bare the views of many in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Staff at key competitors in the industry aren’t forced to adhere to rigid working policies, so what’s the secret to their continued productivity and success?

Ulterior motives

There are of course more underhand aspects of the RTO debate that need to be addressed; namely the attempt to push staff out to cut costs.

Big tech started 2023 with a horrendous wave of layoffs, with thousands of roles cut across the industry globally, and the year itself continued in that vein, eventually reaching several hundred thousand.

Most hoped that 2024 would be a calmer year, but it was far from it, with another wave of mass layoffs. While not quite at the scale seen in the year prior, the cuts this year have been very deep as enterprises look to continue shedding weight and reducing costs.

Efficiency and streamlining have been the key motivations behind layoffs, but they can only go on for so long before workforce morale plummets and, crucially, investor confidence dips. With that in mind, creating a working environment so frustrating and restrictive to staff seems like a great way to push them out and cut costs further.

It all sounds very tinfoil hat, I know, but research in October this year revealed that pushing staff out through RTO mandates has become a go-to practice among a concerningly large portion of business execs.

The study, from BambooHR, found 18% of HR professionals and 25% of VP and c-suite executives hoped RTO mandates would prompt voluntary turnover.

In the event that turnover didn’t reach satisfactory levels, more than one-third (37%) of directors, managers, and executives actively planned layoffs because fewer people than expected quit.

No light on the horizon, except for workers who jump ship

While 2024 was a troubling year for remote and hybrid workers the world over, next year will likely be worse. Business executives dipped their toes in the water this year, testing the limits of staff and their willingness to fight for more flexible working conditions.

Many tech employees put up a good fight, and more continue to do so. But with major brands charging ahead regardless and forcing staff back to the office, this will likely embolden other hesitant executives worried about causing a ruckus.

If they can do it, why can’t you? Go on, get them back to the office so you can get those creative juices flowing.

It will, research shows, likely come back to bite them. All that collaboration and team synergy will be rendered pointless when their top talent begins looking for alternative options that suit their needs.

Researchers at Stanford University recently found that firms with rigid RTO mandates typically lost their best-performing staff as a result. Senior employees and women were among those most likely to quit, the study noted.

Losing out on crucial talent while battling away in an increasingly competitive business landscape could be disastrous for many enterprises. But they’ve dug their own grave here in a bid to return to the glory days of the pre-pandemic grind.

AWS chief executive Matt Garman boldly suggested that employees unhappy with the company’s RTO mandate could always quit.

“There are other companies around,” he said. Many executives pushing for an RTO will learn that the hard way.

Companies that are rigid about their return to office plans risk seeing some of their top staff walk out the door as a result.

A survey of over 2,000 workers by analyst firm Gartner attempted to measure the impact of forcing staff to return to the office. It found that the average employees had an 8% lower ‘intent to stay’ in an organization with a strict policy about working in the office.

Even more worrying for bosses, for high-performing employees, the intent to stay was 16% lower, while among millennials and women, the intent to stay was 10% and 11% lower. Even managers themselves admitted they were less likely to stick around.

Caitlin Duffy, director in the Gartner HR practice, said the survey showed that strict return to the office policies can carry steep costs in terms of talent attraction and retention. Often these costs far outweigh the moderate benefits to employee engagement and effort.

“This is especially true for high-performers, women and millennials – three employee segments who greatly value flexibility,” she said.

For most employees in the survey, a return to work mandate meant working in the office five days a week, although some were required to work on-site just two to three days per week.

Workers might resent being forced back into the office, but there is growing demand from managers to get workspaces full again; a separate Gartner survey of HR leaders found that 63% had increased expectations around employees spending days in the office. While companies have tried to coax employees back, more are now resorting to stricter return to office mandates.

This can backfire, however: The firm said that high-performers often see demands from bosses to get back to the office as a sign they aren’t trusted with the autonomy to make the best choices about getting work done. The problem for managers - these high-performing employees are able to find jobs at organizations that do offer hybrid or fully remote policies.

“Losing high-performers to attrition cost (sic) organizations in terms of productivity, difficulty in backfilling the role, and the overall loss of high-quality talent available to fill critical positions,” Duffy said.

Gartner said that throughout the pandemic, increased flexibility and the ability to work from home positively impacted women’s ability to manage work and life priorities. It added that in addition to flexibility, female employees said they prefer remote work because that can mean fewer encounters with microaggressions and biases, compared to being in the office.

As a result, women disproportionately face greater schedule complications and significant monetary costs related to caregiving responsibilities if they are required to be in the office.

The Gartner report also said that millennials are the generation most likely to have caregiving responsibilities and thus also benefit the most from added flexibility. The survey found millennial employees delivered lower performance at organizations that enforced a return to the office. 

Gartner said HR should avoid setting a rigid return to the office policy and should instead try to find a different way to get people back to their place of work.

It suggests:

• Motivating employees to return, rather than ordering them, by designing their office space and hybrid policies to make employees feel autonomous, and connected.
• Consider policies that focus on-site attendance per year, not per week. Gartner said its research found that organizations setting a minimum number of in-office days per year got a better response than those mandating a minimum number of in-person days per week.
• Get workers to shape the policy. Employees who contributed to their teams' hybrid work arrangements demonstrated both higher engagement and work performance.
• Give worker a reason to come back. Organizations that transparently communicated their reasons for wanting employees to come into the office saw positive impacts on engagement, discretionary effort and retention.

While a number of high profile businesses – including big tech companies and banks – have been demanding that staff return to the office, staff have been reluctant. A separate piece of research by Gartner found that nearly half (48%) of employees thought their company’s mandates prioritize what leaders want, and not what employees need to do good work.

They may be right: Recent research from the University of Pittsburgh found that return to office mandates were often a bid to reassert control over employees and blame employees for poor company performance.

“Overall, our results do not support the argument that managers impose these mandates to increase firm values. Instead, these findings are consistent with managers using [return to office] mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance,” the researchers said. They found significant declines in employees’ ratings of overall job satisfaction, work-life balance, senior management and corporate culture after a firm announced a return to office order.

The research also found no link between having a return to office policy and significant changes in profitability, noting: “Our findings are consistent with employees’ concerns that managers use [return to office] for power grabbing and blaming employees for poor performance.”

Demanding that staff return to the office might be good for bosses who like to see a busy workplace, but it also runs counter to one of the other big employment trends – the gradual shift towards a four-day week – which means this debate is likely to rumble on for a while yet.

With the boom in home working, there's no shortage of solutions offering more resilient power or networking. Reskube's Home Pro is the first device we've come across that aims to do both. On one level it's an uninterruptible power supply, offering up to 500W of backup power if the mains goes down, but it also provides fallback data connectivity through an integrated 4G LTE router.

The Home Pro is particularly aimed at high-value employees such as the C-suite, but it's also suitable to help add resilience to branch and remote offices – or even to provide power and mitigate the risk of going offline during remote events. With just 768 watt hours (Wh) of onboard storage, it won't keep a big team working for long, but it's more than equal to the task of getting a crucial staff member through a lengthy power cut at home.

Reskube markets the Home Pro as an elegant solution that's simple to deploy, and it certainly is. Features including one-button deployment and a remote management system mean that you can quickly set up a fleet of the devices, and manage them centrally thereafter. The Home Pro itself is intentionally simple, with no switches or controls for the end user to worry about.

Reskube Home Pro review: Design and connections

The Reskube Home Pro looks a bit like a half-height version of the Apple Mac G5. It's essentially a long, dark grey metal box, wrapped in a lighter metal shell. It feels robust, and it's fairly heavy – as you'd expect for a device containing plenty of batteries. 

There are no ports around its sides or base. On the front panel, you get two UK power sockets that offer a maximum output of 500W between them. That should be enough to power three or four laptops or a couple of powerful desktops. If you want to power more devices you can plug in a couple of multi-way adaptors, but it's a shame that there are no USB ports available on the Home Pro.

While the Home Pro has no display as such, its LEDs show the remaining charge state at a glance. There's a second column of lights to indicate how close it is to the 500W maximum output. There's one power switch, which turns on both sockets and lights up the relevant lights.

At the rear, you'll find the mains power input, together with an FM12315 port for solar panels. You'll need an optional XT60 adaptor to use this, but it'll accept a maximum of 500W solar input, which could prove extremely useful for extending the run time at a remote event. Given a suitable solar array, and a bit of luck with the weather, it could even be enough to keep a low-power office or retail setup off-grid for an extended period.

The rear panel is also home to the Home Pro's data connectors. Two Ethernet ports handle incoming WAN and outgoing LAN connections. There are SMA connectors for two mobile antennas and RP-SMA connectors for the two Wi-Fi antennas. Above these, you'll find the primary and secondary SIM trays – the Reskube is unlocked, so you can use it on any carrier(s).

In a basic setup, the Home Pro plugs into the mains, and any critical devices connect to its front sockets. The WAN port takes a connection from the router, and the box provides a resilient LAN connection which you can then share if necessary using a switch. Wireless devices connect directly to the Reskube's resilient Wi-Fi network, rather than any network provided by an existing router.

A power cut in this scenario would switch the Home Pro to providing backup power, and – if the office router also went off – cause the Home Pro to failover to LTE data. In theory, the backup power switch happens in less than 10ms, while Reskube says the data failover should be completed in less than five seconds. The Home Pro isn't just for power cuts, of course – the data would failover in response to any broadband failure.

There are several other supported scenarios. The Home Pro can be configured with up to four incoming data sources: WAN, Wi-Fi, and two mobile connections. You can prioritize them, and the system pings each regularly so it already knows which are available if one higher up the list should fail. Alternatively, you can configure multiple interfaces for load balancing, although only one of the mobile SIMs can be active at any time.

This flexibility allows the Reskube to offer resilient power and data in a wide range of applications. It could for example support a CEO at home, working with a wired connection to one broadband provider and a wireless connection to a backup router, with mobile data providing a third option should the other two fail. Equally, you could use LTE data as the primary source for a mobile office or retail space, connecting the Home Pro to wired or wireless networks when available so you don't have to reconfigure all your network devices.

Reskube Home Pro review: Battery, power and data capabilities

The Reskube Home Pro stores up to 768Wh in its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which offer safer charging characteristics than standard lithium-ion chemistry. They should also have a greater service life – Reskube says they'll maintain 100% capacity for 3,000 cycles, dropping to 60% after 5,000. With this in mind, it's a bit of a shame that the standard warranty is only 12 months – some other power supply manufacturers offer five years.

Reskube says that the Home Pro could power a small office comprising five PCs or laptops, a switch, and a small printer. We're not sure that 500W would be enough, and it's certainly not sufficient for larger laser printers, which can draw around a kilowatt during their warm-up phase. This quibble aside, it's more than enough for a couple of home workers with an inkjet, a router, and a couple of desk lamps, and it's enough to power a limited mobile retail setup too.

Even at its maximum load, the Home Pro's 768Wh of storage should be sufficient for about 90 minutes of use, and it's likely to last the typical homeworker considerably longer. With the average UK user experiencing 99.99% power reliability, and a UK Power survey suggesting the average power cut lasts up to 151 minutes, the Home Pro seems well matched to the role for which it's designed. It's also worth noting that in larger offices, or small groups with heavier power demands, you could supplement the Home Pro with additional, more heavy-duty battery power supplies, such as the Anker SOLIX F1200.

When it comes to data, the Reskube Home Pro supports 4G mobile speeds up to 150Mbit/s, although this is clearly dependent on carrier and signal strength. Where signal might be an issue, you can upgrade Reskube's standard stubby antennas with cabled ones.

It's a shame that the Home Pro supports only 2.4GHz, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, rather than offering potentially faster 5GHz. A more significant issue is that its network ports are limited to just 10/100 Mbit/s. While that's not a bottleneck for ADSL2 or slower fiber connections, it's significantly below the speed of even medium-spec fiber to the premises, and less than a tenth of the fastest home broadband speeds. Given that, for seamless failover, all critical devices need to remain connected to the Home Pro's resilient wired or wireless networks, which could substantially clip the wings of power users.

Reskube Home Pro review: Performance

We test every backup power supply to its limits. In this case, that meant fully charging the Reskube Home Pro and connecting it up to a constant 500W load. It was completely stable during this test, getting only slightly warm, and took an hour and 22 minutes to run out of power. During this time it provided 633Wh, about 82% of its rated capacity. That's quite competitive for a compact battery power bank.

This taxing test caused the Home Pro's cooling fans to step up to their maximum speed. The noise would have been intrusive, but it was drowned out by a warning buzzer, which sounds constantly above a 475W load. This is by design, to warn users away from the 500W maximum. While it was annoying, our full power test isn't a particularly realistic scenario, so it's unlikely to be something that users experience. We also tested the Home Pro with a constant 200W load, during which its fans were less noisy. It delivered a total of 595Wh over this test, or roughly 77% of its stated battery capacity.

The Home Pro's cooling fans run constantly. While they're usually easy to background when it's lightly loaded, additional fans make the unit quite noisy during recharging. This happens at a fixed 500W rate, only tailing off shortly before the batteries are fully charged. We measured a total consumption of 801Wh during this test which, assuming the batteries went from fully discharged to fully recharged, would equate to a very impressive 96% efficiency.

In reality, you get the most accurate efficiency figures by dividing the power you get out by the power you put in. Here, our best figures gave a round-trip efficiency of 79%, which is competitive, if not the outright best we've measured. That's not too surprising given that some of the Home Pro's power goes to its router, very slightly lowering what's left for connected devices.

The Home Pro's failover features worked brilliantly. Its power failover speed of less than 10ms is much faster than most general-purpose battery backups and was certainly quick enough to prevent any upsets on the IT equipment we tested it with. We used a ping command as a rudimentary test to measure the data failover speed, which came in at about nine seconds when switching from wired Ethernet to mobile data. In use, data failover was seamless, and fast enough that we could continue watching a YouTube video without interruption.

The only weak note in the Reskube's performance came when we measured data speeds. Without the Reskube, our home cable connection could provide download speeds over gigabit Ethernet of around 103Mbit/s and uploads in the region of of 780Mbit/s. With the Reskube connected in series, this dropped to roughly 62Mbit/s down and only 80Mbit/s up – lower than we'd expect from even a 100Mbit/s interface.

We tested Reskube's web-based configuration menu, which is fairly easy to use and provides access to the full range of configuration options on the device. We couldn't think of a data feature that wasn't covered, but you can't view the battery status, or change any power-related configurations – for example, selecting a slower charge rate, or modifying the way the buzzer sounds in high-load or low-battery scenarios.

We also tested Reskube's remote management system (RMS), a £39 a year option that lets you connect to a given unit to check or configure its parameters. This securely supports methods including a command line interface and the full on-device web interface. This makes it perfect for transparently providing support to users, without needing to go onsite or cause downtime.

Reskube Home Pro review: Is it worth it?

The Reskube Home Pro is a simple concept, delivered very well. It's not perfect – we wish it was quieter, that it offered more ports, and that it had gigabit Ethernet connections – but it delivers on the fundamental brief. As a one-box solution that's easy to deploy and manage, it's a practical way to add resilience to critical home workers, and micro or mobile offices.

Perhaps surprisingly, it's also good value. You can buy the Reskube Home Pro outright for £999 excluding VAT: only a little more than you'd pay for a similarly specified backup power supply and a dual WAN router. Given that the Home Pro neatly integrates the functions of the two into a single box, it more than justifies its small premium.

Alternatively, the Reskube Home Pro can be had as a service for £444 per year. This upgrades the stingy warranty you get when buying and includes remote, telephone, and online support. If you're using the Home Pro to back up the most valuable people in your business, that seems like a price that's more than worth paying.

Reskube Home Pro specifications

Slack’s 2023 State of Work report revealed that performative working – the appearance of being productive but producing minimal value – has become widespread in business. Although the underlying causes of performative working differ, the result of diminished productivity remains.

The report was based on a survey, carried out by Qualtrics, of 18,149 workers ranging from c-suite executives and presidents through to middle management and desk workers, and took in a cross section of several different geographies and verticals. It showed that employees spend 32% of their time doing performative work that gives them the appearance of being productive. It was further noted that respondents claimed 43% of their meetings could be eliminated without any adverse consequences.

Performative working is not a recent phenomenon. “We've always had it,” says Alchemy Labs founder Alastair Gill. “You would see people twenty-years ago running up and down the corridors with a phone next to their heads and loads of papers under their arm, going from meeting to meeting.”

However, just as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated remote and hybrid working, so too has it changed other aspects of modern business. Meetings used to be in-person, but now people can join using video conferencing tools. Post-Covid, there has tended to be an increase in the number of emails that people are copied into, as people working from home seek to remind colleagues of what they are working on.

“We probably would have been at this point in ten years’ time, just because we've been talking about working from home for donkey’s years,” says Gill. “It’s only since Covid and all the tech companies building a lot of collaborative tools, which has really accelerated this culture of performative work.”

Michael Vincent, managing director of Strategic Goal Management Consulting, has similar feelings. “During Covid people were wanting to be seen,” he says. “They wanted to arrange meetings to show they were doing work, but they were meetings that were not required, or going to meetings where that individual doesn't need to attend.”

Nonetheless, there are a variety of other potential drivers contributing to performative working, and the exact causes differ between organizations.

Fear can be a common factor driving performative working; economic uncertainty and the rise of AI, both of which could imperil thousands of jobs, are common causes of anxiety currently. Employees who are fearful of losing their jobs will often want to be seen to be working to prove their worth. Therefore, they ensure that they are noticed by the executives, rather than focusing on the objectives of their roles.

The notifications employees are often bombarded with, especially when they are using multiple communication tools can also lead to performative working. For example, an employee could be distracted from their task by an email notification, causing them to lose their focus and instead turn their attention to replying to an email that could have waited.

Overly deferential employees, who wish to be seen by the executives in order to validate their work may also be more inclined to engage in performative work. These people may seek to remain in close proximity to the CEO, if they associate familiarity with promotion.

Moving from performative to productive working practices

Whilst the drivers behind performative working may differ, the result tends to be employees striving for greater visibility for themselves. 

Visibility as an indicator of productivity stems from a more traditional view of work, where rows of desks filled with employees was seen as an indication of high productivity. This mentality was reinforced in 2022 when Jacob Rees-Mogg called for civil servants to return to their offices.

Unfortunately, the old-fashioned connection between productivity and visibility is not compatible with modern, post-pandemic, technology-enabled ways of working. With employees working remotely, there needs to be a greater emphasis on productivity being measured by employees meeting strategic business objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs), rather than the number of hours they sit in an office.

Meetings, both online and in-person, should only be held when necessary and only attended by those who need to be there. One way to control this is to mandate that all invitations must have an agenda and state the purpose and objectives of the meeting. Notes summarizing what was discussed can be placed in a collaborative working hub, so they can be seen by any interested parties, preventing lots of people being copied into meeting invitations ‘for information only’.

Tighter controls of system notifications and their timings can also help to prevent distraction and the associated loss of focus when working.

Although it may be tempting to install employee surveillance measures as a means of measuring productivity, these can have mixed results. They can measure how active someone is at their computer, but are incredibly invasive, leading to questions about employee privacy. It also demonstrates a lack of trust by the leadership, which in turn can result in the lack of trust being reciprocated by the employees. Also, these only tackle the symptoms of performative working, rather than addressing the drivers.

It’s better to investigate the root causes of performative working and take steps to internally address them, whilst reinforcing how productivity is measured by employees meeting objectives that advance the overall organizational strategy.

This needs to be management led, communicating to employees the need for meeting strategic objectives and restricting meeting attendance to only those who should be there. Naturally, with a distributed workforce due to remote or hybrid working, there needs to be a clear and consistent message shared that reinforces this focus on productive workflows.

“It’s like a long-distance relationship; you've got to work a bit harder at it and be a little bit clearer, because you're not picking up all those clues from people in the office, that body language is more of an asynchronous relationship,” says Gill.

Performative working may look productive, but in reality it doesn’t help and can hinder employees in doing valuable work. Identifying and examining the root causes of this behavior – whether it’s anxiety, misunderstanding what’s wanted from them or something else – is the first step to eliminating it and encouraging a truly productive workforce.

Despite more than two years of remote and hybrid working practices, many business leaders still fool themselves into thinking workers will return to the office five days a week. 

KPMG recently found nearly two-thirds of CEOs of the world’s largest businesses predicted all staff would return to five-day office routines within the next three years. Each and every one of us. It points to a growing belief that a return to the past is looming, but – more importantly – it shows a rampant disconnect. 

What’s the office good for anyway?

Remote and hybrid working policies introduced in early 2020 were expected to fizzle out as the world emerged from the pandemic. But this never happened – because workers around the world weren’t exactly scrambling to return to the grinding commute and banal office culture. 

Being forced away from the office was really challenging. But the freedom it’s afforded since then has been highly beneficial, and created a level of convenience that otherwise wouldn’t have been available with a full-time office role. The truth is many workers would actually consider changing jobs if they were forced back in.

So, we know workers obviously don’t want it, so why are many CEOs deluding themselves into believing we’ll return to these antiquated modes of work? Productivity, collaboration, and creativity are typically cited as key factors here. Business leaders believe being in the office is naturally conducive to creating a more collaborative and innovative workforce. Those in-person connections are vital to get the creative juices flowing, so to speak.

But if that was the case, the pandemic era would’ve been a sterile, uninspired period of monotony for businesses the world over. It was anything but, and teams globally continued to innovate in a remote, and now hybrid, capacity.

Productivity is another point of tension – and it’s a gray area fraught with conflicting research. “Information workers” were 18% less productive when working fully remote, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But 59% of workers told RingCentral they feel more productive working remotely.

Despite the confusion, it’s clear employees see themselves as more productive in a hybrid arrangement. With that in mind, it stands to reason firms denying staff this opportunity either don’t trust their employees, or worse, value the conformity of in-office attendance over worker productivity, or morale.

Corporations are pushing, but workers are pushing back

If returning to five-day office weeks will be realized in the coming years – and I don’t really see how – it’s crucial this happens with the consent of workers.

So far this year, major firms have engaged in repeated spats with staff over working practices, with tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Zoom all mandating at least a partial return to the office. Google even suggested recording attendance rates to use in performance reviews.

Nothing quite screams ‘welcoming corporate culture’ like penalizing staff over their desire to cut the costs of commuting during a cost of living crisis. At least, in this instance, Google offered customers a ‘discounted rate’ on hotel rooms at corporate campuses. Paying for the privilege of office work sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Zoom, meanwhile, whose proposition as a business rests on the idea of remote and hybrid work communications, introduced controversial new rules requiring staff to commute to the office several days a week. The irony of this was, and remains, astounding. 

These examples all highlight how resistant workers are to return to the status quo, and a lack of empathy or understanding among senior leadership. Many remain out of touch and simply can’t accept change. 

Tapping into a remote talent pool

One of key benefits of remote work, for businesses, has been the opportunity to tap into wider talent pools amidst the well-publicized digital skills shortages. It means opening up to candidates from all over the country – or the world – and many organizations have been reaping these rewards without complaint.

ITPro’s own editorial team is now split across multiple locations throughout the UK. From London to Oxford and Newcastle, and beyond in Edinburgh, where yours truly is based, going mostly remote has done little to impact our productivity and communication.

Being able to work remotely has, indeed, made possible my own inclusion in this team from the confines of the Scottish capital, and has let me avoid the prospect of moving to London.

Of course, the ‘new normal’ has its pros and cons, but so too did the old way. And businesses and employees will continue to fight over which works best. But, fundamentally, it really only matters what business decision-makers think, given they make the rules.

Assuming a full-time office setup will naturally improve productivity and collaboration is wrong, and the last three years have shown this. If workers do begin flocking back to the office, it will be on their terms. Any business leader who thinks otherwise will likely find themselves embroiled in a bitter dispute and risk losing vital talent along the way. 

The concept of flexible working has surged in popularity in recent years amid changing perceptions of working practices in the wake of the COVID pandemic. 

The rapid shift to remote work during the early days of the pandemic was expected by some to fizzle out as restrictions eased - but that’s not been the case. 

Instead, many organizations have retained - at the very least - hybrid working practices and have come to realize the benefits of flexible working arrangements. 

Similarly, employees themselves have become increasingly vocal about the necessity of flexible working, according to the Achievers Workforce Institute. 

In a recent webinar entitled ‘Flexibility at Work: What's Working and What's Not’ Caitlin Nobes, lead analyst at the Institute said the definition of ‘flexibility’ has become a fluid concept for employees and employers alike. 

Prior to the pandemic, employees seeking alternative work opportunities typically looked elsewhere due to career progression goals. However, the focus has now changed toward a desire for increased flexibility and autonomy in their daily working lives. 

Nobes revealed that flexible working was identified as the top priority for employees for the first time in the five years that it has been running its annual survey, underlining the shift in focus for workers. 

“For the first five years that we ran this annual survey, career progression was the number one reason people said they were going to job hunt, but today it's flexibility,” said Nobes. “Most employees who can work from anywhere would like the option to at least sometimes work off site.”

The Institute’s analysis aligns closely with alternative research on the topic of workplace flexibility. A study by Gartner found that the “desire for flexibility” is very much here to stay. Nearly two-thirds (60%) of employees told the analyst firm that they expect to work remotely “at least once a week”. This comes in stark contrast to before the pandemic, when just 38% said they expected greater workplace flexibility. 

Flexible working and talent retention

This paradigm shift means that many employers now face adapting how they approach the future of work at their organization. 

In a survey of HR leaders, two-thirds told the Institute that they expect labor challenges to deteriorate further. Therefore, moving forward, organizations that embrace flexible working models can differentiate themselves and help retain critical talent. 

Gartner research shows that more than half (55%) of employees believe flexible work policies will directly affect their decision to stay at an organisation, highlighting flexible policies as a key benefit. 

The topic of flexible working was a key focal point of a recent webinar run by the Achievers Workforce Institute, featuring input from HR leaders at Blue Ivy Group and Amazon Canada. Watch the whole video embedded in this article. 

Alex Meers, director of employment brand and culture, Blu Ivy Group said this topic has now become “table stakes” for every company and that flexible working is often aligned with broader DEI and staff wellbeing goals. 

“It's probably no surprise that DEI has become table stakes now for every company,” he said in a webinar hosted by Achievers Workforce Institute. 

“Wellness has now become a core part of every HR strategy. It's the baseline expectation in every culture. And now we see flexibility shifting to that category from a ‘nice to have’ into a ‘need to have’ for many.”

Remote, hybrid, and flexible - what’s the difference?

In the post-pandemic era of work, there is a notable distinction between the terms ‘hybrid’ and ‘flexible’. However, the two are often conflated, leading to a degree of confusion among employers and employees alike. 

Hybrid work practices typically involve employees working in a combination of office-based and home-based patterns. While this offers them a greater degree of flexibility in terms of work-life balance, there are drawbacks. 

Typically, this is a company-ordained policy and can be rigid in nature, requiring staff to come to the office on set days of the week. A range of global brands currently operate hybrid work practices.  

Google, for example, introduced new policies this year requiring staff to work from the office a minimum of three days per week. 

Under this policy change, staff would be penalized for failing to attend in-office days regularly. This practice, by its very nature, is contradictory to the concept of ‘flexible’ working and may put pressure on employees to feel the need to conform to such policies even if it's not in the best interest.  

By contrast, flexible working provides employees with a far more fluid work setup, enabling them to still combine office and remote work practices, but on their terms. Under the true umbrella of flexible working, staff can also choose the hours they work based around their personal commitments, such as childcare, for example. 

Fundamentally, autonomy is crucial in any flexible working plan, according to Meers. 

“The conversation [on flexible working] is usually limited to where and when work is done, so leaders end up focusing on hybrid versus remote work. And in reality, employees are actually referring to more than that,” he said. 

“We're talking about flexibility in terms of how work is done, generally. And in some ways employees today want what they've always wanted, which is autonomy, trust, and agency to do their jobs in a way that works for them.”

Research from Gartner shows that granting employees and teams autonomy over how and where they work is highly beneficial in several ways, resulting in improved wellbeing and higher performance among staff. 

Employees granted greater autonomy and flexibility in their working patterns were found to be less fatigued and 2.3 times more likely to stay with their organization. 

Flexible working in action

Insurance giant Zurich is among a host of global organizations to have introduced flexible working plans for its employees in recent years. 

The firm first introduced flexible work options prior to the pandemic, enabling staff to request a host of flexible options, such as:

• Changing the days they work
• Changing the hours and/or times they work
• The ability to change to part-time, full-time, or to a job-share setup. 

Employee feedback shows that the initiative has been highly beneficial in terms of productivity, wellbeing, and ensuring a more reasonable work-life balance since its launch in 2019. 

Applications to the company were also boosted by two thirds (66%) since its launch, according to the firm, highlighting the appeal for jobseekers. 

Great expectations

Productivity improvements among staff are among the most notable benefits of flexible working, according to research. 

In Gartner’s 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey, 43% of respondents said flexible working hours helped them achieve “greater productivity”.

Given the range of benefits offered by flexible working, organizations today can’t afford to lag behind on commitments to employees. 

Cultivating a more flexible, productive, and happy workforce could be the difference between weathering current economic conditions and losing vital talent during a precarious period in the global skills market. 

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) expects flexible working to persist in the coming years, meaning businesses have a prime opportunity to differentiate themselves and create a more efficient, distributed workforce. 

Tips for flexible working policies

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development offers a range of best practice tips and advice on how employers and employees can broach the topic of flexible working. 

Notable tips include: 

• Allowing staff to openly request flexible working from the onset of their employment
• Offer different types of flexible working, such as a four-day work week, flexible hours, and the ability to work from different locations
• Ensure consultation with staff when designing flexible or hybrid work practices
• Invest in relevant tools and technologies to support flexible working
• Consider inclusion and equality when embarking on a flexible working plan

WeWork’s latest financial difficulties suggest that the company is not only on a downward spiral, but fast becoming a relic of a bygone era in the world of work. 

SEC filings this week painted a grim picture for the co-working space firm, with the company warning that its current “losses and negative cash flows” raise “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating. 

“If we are not successful in improving our liquidity position and the profitability of our operations, we may need to consider all strategic alternatives,” the company said. 

These ‘strategic alternatives’ could come in the form of debt refinancing, a reduction in business activities, the sale of assets, or even “obtaining relief under the US bankruptcy code”, WeWork added. 

WeWork’s current financial standing certainly appears to have a dire outlook and follows several years of turbulence and losses. 

In the first half of this year, the firm recorded a net loss of $700 million - grim figures that came after staggering losses of $2.3 billion in 2022 due to deteriorating economic conditions. 

So what has gone wrong for WeWork? 

WeWork differently now

The current situation appears to be a confluence of issues that have placed the firm in a difficult position. The COVID-19 pandemic and shift to remote work did no favors for an organization whose entire proposition centers around office work. 

This widespread shift to remote operations prompted a slew of firms globally to exit their leases once it became apparent that remote was there to stay. 

More recently, David Tolley, interim CEO at the firm specifically cited “higher member churn and softer demand” as key reasons for the current slump, along with an “excess supply in commercial real estate”. 

Deteriorating economic conditions have also contributed to this downward spiral the company is on, with companies re-evaluating their in-office activities for myriad financial reasons. Rising energy costs also appear to have played a role in this decline. 

Rick Smith, managing director at insolvency service Forbes Burton, told ITPro that the shift to remote and hybrid work has “undeniably” played a role in the current hardships experienced by the Softbank-backed firm. 

"The contributing factors to this have included the fact that costs have gone up but there are also factors like energy and rents, which will be affecting the cost to run the workspaces,” he said. 

“This, combined with changing attitudes to where and how people work with hybrid models of working becoming normal practice has a direct effect on WeWork’s bottom line. If they cannot keep up with this trend, it could spell further trouble.

"The shift to remote working has undeniably affected WeWork and their very business model seems to be under threat. The way people will work from now on will no doubt change again so unless there is something fundamental the company can pivot to cater for, it may be hard for them to take control of the current situation."

A protracted fall from grace 

WeWork’s bleak outlook comes in stark contrast to pre-pandemic times in which the company’s offering was hailed as the “future of work”. 

The company rapidly cozied up to the burgeoning global tech industry, offering startups and companies of all sizes the chance to embed themselves in its spaces that were marketed more as a self-sustaining ecosystem than a simple office space. 

WeWork expanded rapidly over the course of several years, opening locations in more than 30 countries globally and expanding its member count to more than half a million. 

At its zenith, WeWork was preparing to go public at a valuation of $47 billion, but that all came crashing down in 2019 with a botched IPO due to concerns over the longevity of the business model and the company leadership - namely Adam Neumann’s perceived erratic leadership style. 

When it eventually went public in 2021, it did so at $9 billion, a fraction of what it was once valued at. 

Now, the broader global technology sector is facing its own challenges, spurred on by economic disruption, inflation, and a wave of layoffs at the beginning of this year. 

This certainly appears to have had a knock-on effect on the co-working space, and could herald even tougher times if investors get spooked, Smith warned. 

"Business continuation for WeWork looks bleak at best,” he said. “They can hope to carry on, but if losses like this continue then investors will keep pulling their money and support, which has so far been holding the company afloat. 

“Shareholders will start showing their overall disdain by selling off shares before the value drops even further. Once this starts it can be a very slippery slope.”

For years, the company was hailed as the very future of work, but the reality is that the way we work has changed, and the company has been unable to adapt to changing conditions. 

Big tech’s latest attempt to lure workers back into the office has entered the realm of the bizarre. Framed as a way to help staff ‘re-transition’ into hybrid work, Google is offering staff a discounted $99 per night rate at its Mountain View hotel, according to CNBC.

Taking up this offer would give staff “an extra hour of sleep” and “less friction” getting to the office. Sounds ideal, doesn't it? 

Not quite. This latest move borders on dystopian, and seems like a shallow attempt to pressure workers into conforming to Google’s rigid views on office attendance. 

Even if you were to ignore the obvious issue here, the $99 nightly rate for a hotel room to work, this actually equates to just below the median cost of an apartment in nearby areas. Furthermore, it could quite clearly isolate staff and further deteriorate their work-life balance. Working from home is one thing, working from a hotel on-site sounds like a living nightmare.

Eat, sleep, code, repeat

Google, along with other big tech firms hellbent on pushing workers back into the banal nine-to-five routine, has long positioned in-person attendance as key to fostering creativity, productivity, and improved well-being. This is largely borne from the buzz of being surrounded by your peers. 

In 2021, Google went so far as to warn remote and hybrid work could “harm company culture” and be to the detriment of both staff and the broader organization.

But this aspect of the creativity and productivity argument is voided if you coop people up and separate from their families on a campus akin to some bizarre military boot camp. Working from a hotel, on-site can’t possibly offer advantages over working from home, where staff are most comfortable.

Furthermore, Google, in its divine wisdom, could simply “remove the friction” of travel by allowing staff to work remotely on their terms. Remote working isn’t exclusive to the home, and workers around the world are choosing to work from alternative locations or hotdesk. 

My way or the highway

Since the onset of the pandemic and the shift to remote and hybrid working, Google boasts an exhaustive track record of pushing for a return to the office. 

Earlier this year, it revised its hybrid work practices and introduced a series of widely criticized policies that would see in-office attendance tracked by badge scanning at company sites. 

At the time, it was reported that metrics obtained on in-person attendance would be taken into account in performance reviews. Chief people officer Fiona Cicconi said the firm’s approach aimed to foster closer collaboration among staff, adding there’s “no substitute for coming together in person”. 

Combine badge tracking policies with an on-campus living environment, and Google has all the makings of its own contained Los Alamos-style workplace. 

Growing real estate woes

Of course, this entire debacle comes amid a period of real estate re-evaluation for Google and other businesses.

In February, the tech giant began asking employees at its cloud division to share desks at several sites across the US as part of a “real estate efficiency” drive. The firm asked staff to buddy up with colleagues and alternate shift patterns at several sites, including Kirkland, Washington, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and the Sunnyvale office in California.

Google may be concerned its extensive real estate portfolio isn’t being fully utilized, and is instead opting to dangle what it believes to be a highly enticing carrot. But the circumstances in which it’s presented this 'summer special' appear so nefarious that employees must now be questioning how far Google will go to ensure they can scan badges – all while trying to ignore HR emails on their upcoming appraisal session. 

Perhaps, if they’re lucky, staff can enjoy the “magic hallway conversations”, cited as a key motivator behind the policy revamp. But it’s far more likely they’ll be stuck in a perpetual loop of working and then returning to Google's own Hotel California. The work-life balance had a good run. 

Female tech workers in the UK have been disproportionately impacted by the recent wave of layoffs across the industry. 

Analysis from Integro Accounting found that the percentage of female tech employees in the UK sector has fallen for the first time since 2018, highlighting concerns about diversity in the space. 

The firm found that women accounted for around 20.1% of the total industry workforce in 2022, marking a decrease from 22.7% in the year prior. 

Across this period, the total number of female tech employees also fell in absolute terms from 384,025 to 359,154, equivalent to a 6.5% drop. 

Conversely, the number of male employees in the sector increased by 8.6% across the same period from 1,306,833 to 1,419,590. 

The statistics from Integro align with previous research on the issue of layoffs and female representation in the tech industry. 

Earlier this year, analysis from Layoffs.fyi found that in Europe women accounted for 41.6% of job cuts despite making up just over one-third of the workforce. 

Similar analysis of the US job market also points toward disproportionate levels of redundancies for female workers. Between October 2022 and June 2023, female tech workers made up nearly half (45%) of redundancies across the industry. 

What’s driving female tech layoffs?

Christian Hickmott, managing director of Integro Accounting, said the disproportionate volume of layoffs could compound long-standing issues around diversity and lack of female representation. 

“The UK tech sector has made great strides in boosting female representation in recent years so it is disappointing to see much of that progress undone during the recent round of tech layoffs.”

Hickmott noted that, traditionally, female workers tend to be “more highly concentrated” in part-time or non-technical roles which are “often the first to go during a downturn”. 

However, Donne Burrows, chief operating officer at Engine B told ITPro that, in her experience, women don’t typically hold positions that are more vulnerable to cuts. 

The issue lies in the seniority of roles, she said, with many female tech workers holding more junior positions compared to male colleagues. 

Junior roles are typically among the first to be subject to cuts during an economic downturn. With a higher proportion of male employees holding senior roles, this can create a broader adverse effect on female workers. 

“From my experience of recruiting and managing people and operations, I don’t believe that female tech workers are necessarily working in roles more vulnerable to cuts,” she said. “However, as companies look at making cost savings, they may be taking out more junior roles as these can be consolidated or automated. 

“Often these roles will employ a blend of male and female workers, but the more senior roles will tend to be filled by men so it feels like women may be more adversely impacted.”

Burrows said another key reason for disproportionate losses may be due to changing work patterns in the wake of the pandemic. With many organizations seeking to return to the office, this could have a greater impact on women in the workforce. 

“Some of the losses may be as a result of changing working patterns and more companies going back to pre-pandemic working - ie, more time in offices - and this may be adversely affecting female workers who have other commitments that remote working supports”. 

Google is set to take a tougher approach to employee office attendance following changes to its hybrid work policies. 

Reports from CNBC suggest that Google plans to track office badge data to monitor attendance and will actively confront staff who continue to work remotely when scheduled to attend the office. 

Chief people officer Fiona Cicconi told staff in an email that the tech giant will continue its minimum attendance baseline of three days a week. However, office attendance metrics will be used in employee performance reviews moving forward. 

Workers who are consistently absent from the office will also be sent reminders to encourage attendance. 

Additional tracking of staff attendance for workers will rely on badge data when checking into the office.

At present, this appears to be limited to workers in the United States. However, internal documents viewed by the publication showed that executives are in the process of evaluating local legal requirements to expand the scheme in other countries. 

Cicconi said the firm’s new approach to office attendance aims to foster more collaborative ties among staff, noting that there is “no substitute for coming together in person”. 

“Of course, not everyone believes in ‘magic hallway conversations’, but there’s no question that working together in the same room makes a positive difference,” she told staff.

In her email, Cicconi added that “many of the products” unveiled at the I/O and Google Marketing Live conferences held last month were “conceived, developed, and built by teams working side by side”.

Fully remote workers at Google will also be asked to “reconsider” their working patterns, Cicconi said. 

CNBC revealed that separate internal documents showed pre-approved remote staff could be subject to re-evaluation. This could be dependent on a range of factors, including “material changes in business need” or team changes.

“For those who are remote and who live near a Google office, we hope you’ll consider switching to a hybrid work schedule,” Cicconi said. “Our offices are where you’ll be most connected to Google’s community.”

Hybrid work crackdown

This latest move from Google follows a lengthy drive to encourage staff back into the office at sites across the US and globally. 

The firm repeatedly delayed its return to the office during the COVID-19 pandemic due to rapidly evolving infection rates and the emergence of new variants. 

In 2021, Google faced intense backlash from staff after pushing for a return to the office. This prompted the firm to reconsider its remote working policies and allow a significant portion of staff to continue working from home. 

Staff have been required to attend the office at least three days a week since April 2022, however. 

Despite pushing for a larger pool of staff to return to the office, Google has been cutting its real estate footprint in recent months due to dwindling demand and rising costs. 

In February, staff at the tech giant’s cloud division were asked to begin sharing desks at several office locations across the US, including its New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Kirkland offices. 

The move formed part of a “real estate efficiency” drive from the firm and saw employees asked to pair up with colleagues and alternate in-office shift patterns. 

Google said at the time that the policy would enable it to “continue to invest in Cloud’s growth”. The firm noted that in the long term, the move could result in some offices being vacated. 

Technology has played a key role in establishing new ways of working since 2020, but it means our work and personal lives have converged. For some among us, it means working longer hours, with less physical separation between work and home life. 

For many, too, the working day now involves back-to-back virtual meetings with little time for creativity or informal connection – both of which are fundamental elements of the overall experience. Recruitment, onboarding, and learning have also been challenged by the lack of in-person contact, with some employees feeling disconnected and unsupported. 

It hasn’t been all bad, though. Flexible schedules have been a huge help for people with care needs, while many appreciate dropping the hours-long commute every day. That freedom has indeed been harnessed in positive ways to rebalance work and life. 

Evidently, everything changed, but not everybody felt the change equally. Technology is  promoting an always-on culture and workers are burning out harder and faster as a result. Thankfully for businesses, though, these same technologies can be pivoted to stripping away the downsides of hybrid work. 

Did COVID-19 really cause productivity to rise?

Several studies into the effects of working from home during the pandemic have linked the lockdown with a rise in productivity, but the University of Essex and the University of Chicago conducted joint research that found the opposite. 

This study was unique in studying metrics rather than reported feelings, comparing productivity before and after the remote working phase of COVID-19 based on analysing data from more than 10,000 people working in a large Asian IT company.

The study found while total hours worked increased by roughly 30% – including an 18% rise in out-of-hours working – average output did not significantly change. Technology played a central part in facilitating this odd shift in working hours. The time spent in meetings powered by videoconferencing rose significantly during the pandemic, as did email traffic. 

Meetings could often break into what would otherwise be periods of uninterrupted work, which may have caused concentration loss and taken workers longer to complete tasks. The research also found while there were more meetings overall, there were fewer supervision meetings and coaching sessions.

“Our explanation is that there were more distractions at home – especially with children – and that the costs of communication and collaboration were significantly higher away from the office,” said Dr Christoph Siemroth, who worked on the study. 

“Time in formal meetings increased a lot, including teleconferences and email traffic also went up. Meetings and other coordination activities appeared to disrupt “focus time” when employees were able to work without interruption. 

“Additional evidence for this view is that employees networked less – they had fewer contacts with colleagues and business units both inside and outside the firm. Despite having more meetings, staff had fewer supervision meetings or coaching sessions.”

This is, however, just one study and others demonstrate the opposite. Those reliant on self-reporting show staff benefit from increased wellbeing, higher productivity and satisfaction, according to research by the UK Parliament. The picture is certainly mixed, and it isn’t an exact science. 

Fighting the always-on culture

What’s clear is the lines are blurring between remote workers’ work and personal lives, a development that Toby Pochron, employment director at law firm Freeths, suggests has continued post-pandemic. 

“With the ability to access work from the comfort of their homes, the line between work and personal time has become blurred,” he says, pointing to how always-on technologies have exacerbated this problem. 

Workers, for example, are constantly connected to not just friends and family but colleagues and employers through the same devices. The ever-present ability to check emails, for example, is a major problem. Once emails are checked, if “urgent” things are identified, there is a temptation to deal with them immediately, even if that means outside working hours. He also identifies virtual meeting fatigue – too many meetings, too frequently, which can lead to a feeling of stress and burnout. 

Amy Finn, people and talent expert, PA Consulting adds another dimension to the levels of stress and anxiety the “always on” culture can bring. She points out that hybrid working allowed some firms to focus on globalization or international working. This brings with it challenges as “employees have found they need to flex working patterns and work longer hours in order to collaborate with virtual teams”. This often removes workers’ control over schedules and may, again, contribute to longer working and out-of-hours working.

Using tech to fight the new burnout

Just as technology is a contributing factor to the new burnout, it can be used to help alleviate it. But it’s vital to recognize that technology is not the answer to burnout, just one tool in the box. 

Pochron suggests time management and productivity tools, mental health and wellbeing apps, and automation can all play a part in helping people manage their work-life balance and avoid burnout. He’s clear that managers need to take a positive role here, for example, “using software to track the performance of remote workers and adjust their workload, or provide them with additional support when necessary”.

Finn echoes this point, telling ITPro that employees need to take control of setting boundaries, but that there’s also a responsibility for the organization to “reset the boundaries and work with their people to define the new rules of engagement”. 

The Gallup report Amplifying Wellbeing at Work and Beyond Through the Power of Recognition, published in 2022, showed fulfilling employee recognition can reduce burnout such that employees are up to 90% less likely to report being burned out at work "always" or "very often". 

Technology can play a part here through digital recognition programs which support, celebrate and promote wellbeing and allow coworkers to bond across remote working situations. Gallup says such programs can help workers get to know each other and fortify social wellbeing.

In all of this, it is vital to realise a few home truths. Firstly, technology is a tool and, used poorly, it can fuel the problem of burnout. Used well, however, it can be a mitigation. Secondly, people are all different, and what one might see as a perfectly fine work pattern that doesn’t generate burnout, another might find challenging. Finally, the need for people to feel connected, valued and well-rewarded is equally important whether work is entirely from home, hybrid or office based. 

Since the global pandemic, the modern workforce has become largely remote in a bid to continue business operations. With more remote devices now accessing the company network from multiple locations, and the adoption of cloud-based collaborative tools, cyber criminals have revelled in exploiting vulnerabilities following this shift.

With employees today determining how they work - the majority opting for remote/hybrid opportunities - this resource can help organisations ensure the security of their remote employees with ten clear cyber security checks.

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• 45% said that remote and hybrid work models are now an embedded part of accepted work practices.
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New demand for office space in the US fell for the third consecutive month in August, sinking below half of its average pre-pandemic pace.

VTS, a commercial real estate technology platform, published its VTS Office Demand Index (VODI) analysis today, which found it had fallen 11.5%, from 52 in July to 46 in August, its lowest level since February 2021. A VODI of 50 or below indicates the flow of new tenants seeking office space is running at less than half of its pre-pandemic pace in 2018 and 2019, underlined the company.

Compared to the previous year, the national VODI declined 47.1%. However, it said this isn’t concerning in and of itself, as this reflects last year’s so-called post-vaccine wave of new office demand. In the wave, demand for office space that had been pent up during the pandemic resulted in a temporary burst of new demand in late spring and summer 2021.

All but one market analysed reported a decline in August, with New York City down 22.8%, Los Angeles down 14.1%, and Seattle down 13.7%. Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco saw modest declines.

“A summer slowdown is typical for office demand, but what remains to be seen is if this downward trend will continue or if we’re simply settling into a new ‘post-pandemic normal’ for office demand levels,” said Nick Romito, CEO of VTS. “Economic concerns, particularly around inflation and rising interest rates, have created a cloud of uncertainty that’s hanging over the office leasing market. Until the economic outlook becomes more clear, some employers may continue to delay or approach the search for office space with caution.”

During the last three months, VTS found that new demand had fallen the most in New York City, Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles, where office-using employment is relatively concentrated in the finance, insurance, and real estate sector. It said these industries are particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, which aligns with the decline in new office demand being sharper in those cities.

Another factor potentially furling the decline in these cities is the typical client size and adaptability to work from home, said VTS. The cities’ expected pool of new tenants tends to include many larger employers who may be adapting to new work-from-home realities slower than smaller, more nimble employers.

As a result of the widespread shift to remote working brought about by the pandemic, many businesses are now embracing a hybrid working model. This means that instead of bringing employees back to the office full-time, organisations are enabling their staff to split their time between their home and the office.

This move, which enables employees to enjoy the benefits of working remotely while also allowing them the option to collaborate in person, means businesses need to ensure their workforce is equipped with devices that keep up with their demanding productivity workflow. This means high-performance laptops are a must, as well as machines that enable fuss-free remote manageability and enterprise-class security tools.

The AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor has enabled a new generation of laptops that have been designed with hybrid workers in mind, complete with top performance for video conferencing, endless connectivity options and a huge array of business-grade security features.

We take a look at some of the features that are a must-have for your hybrid workers.

Performance

Remote working, and the shift to hybrid working that has followed, has enabled a new type of working. Time spent on Microsoft Teams, for example, increased by 100% from 2020 to 2021, and employees are now spending more time than ever using cloud-based applications that allows them to better collaborate with their colleagues working from different locations.

Your employees need a business-grade laptop that will keep up with these ever-changing and ever-demanding tasks. An AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-based laptop can do just that; not only does its 6nm “Zen 3+” architecture enable fast performance but it also has been designed with flexible working in mind. For example, the HP EliteBook 865 G9 – which packs an AMD Ryzen™ 7 6800U processor – makes use of the CPU’s intelligent features to accelerate performance while employees are using Microsoft Office applications while running a conference in Microsoft Teams.

What’s more, thanks to the next-gen connectivity options offered by the built-in CPU’s built-in AMD RDNA™ 2 graphics, the EliteBook 865 supports the latest HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 standards, up to four 4K screens, and the latest high-quality codecs, ensuring your staff have the ultimate working from home setup.

Battery life is another must-have for today’s employees who need reliable portability for hybrid work anywhere. The aforementioned HP EliteBook 865 – which also boasts a 14-inch 16:10 aspect ratio display, a sleek and lightweight design, and runs Microsoft’s Windows 11 out of the box – has been rated the leading business-grade laptop when it comes to battery life, offering up to 26.15 hours of non-stop productivity from a single charge*.

Security

Security is another key consideration when choosing the right hardware for your hybrid workforce.

An AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-powered laptop helps protect your employees against even all kinds of attacks. The CPUs, which are the first x86 processors to integrate the Microsoft Pluton security processor**, are designed to offer chip-to-cloud protection against cyberattacks. The Pluton chip helps to eliminate vectors of attack while helping to protect critical data – such as users’ identifying information and encryption keys – from falling into the hands of hackers.

If you opt for an AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-based laptop such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X13, you’re also gaining a number of additional security tools from the built-in privacy shutter to the fingerprint scanner embedded into the laptop’s business-grade keyboard.

Manageability

With employees splitting their time between their home and the office, not to mention coffee shops and various co-working spaces, manageability has become a difficult task for IT admins, forced to contend with a multitude of devices and an endless number of networks.

However, with an AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-based laptop, managing your fleet of devices is simple. The CPU’s come with an integrated AMD Manageability processor, which offers simplified deployment and management that is compatible with your current infrastructure – so no expensive overhauls required.

For example, let’s say you equip your employees with AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-powered Lenovo Z16 laptops. You’ll be able to deploy hardware quickly and easily thanks to the CPU’s support cloud-based tools such as Windows Autopilot, you’ll have flexibility thanks to the processor’s open standards and features, and management at scale with be easier than ever thanks to AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series' support for modern management solutions, such as Windows Endpoint Manager.

The AMD options

The AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-based laptop, which is sure to offer your hybrid workers all of the tools they need to work quickly and reliably from any location, is already shipping in a number of business-grade laptops.

There’s the Lenovo ThinkPad X13, which not only offers unmatched performance and an all-day battery life, but also boasts a high-resolution 13.3-inch touchscreen display, a Dolby Audio Speaker System for high-quality audio, and up to 2TB PCIe SSD storage.

Lenovo has also upgraded its ThinkPad Z16 with an AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor. This means the stylish laptop is now the ideal machine for employees with demanding workflows, as well as those working in the creative industries that require pin-sharp visuals and slick graphics performance. Alongside its powerful internals, the ThinkPad Z16 packs a massive 16-inch display, an edge-to-edge keyboard, and support for endless accessories thanks to its array of built-in ports.

HP, too, has been quick to upgrade its top-of-the-line EliteBook 845 with an AMD Ryzen 6000 processor. The compact laptop also boasts optional 4G for on-the-go-working.

Whichever AMD Ryzen™ PRO 6000 Series processor-based laptop you choose for your workers, you can rest assured that the device will protect against hackers, enable your employees to keep up with the most demanding of tasks, and ensure they can be easily managed wherever they’re working.

*All battery life claims are approximate. Battery life tested by HP as of 4.7.22, using the Bapco MobileMark 18 benchmark test on an HP Elitebook 865 G9 laptop configured with a 76WHr battery, Ryzen PRO 6850U processor with Radeon graphics, 256GB HDD, 8GB memory, Win 10 Pro, video resolution of 1920 x 1200 x 60 Hz and the power slider set to “better battery.” Actual battery life will vary based on several factors, including, but not limited to: product configuration and usage, software, operating conditions, wireless functionality, power management settings, screen brightness and other factors. The maximum capacity of the battery will naturally decrease with time and use. AMD has not independently tested or verified the battery life claim. For more information about HP’s published battery life testing and the MobileMark 18 benchmark test, see https://results.bapco.com/fdr/63601890f0f14ab5c99c634be6721d95. RMP-33

**As of January 2022, only AMD Ryzen™ 6000 Series processors include the Microsoft Pluton security processor, while AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series processors and Intel's latest 11th and 12th Gen processors do not. RMB-24

© 2022 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, RDNA, Ryzen, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Giving employees the flexibility to be fully productive while working remotely makes it critical that businesses have endpoint security measures in place to prevent, detect and respond to the growing threat landscape while allowing employees the flexibility to work remotely.

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This automatically-generated transcript is taken from the IT Pro Podcast episode ‘How to perfect your remote working setup'. To listen to the full episode, click here. We apologise for any errors.

Connor Jones

Hi, I'm Connor Jones.

Adam Shepherd

I'm Adam Shepherd.

Sabina Weston

And I'm Sabina Weston.

Connor

And you're listening to the IT Pro Podcast. This week, we're talking about the essential tech that you need for your remote working setup.

Adam

For many organisations, the initial shift to remote working at the start of the pandemic was sudden and unexpected, and many workers simply had to make do with technology and equipment that they had.

Sabina

More than two years on, however, there's no excuse for working hunched over your laptop on the kitchen table. There's a plethora of peripherals and devices that can improve your comfort and productivity while working from home. And adding a couple of key pieces of equipment can dramatically boost your experience.

Adam

So we're all currently working from home. We've been working from home for a number of years now even before the pandemic. But I think it's fair to say that perfecting your home working setup is something that is always going to be an ongoing process. I don't know about you. But over the past several years, I've been gradually tweaking and refining what my kind of ideal workspace looks like. So what does your ideal home office setup look like for you, Connor, do you want to kick us off?

Connor

So obviously we're techies, we look at CES, although we don't cover it too often. I'm sure you received...

Adam

I think I know what you're gonna say.

Connor

I think you do too; at least, there's at least one in every single CES, where it's these like super expensive, almost robotic gaming environments where they've got like a chair on like a pneumatically driven platform. It's like one of those sort of 4D immersive experiences that has like monitors out the wazoo, it's got like, you know, it's got like a bed, it's got like a Monster energy drink supply in the back of the chair and stuff like that, you know, that kind of, that kind of thing. Like, I want a full... I want something I can just live in, I don't I don't want to, I don't have to be able to move, something's just something I'm going to be in it for so long that it's going to create a Connor-shaped hole in the chair. But I think I think a little bit more realistically. For me, I always prioritise monitors like I couldn't, I would have enough monitors to, you know, satisfy every single Chrome tab I have open if if one my budget allowed or my electricity bill allowed. But yeah, I think if, if you're gonna if you're gonna prioritise one thing in an idealistic home working set up, it's got to be displays; more the better for me.

Adam

Yeah, I massively agree with that. I'm currently working off two displays. And I don't fully understand people who can get by just with a laptop screen.

Sabina

So, like me.

Adam

Well, that brings us neatly onto you, Sabina, then; what does your perfect home office setup look like?

Sabina

Um, you know, I think I need to, like, preface this by saying that, you know, your working setup is nothing if you don't have a reliable network connection. So making sure you have a good Wi Fi router. So if you don't have that you like, you know, that's, that's basically, I think that's the most important thing. So just making sure that you have a stable internet connection. Whatever means, you know, by whatever means necessary, I think that's the most important thing. And I know what I think I just like, live with the basics. So although you know what, with especially internet connection has proven extremely important for me, because I've moved twice since the pandemic began. And whenever you start a new contract with a new internet provider, you sometimes do need to wait a few days for your new router to be shipped. So it has definitely made me more creative in, in working remotely, whether it's from cafes, or you know, using my mobile data from my phone, but back to the main question, you know, what my perfect working space I think, would be just a monitor, an additional monitor to go with my laptop and a good desk. I feel like I do sort of like I do agree with Connor with I did go to a to an event recently which previewed all these chairs and desks, which you can adjust you know, just to like, what not only like the height but also like the angle of everything and yeah, literally it's, you know, it's really something and but these things are really expensive to be fair, and you know, especially if you move around a lot like me, I don't think there's like that's I think the my main reason for not getting these things is because it's an absolute you know, hell to to do move flats with additional monitors and you know, very fancy desks. But yeah, that would probably be my, like dream setup in the future.

Adam

Yeah, and the desk question I think is one that gets often overlooked, having enough space to, to spread out, not just kind of any monitors keyboards, etc, that you might want from like a productivity perspective, but also just having the space to, for example, have you know, some notes or you know, printed documents or whatever, on the desk next to you without having to kind of cram stuff in wherever it will fit is really, really important.

Sabina

Yeah, I think the moment I stopped, you know, being in education, I sort of like, didn't think about the whole desk issue, because I sort of accepted that, like, wherever you go, wherever you work from - and bear in mind, these were pre pandemic times - you, your company will provide you with a desk at your office, so you don't need that kind of thing at home. And yeah, and I don't know whether you remember the first six months of the pandemic, I was essentially working in front of a chest of drawers. So I did have where to put my notes, but I didn't have anywhere to put my legs because it wasn't like the thing where like, you sit at it, and your legs are underneath the table. Now I sat at a 45 degree for six months. So I have any medical issues that can all be traced back to that. Yeah, I think there's just honestly the bare necessities nowadays, I think. But at that point, we all thought that the pandemic would only last 10 weeks. So....

Connor

Can I just add a top tip for people with small desks is to get a monitor arm, a desk mounted monitor arm, the amount of space that saved when I invested in one was was night and day. Because I don't know about you, I don't know about your monitors, whether they're on arms or not, but mine used to be on quite a sizable circular stand, that in terms of like the desk estate probably took up the best part of half the the length of it, not the width, the length. So that obviously impeded mobility to just like chuck notes there, put even put my keyboard away, like in front of me when I wanted to get like a notepad out or do some light stuff on another device. But yeah, get a monitor arm. It's like the difference is really, really great.

Adam

Yeah, I would love to have a monitor arm. I'm slightly banjaxed in that by the fact that the desk I've got has kind of drawers like underneath. So it doesn't have a kind of place to clip a monitor arm properly. But for just kind of flat desks, yeah, monitor arms are really handy, especially the ones that you can get, which support dual monitors simultaneously. Yeah, I've kind of coveted those for a while. So on that subject, then, I think space is something that a lot of us have had to grapple with, in terms of remote working over the course of the pandemic, you know, Sabina, as you mentioned, most of us were kind of relying on office space, to have things like you know, proper desks and chairs and monitors and whatnot. And having to adapt, you know, your home environment to that I think can be very challenging from a space perspective. So, are there any kind of tips that that we can share for making that remote working setup easier and smoother if you don't have the space for a proper kind of dedicated home office?

Sabina

Yeah, don't work from your bed. Don't work from your bedroom at all. Just don't. It ruins... There's studies that were conducted, that it ruins your sleeping patterns. And then generally just just like ruins your work life... What's it called?

Adam

Balance.

Sabina

Work life balance. Exactly. So, so avoid that. Also, it just makes you feel like you're constantly, it just makes you feel like you should always be working, you know, and I think but especially in big cities, where you cannot really get like a proper flat or house that has, you know, a separate office. I know that's the case for you, Adam, but like, you know, in inner city, sort of like London, it's really challenging to get like a separate office so I feel like it is still better... I know that we are criticising people who work from the kitchen table, but I feel like that is still way better than working from, from, you know, I think that's one of the best choices that people have, unfortunately, in London. Yeah.

Adam

Absolutely. And it's important to note that working from your kitchen table or dining room table or whatever, is perfectly fine and perfectly kind of sustainable. But doing it just hunched over a laptop on, you know, a standard dining chair is very much not ideal. And there are absolutely ways to to make that easier and more pleasant, you know, for yourself over a longer period.

Sabina

Yeah, I mean, I think you're totally right, just if you're working from a dining table, at least get a proper gaming chair, office chair, but you can just swivel away once you're done with work, but yeah, do not work from a dining chair, that's ridiculous.

Adam

I mean, there's also a whole bunch of really interesting kind of accessories, if you like, that, that you can get to, to help with that. So for example, you know, just investing in some kind of ergonomic like supports and cushions and whatnot that you can just kind of slide in when you're doing like a full day's work, you know, from the kitchen table, or whatever, just to give you a bit more kind of support for that kind of long stretch of sitting there working. Also, portable monitors are super good for this kind of thing. You know, just connect via USB C, and you can pack them away and store them super easily when you're when you're done with them. And it gives you that extra real estate and it gives you a bit more flexibility without having to haul like a proper full monitor out of a cupboard and set it up on the kitchen table whenever you know whenever you need to use it.

Connor

Yeah, I don't I don't think I have really that much to offer on this because I was in a way quite fortunate. Because I defected out of London about two or three months before the pandemic took hold. So I defected up north to Manchester where naturally had a bit more space for my money. And since then, I've lived in two bed flats, and we've throughout those three flats I've lived in. We've always had a dedicated office. Well, the spare room's been an office. So yeah, we have like you said, Sabina, we have had that that separation between the workspace and the living space and the sleeping space, which I think has been like really invaluable. But yeah, I think just, I was having to think about this before and trying to cast my mind back see if I've had any experience with like making the most of small spaces. And the best I could think of was some Instagram ads I've been served in the in the past where you can get like, like pieces of like artwork, this is obviously dependent on what your landlord will allow you to install but um, you can get like artwork that attaches to a wall, and then you can sort of bring it so it unfolds into a desk with like a monitor mounted inside it. So yeah, yeah, then. So they're not like, I haven't seen them in real life, but only on Instagram. But if your landlord will allow it, I imagine that would be quite the space saver.

Adam

And there's tonnes of things like that. Just clever kind of storage solutions for this, this kind of this kind of scenario where you don't have a huge amount of space to play with. But you want to kind of get a bit more of a permanent feeling office space that doesn't actually have to sit there all of the time, taking up a huge amount of space. But so for your kind of home office connor, what are the kind of the essential elements that you've kind of taken from from move to move, you know, what's your kind of minimum requirements, if you like for your home office beyond the monitors that you mentioned?

Connor

Minimum requirements, I think, other than monitors. It's got to be a comfy chair. You know, it's like you said Sabina, like feasibly you can't you can't work for long periods of time on on kitchen and dining room chairs. There's just not, they're not built for it. They're not ergonomic enough and I'm getting older and my back's getting weaker and you know...

Sabina

Connor, you're 25.

Connor

Yeah, but yeah, I mean, my my, my back is waning and it deserves more. But other than that, I think one of the most one of the most valuable purchases I actually did make aside from the monitor arm was very cheap. It was like a £10 foot rest. And yes, I remember being served a foot rest back when I first started at IT Pro and thinking what what am I doing with this like, like, this just goes under and I'm just supposed to put my foot on it; what's the point? But I think comes back to I am I am ageing and my back is is getting is getting weaker. And I don't know what it is, maybe it's like an incompatibility with my non adjustable desk height with my chair or whatever. But as soon as I started using this foot rest, my lower back pain just went. So very, very quick, very easy, very cheap solution to back pain. If you're experiencing it and don't have one already. Yeah, by all means get a foot rest.

Adam

Well on the subject of kind of ergonomics and kind of preventing injury effectively. I'm a big advocate for external keyboards and mice for home working. Even if you're using a laptop, I think it's really really beneficial to have a dedicated keyboard and mouse that you can use even if it's just, you know, a cheap and cheerful Bluetooth set that you can just quickly get out and set up and work away on.

Sabina

That's very interesting take. And I completely disagree with its. To me it just creates clutter. Yes, I'm creating conflict on this pod.

Connor

Adam, I'm totally with you.

Sabina

Really? Wow.

Connor

100%.

Sabina

Must be a gender thing. I'm kidding. No, I hate it is just add some more clutter. And you know, and whichever keyboard I just found, I just, I just nothing beats the MacBook keyboard for me, I'm so sorry. And mice, I haven't used a mouse since 2004. So I probably won't go back to using mice; I just cannot get, no.

Adam

I find using mice so much more effective. Compared to using a trackpad kind of while typing. I just, my my brain is just much more comfortable with using using mice. And I just, I feel like I'm quicker. I don't know if that's just kind of psychosomatic. But I feel like I'm much more productive when I have a proper mouse as opposed to a trackpad.

Connor

Yeah, I went, I went to a mouse and keyboard set up mid pandemic; used to be I used to have a laptop in directly in front of me sat on the desk with the external monitor above it. But then I got the monitor arm which holds a laptop and one monitor. So I had to get an external keyboard and mouse. And it was a bit of an adjustment because in a way that you probably wouldn't expect because if you have like a laptop with a trackpad, then I think your shoulders are kind of like they remain. They remain sort of in a fixed neutral equal position. Because they're sort of they're just sort of working in front of you. But when you switch to a keyboard and mouse, the right shoulder, depend on what hand you are. I'm right handed. So my right shoulder took it. It was a very, I was noticing very, very much that my right shoulder was being extended more out to the side. So in order to reach my reach my mouse.

Sabina

See, I don't think my shoulder extends that far anymore.

Connor

Now who's getting old?

Sabina

Like just often not using mice for so many years. I just I just don't think it's possible, you know, like, yeah, no, but maybe I should try it. Maybe Maybe it's it's a it's a posture thing. You're right. But keyboards, I just I just I just cannot like it's, it just seems like I already have a keyboard. Why would I want another keyboards? Like I'm sure

Adam

That's fair.

Connor

What MacBook keyboard are you running? Because I'm running the 2017 Butterfly switches. And I think half of them don't work.

Sabina

One of the arrow keys keeps falling off.

Connor

Classic.

Sabina

But otherwise, otherwise, it's from scrolling up and down the page. But no, it's literally like the 2015 like MacBook Pro. Isn't it Adam; I think it's 2015 or 2016.

Adam

I believe so, yes.

Sabina

Because it's the extremely heavy MacBook Pro. Yeah, so I you know what, I just been always a fan of MacBook keyboards. And I just for me, I never found anything which was quite as comfortable as that. Maybe I'm just too used to it at this point. I know that Apple does do separate keyboards, but to me I'd just rather invest in like a monitor or you know, a better chair or a better desk. There's so many other things that you could spend your money on when you're working remotely in this setup. To me, to me personally, the keyboard isn't on the top of my priority list, but of course, you know, we have different opinions.

Adam

So, speaking of investment, then, how much of this kind of equipment do you think businesses should reasonably be expected to pay for for their remote workers? Personally, I think that every remote worker, if your business is going to offer remote working as an option, employees should have access to a monitor for home working, they should have access to a laptop. And ideally, they should have access to a proper desk and a decent chair. Now, that doesn't need to be, you know, a fancy high priced, you know, Herman Miller Aeron £3,000, you know, piece of loveliness.

Sabina

I disagree; I think it has to be exactly that.

Adam

Don't get me wrong, if, if my employer wants to, wants to pay for a £3,000 Herman Miller office chair for me, I'm not gonna say no. But equally, I think, you know, on a, on a practical level, a, a fairly basic chair is fine, as long as you're, you know, as long as you're giving employees something, so they're not having to kind of, you know, work from the sofa or work from their dining room or whatever, you're giving them the option of like a dedicated desk that they can have, even if it's just a little personal one.

Connor

Yeah, I think I don't think, for me, I don't think it's a checklist thing, I don't think it's like a case of you have to have a desktop, you don't have to have a monitor or anything like that. I think the simple one liner should be anything you can get in the office, you should have access to at home, be that an office chair, be that a desk, it should be it should be the same; you can't expect, because a business is going to invest in an office in the equipment that they feel is necessary for you to get the job done. And I don't think that rule, or the principle should be different any different for remote workers either.

Sabina

To me, I know that businesses, it's very well wish you know, it's it comes only from like, trying to help the remote workers, you know, deliver, you know, have a better working experience. But I think instead of instead of offering just standardised desks or standardised chairs, I think we should bear in mind that people just have different setups and sometimes the colour of the desk they're offering which looks like a desk from, that you had in school doesn't really fit with someone's interior design plans. Even though and then and it's awful when you have to choose between, you know, your back pain and your eye pain from staring at this weird desk in your room. So I think businesses I think businesses should basically give employees a budget. I think we've reported about companies, I'm pretty sure it was Google but I cannot say I'm it was it was some big tech giant. They gave their staff workers 400 quid to choose remote working equipment. And I think this is the best thing like maybe maybe don't give them 400 quid, you know, to their hands if you don't trust their employees. But I mean, obviously that would be great. But you know, just give them like a voucher or, you know, just make sure that they are allowed to expense like, like to this amount for for stuff because you know, ultimately, you just want people to choose stuff which is suited for them best and not be stuck with you know, yet another piece of furniture that they're just going to resent just offering your employees have standardised equipment is just not the way to go. I really hate that. And I'm trying not to sound ungrateful.

Adam

I think that's a very valid point, though, like, having a standardised set of kind of remote working, sort of tools and peripherals and whatnot, I think can be, you know, can be good, and it's certainly better than nothing. But I do agree that giving employees the freedom to sort of customise their their setup is a much more flexible and more productive approach to doing it.

Sabina

Especially now that I'm thinking a lot of people will say that this is gonna be expensive, but like if you think about it, if you're not actually using the equipment that you already have in the office, if you are going to spend that money anyway, on buying new equipment for your workers, you might as well let them choose because maybe they'll even be able to find something cheaper than what you found.

Adam

But it gives people the flexibility to say like for example, okay, I've already got a you know, an office chair in my flat that I'm perfectly happy with, but what would be really helpful for me personally, is, you know, a giant, enormous monitor that I can fit, you know, 18 spreadsheets on at once. Yes. So I'm just gonna pump all of that money,

Sabina

Job roles vary; there are people who use spreadsheets on Excel every day. And there are people who haven't seen an Excel spreadsheet in years. So you know, I think it really everyone like it really varies like on, you know, depending on like job role. And I think services, I think that's another good case of a good good argument for allowing, you know, workers to basically to essentially be given that kind of voucher and being able to choose for equipment themselves.

Adam

So we've talked about remote working a lot from the context of home working, but it's worth bearing in mind that remote working offers a lot more flexibility beyond that, Sabina, you mentioned earlier that you were doing a lot of work from coffee shops and cafes and whatnot. When you'd just moved and were waiting for your internet to be hooked up.

Sabina

Yeah.

Adam

So for remote working away from home, what are the kind of essential items that you would pack to kind of help you stay as productive as possible while out of the office; be that the office office or the home office?

Sabina

A laptop that doesn't weigh 60 kilogrammes would be great. Anything, anything, there's so many great lightweight options on the market nowadays, if you're going to, that applies to I think working from the office as well, if you're taking your equipment in honestly, just don't go for the heaviest laptop. That's an advice to myself as well. Yeah, because it's just a pain, you know, and I think you should also, that's just probably more when it comes to software, but probably take considerations for protecting your equipment from the evils of, of potential malware. Yeah, I wonder like, what do you do with all the spare keyboards and mice when you go and work from a coffee shop?

Adam

So I generally don't take, and I'm going to expose myself as a slight hypocrite here, I generally don't pack a portable keyboard when I'm travelling, or when I'm working remotely, mostly because I can't be bothered. But you know, portable mice and Bluetooth mice and, and whatnot, are something that I've been meaning to, to take with me more often, particularly when I'm going to conferences and things things like that. This The only slight problem with that is that does rely on you being able to work at a table of some kind, you know, it's quite hard to use a mouse when you have your laptop, you know, on your knees. That's not always ideal. But I think just on your point about lightweight laptops, I think battery life is also a really key consideration. You want to have a laptop that is going to last a good long amount of time without constantly having to run around looking for a power point, looking for somewhere to plug it in to stop it from dying.

Connor

And if you're not one of those people who and I don't understand; these people do exist and I don't understand how they manage it. But if you're not one of those people like me who can work with undue background noise...

Sabina

Noise cancelling headphones.

Connor

Yeah, and I did invest in my first pair this year. Some Sony XM4s and yeah, I just don't know how I don't know how I've gone without it to be honest. And just any any any level of noise any I don't even have anything playing most of the time. It's just the slight the the active noise cancellation, just blocking out just enough is fantastic. And I have a couple of colleagues I've got at IT Pro will know that I do take it a step further sometimes and listen to white noise. So if anyone is like me, and it does kind of make you go a bit insane after a little while. But if you really cannot stand if you cannot stand background noise then I do I do recommend the combination of a good set of AnC headphones and a good long white noise track.

Adam

Yeah. Honestly, noise cancelling headphones are, I think an essential purchase for anyone who is working from an office or who is working while travelling. I have had a pair of Sennheiser MB 660s for several years now and they are without exaggeration. I think probably my most cherished possession. They are just I never leave home without them. I am wearing them probably conservatively speaking about 80% of my working life.

Sabina

Yeah this is why you ignore what I whenever I'm speaking to you in the office you never hear me.

Adam

Yes, that's why...

Connor

It's the thing this is the thing, when I when I first joined IT Pro like it Adam would peek his head out over the over the monitor I'd be like saying something and I'd look at him dumbfounded after like for about like two seconds. We were like, can you hear me? And there's there must be some sort of setting you've got on your headphones because you like you always had them on but you could always just hold a conversation or just until I got my XM4s I was so confused about it.

Sabina

Hold a conversation with you maybe. I think Adam pretends that he cannot hear me. Yeah, just just based on what we've discussed in this episode, and maybe haven't discussed yet. What is the one one thing one piece of equipment that you would take with yourself take with you on a remote working remote island?

Connor

Remote working remote island; that sounds terrible.

Sabina

I mean, obviously you do work remote work remotely if you're stuck on an island, right like that is that takes remote working to an nother level.

Adam

The ultimate in remote working? Yeah. So one, one piece of essential remote working equipment that I genuinely don't think I could do without is an external monitor, whether that's a kind of portable monitor, or whether it's full on like, you know, 34 inch behemoth of a thing. It's just improves my productivity exponentially. And kind of I find it actively difficult to work without having that kind of real estate. So yeah, if I could, if I could keep one piece of remote working kind of technology. It's gonna be an external monitor every time.

Connor

Yeah, I'm torn. Whether because yeah, like you Adam. I've got my external monitor holds a dear dear place in my heart, and I don't it does pain me whenever I go on international press trips and stuff working from hotels and I am just like, like we said just hunched over on on the desk of off this 13 inch inbuilt laptop display. But I think for me as much as much as it does benefit my my productivity, I think my back is more important than then then all productivity. I'm sorry, my employer, if you're listening, it just is. So I'm gonna I'm gonna say a really comfortable, ergonomic desk chair for me.

Sabina

Yeah, I was debating between a desk and a chair. And to me, I think I think the chair wins. Definitely, like, out of all the tech and stuff. It's just, you know, like, even if you have the best laptop, even if you have the best monitors and the best noise cancelling headphones, if you're sitting on the cheapest IKEA dining chair, which I was sitting on for the first six months of lockdown. You're not gonna get any work done.

Adam

No, absolutely.

Sabina

And I'm talking about plastic, you know, the foldable...

Connor

Yeah. Oh, those ones. Wow. Yeah.

Sabina

And I will I literally will never touch one ever again.

Adam

I managed two weeks at the start of lockdown on one of those. Two weeks. And I was like, No, I'm I'm done. I'm getting a proper proper swivel chair with actual armrests. And just a little bit of cushioning. Yeah, at the very least.

Sabina

Yeah, yeah, so definitely, I think I'm gonna be boring. I'm gonna agree with Connor. Desk chair. Yeah. So much for being tech specialists!

Adam

Well, I think I think I think we've hit upon a very, a very valid point here, which is that, in a lot of cases, the things that make remote working viable, you know, for all we talked about, you know, hyper mobile laptops, and, you know, high speed connectivity, and, you know, webcams and microphones to make video conferencing really, really slick and really, you know, enjoyable. For all we talk about the tech side of things, really, it's the creature comforts that you get in an office, you know, good size desks, chairs with decent support, all of this kind of stuff.

Sabina

A monitor.

Adam

Well, exactly, that actually go the biggest distance to making remote working fun and sustainable over over the long term. And it's very easy to overlook, I think.

Connor

Sadly, that's all we've got time for today.

Adam

You can find links to all of the topics we've spoken about today in the show notes and even more on our website at itpro.co.uk.

Sabina

You can also follow us on social media as well subscribe to our daily newsletter.

Connor

And don't forget to subscribe to the IT Pro Podcast wherever you find your podcasts. And if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating and review.

Adam

We'll be back next week with more analysis from the world of IT but until then, goodbye.

Connor

Bye.

Sabina

Bye.

The question of whether we need to go back to the office has a polarising one, and one of the main arguments for reopening traditional workspaces has been that some employees aren’t equipped for efficient or comfortable home working. Hybrid working isn’t going anywhere though, and just a few minor tweaks can make your home environment much more suitable for remote working.

This week, we’re discussing our dream remote working setups, including our top tips for maximising the productivity of your space, essential items for working on the move, and whether employers should provide staff with additional equipment to enable home working.

Highlights

“A top tip for people with small desks is to get a desk-mounted monitor arm. The amount of space that I saved when I invested in one was night and day. Because I don't know about your monitors, whether they're on arms or not, but mine used to be on quite a sizeable circular stand, that in terms of the desk estate probably took up the best part of half the length of it. So that obviously impeded mobility to just chuck notes there, put my keyboard away when I wanted to get like a notepad out or do some light stuff on another device.”

“I think businesses should basically give employees a budget. I think we've reported about companies, I'm pretty sure it was Google but I cannot say - it was some big tech giant. They gave their staff workers £400 to choose remote working equipment. And I think this is the best thing ,,, because ultimately, you just want people to choose stuff which is suited for them best and not be stuck with yet another piece of furniture that they're just going to resent.”

“Portable monitors are super good for this kind of thing. You know, just connect via USB-C, and you can pack them away and store them super easily when you're done with them. And it gives you that extra real estate, and it gives you a bit more flexibility without having to haul a proper full monitor out of a cupboard and set it up on the kitchen table whenever you need to use it.”

Read the full transcript here.

Footnotes

• How do I best support my remote workers?
• Remote workers spend more hours on the job, finds ONS
• Exposing Silicon Valley’s remote working hypocrisy
• 12 must-have tools for working from home
• Out of office - on forever: Meet the companies leaving the office for good
• How to keep your mobile workforce happy
• London-based employees most likely to work from home, ONS finds
• AOC I1601FWUX USB-C monitor: Portable, but not pretty
• Espresso Display 15 review: Lots of form, not enough function
• Lenovo ThinkVision M14 review: The leanest screen
• Best monitors 2021: Upgrade to a proper screen
• Buying a monitor: Ten key questions to ask
• Why I need a gaming monitor for work
• How to connect one, two or more monitors to your laptop, including USB Type-C
• Apple MacBook Pro 13in (2020) review: Powerful, portable – and almost perfect

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Most US workers prefer a mix of working from home and at an office. They say it positively impacts their ability to be creative, solve problems and build relationships. As a result, the majority (72%) of corporate leaders plan to offer a hybrid model, but offering hybrid working is easy - getting the hybrid right will be hard.

A recent Harvard Business Review article presented four innovative strategies for building future hybrid working that works. In an Ask HBR webinar, Heiser and Steelcase CEO Sara Armbruster discusses these strategies for building hybrid working of the future, dissecting and explaining these design strategies:

• Braid the digital and physical experience
• Flip enclosed and open spaces
• Shift from fixed to fluid
• Balance “we” and “me” work

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The work space “norm” has changed for good, with the introduction of remote and hybrid working, showing that productive work can be done from anywhere. And despite hybrid workers achieving sufficiently with their laptop, staff need additional tools in order to feel like they have a proper workspace.

This comes down to IT teams supplying their staff with the right business tools and technology to do their work, however, with the different devices, dongles, cables, headsets and webcams, the disorder can be the cause of distraction and negatively impact creativity.

Download this resource to discover the technology solutions that can mitigate this clutter and boost productivity.

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Working from home will be with us for a while yet – indeed, many workers aren’t ever planning to return to the office, which means personal videoconferencing is now a regular fact of life. It’s time to replace those clip-on cameras and tinny speakers with a proper solution, and Poly has an ideal alternative in the Studio P21, a conveniently sized desktop monitor that integrates everything you need for top-quality video calls.

At first glance, the P21 looks like a fairly ordinary 21.5in LCD monitor. It has a standard 1080p resolution and fabric grille across the bottom, which hides a 10W speaker on each side. The first visible clue that it’s more than a regular display is the camera set discreetly into the top bezel; look closely and you’ll also spot soft buttons below the screen that not only control the volume but can also mute the microphone and trigger a range of custom actions on the host PC, including opening your default videoconferencing app. The LED light strips at each side of the screen have a part to play, too – they help balance out the lighting on your face, so you don’t get a blue cast from the screen. Touch sensors at the rear of the screen let you control their brightness by stroking your fingers up and down.

Lastly, while most monitors use HDMI or DisplayPort connections, the P21 connects to the host PC or laptop via USB-C; this allows the video, camera, microphone and speakers to work over a single cable. These peripherals all appear as standard local devices, so they can be used by any UVC-compliant VC app with no special configuration required. Two additional USB-A ports are provided at the back of the screen, which can be used to connect headsets or other devices. They can also deliver 5W of power for charging up phones and tablets, and the monitor stand has a built-in wireless charging plate too, although this only works when the P21 is connected to a host PC.

We had no trouble setting up the monitor on a Windows 10 system. After downloading the DisplayLink driver from Poly’s support site, we were able to use Microsoft’s DisplayLink Manager app to switch between a local laptop display and the P21, or use the duplicate display feature to mirror our desktop across both panels.

You’ll want to install Poly’s free Lens Desktop app too, as this provides controls for adjusting the camera’s zoom settings, controlling the screen brightness, configuring the programmable “rocket” button and setting the app button to load Microsoft Teams or Zoom. It can also link up with the Poly Lens cloud service for remote management and inventory.

To test out the P21’s camera, we set up a remote user with the display, then initiated a Teams meeting with them. We liked what we saw: the 1080p camera delivered a pin-sharp image with great colour balance. The vanity lights doubtless helped here, though if you’re talking to someone who wears glasses you may find their reflections a little disconcerting.

We also tried positioning the P21 to face a pair of glass doors to see how it coped with glare. We had to use the Lens app to increase the backlight compensation, but with this done the results were very satisfactory. The twin speakers delivered a clean, solid sound too, and everyone we called from the P21 said they could hear us clearly.

There are a few features you won’t find on the P21: Poly’s NoiseBlockAI and Acoustic Fence technologies for removing background noises aren’t available here, and there’s also no speaker tracking or automatic framing. This is a minor disappointment considering the price, but it shouldn’t be a problem, as the P21 is designed for personal use rather than meeting rooms.

Poly’s Studio P21 is a tempting proposition for home workers that want to look their best in video meetings. Yes, for the same money you could buy a bigger display along with a standalone webcam – but the P21 brings easy setup, handy meeting features and great video quality, without the hassle of separate components.

Poly Studio P21 specifications

With the shift to hybrid working, it’s important to understand the various work-from-anywhere (WFA) scenarios and their challenges, including access issues and security, and why a future-ready infrastructure is key.

Although simple in its concept, a modern infrastructure manages all elements of computing under one reliable umbrella, including storage, automation and networking, all under one secure operating environment. So, not only does it make IT sustainable, it enables successful WFA.

Download this whitepaper to learn how, with the right support, a modern flexible WFA environment can enable improved productivity and profitability.

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The way we work has changed, and the tools, platforms, and devices we use have also changed. While the business world had been transitioning to a more agile and flexible model, the global pandemic accelerated that process exponentially, with workers needing new tools and processes to stay productive.

But this new way of working brings with it new worries and challenges for IT decision-makers and managers, who have needed to deliver devices and services that allow workers to be productive and efficient, while also keeping them safe and supported.

In this in-depth IT Pro report, presented in association with Daisy and Cisco, we’ll explore the challenges presented by the remote and hybrid working models that have become the norm, and explore how adopting a secure access service edge (SASE) model could be the ideal solution for businesses that need to remain productive and efficient, no matter where their workers may be.

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Tipps, Hacks und Ressourcen für ein erfolgreiches Homeoffice

Unternehmen stellen auf dezentrales Arbeiten um und viele Führungskräfte und IT-Fachkräfte befassen sich mit der gleichen Frage: Wie kann ich effektiv von zu Hause aus arbeiten?

In diesem Leitfaden sagen wir Ihnen, was Sie wissen müssen, und welche Ressourcen Sie brauchen, um eine erfolgreiche Homeoffice-Karriere zu starten oder wieder aufzunehmen.

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Right now, businesses with a flexible, ‘work from anywhere’ mentality are more attractive to employees and are reaping the benefits of high turnover at those organisations without flexible policies.

This whitepaper covers how to expedite your shift to hybrid and remote work while supporting all your workers with the best technology possible to help them thrive in whatever working location they choose.

Download this whitepaper now to find out more about:

• How ITDMs define hybrid working
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In today’s new world of work, one of the best ways to support your distributed workers is to give them experiences as close as possible to in-person interactions.

Video conferencing is key to this effort, but how do you choose between all of the options on the market?

Download this whitepaper to see:

• Key things to look for in a modern conferencing device
• Why next gen all-in-one video conferencing bars are a top choice for IT teams
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You need complete visibility of your distributed network environment if you’re going to support employees working from any location on any device.

Many factors - including 5G adoption, multi-cloud environments, and hybrid workers - are contributing to the need for new security measures. A next-generation firewall (NGFW) approach delivers a unified platform to contextually coordinate security across your network.

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The abrupt changes caused by the pandemic meant, almost overnight, remote access became the normal working model for a large number of employees. For those in access management, this caused a shift in security concerns across apps, cloud services and networks.

The study looks at the changes to authentication use and access management technologies across Europe, what the impact of the pandemic was on this change, and why European respondents are looking to adopt Zero Trust principles.

Download this report to see the results of this survey, and how the pandemic has affected security strategies and planning in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

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The shift to remote access, brought about by the pandemic, wasn’t the only disruption that security professionals faced in 2020. A lot of strain was also placed on cloud-based services and access management infrastructure.

This study surveys 2,600 respondents in 10 countries around the world to understand the depth of change to access management technologies globally, and in particular, what concerns they have regarding security and threats posed to remote workforces.

Download this report to understand security professionals’ plans for access management moving forward and how a zero trust strategy is proving to be a top solution.

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The global pandemic has catapulted us into a new era in which hybrid workforces - a mix of office, remote and frontline employees - are the new norm. The question for business leaders is how to lead these teams successfully.

Here are three tips:

1. Use the right platform
2. Build hybrid communities
3. Take care of your teams

Download the guide to get all the details and discover how a secure communications platform like Workplace helps take the complexity out of leading hybrid teams.

In this week's exclusive feature for The Business Briefing readers, Rene Millman shows how business leaders can use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to improve company policies and employee happiness at work.

The Business Briefing is a new free weekly digest that highlights everything you should know about the business world around you.

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Enterprises are playing pandemic catch-up as they continue to adjust to the explosion of remote and hybrid workers.

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