Is It About Time We Make It Worthwhile To Return To The Office?

Deloitte reports “There is a desire to bring people back in to the office more frequently”. And interestingly, an article in the Financial Times in July 2022 brought to light the fact that the majority of CEO’s have issue with the policy of remote working, and that the demands on organizations to support these working arrangements is the “single biggest issue”. Okay, so it appears we’re talking about something that matters here.

Of course, when teams are distributed between the home, field and the office, there is an imperative need to connect them effectively. This is not a new problem but it’s a vastly larger problem in scale these days. The forces affecting an organization’s traditional mode of working are both internal and external in nature and thus not so easy to control as they once were. But, as we know, it’s clearly of vital importance to the leaders of organizations.

At some point technology is going to come in to play, that much is obvious. Since less than 15% of an office’s meeting spaces are video-enabled, (and depending on the study you read, it’s often reported well below 10%), there is a significant amount of work to be done to improve the collaborative capabilities of the office. But here is an important consideration: Rather than simply enabling the technical capabilities to connect office and remote workers, what if organizations created collaborative working experiences that MADE IT UNIQUELY BENEFICIAL TO COME IN TO THE OFFICE while, at the same time, not alienating the remote participants? Could that be considered a win for the employees, a win for Management and a win for culture and productivity?

Here’s a secret: This answer cannot be bought on Amazon, will not be found hiding in the back corner of your IT storeroom and cannot be realized by adding a license from your MSP. You may, however, want to sit down with an integration partner like CCOMM whose purpose it is to solve these particular problems and contribute towards a new and highly capable interactive working experience that simply cannot be replicated when working from home.

The benefits of connecting in-person and face-to-face with colleagues is loudly championed by those supporting a return to the office. But the actual experience shared between local and remote teams is further enhanced with a properly designed and equipped collaborative working environment. By this we refer to an exceptional visual canvas where the local team can easily see, crystal clear audio so that all can hear, and professionally selected and implemented microphones so all can be heard. Furthermore we work with advanced cameras and systems which pick up active speakers or automate the camera views of in-room speakers so the remote participants feel much more intimately engaged in the meeting. Imminent “spatial audio” technology will further enrich the in-room experience with voices coming from the natural direction of the speaker. Conversely, small screens, poor visibility, and audio that crackles from a single speaker is the experience employees already have at home. If the same experience is to be found in the office then the room systems are not supporting the unique advantage of being there in person, and your current investment is not realizing its full potential.

The image associated with this article is an example of a studio we create in its entirety, (yes, furniture included), to support a Microsoft Teams Front Row experience. This is just one example. You will notice, browsing our gallery and our website, that we showcase a range of these large screen ‘collaborative visualization’ environments. These custom formatted rooms are our speciality and has been a form of team workspace design that, for us, pre-dates even MS Lync. We realize these unique workspaces are not intended for every meeting room since your offices come in different shapes and sizes and support different teams and business functions. But we do have options for every one of those workspaces.

Please reach out to a CCOMM representative today to help you plan an optimal use of space with the latest technology to energize your teams and drive excitement to return to the office.