Hey guys, it's Victoria and I'm so happy that you had time for a TCA Minute.
Today, I get to talk to Brian Mignault. Brian is a Director at Lenovo and he runs everything Smart Collab.
Our conversation today is going to center around what it really means to have a smart office,
how you can change what your UC interactions look like with the right hardware,
and what is it that we should be doing to future proof our offices, whether we're working there now, working hybrid in them or still working from home.
I enjoy what he has to say.
Hi Brian!
Hi Victoria, it's good to see you.
Good to see you as well. So for people that may not be as familiar with your work tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well first thing, thanks for having me, I appreciate the opportunity.
I've got responsibility here in North America, for what we brand our Smart Collaboration business.
So anything from video collaboration, unified communication here in North America.
Okay and this is a really exciting time to talk to you we're looking at back to the office in a couple of different ways.
And 2022 seems to be throwing everything it can at our plans as far as getting back to the office, the way that we were used to.
But with everything that's changing, I kind of just need a little bit of a rundown.
What's going on with back to work and hybrid work in 2022?
Yes. So, so it's funny 2022 was supposed to be that return to normalcy.
Unfortunately, we're not there just yet. I think that we are inching closer.
When you take a look back, 2020 was the work from home, everybody gets sent home,
2021 becomes the work from anywhere where you figure it out and you know, remotely people on the move going in different places.
Then 2022 is really going to be focused on hybrid work and employee engagement.
And I think all organizations, no matter what what size company you're a part of are going to look at what this hybrid model is going to be
and try to find a way to create an efficient engagement for their employee base.
Nice. And when looking at that engagement model, unified communications, collaboration spaces, all of that is super important to what that work looks like.
How many rooms though? Like when we talk about the physical four walls of the office that we may or may not be going to right now.
What is going to be needed in those spaces and how many of them are going to need to change?
It's a great question, it's something that Steven Miller and I, as an ambassador here at Lenovo,
he talks about all the time that what if you were to walk into a conference room,
and Victoria, I'm sure you've done this at points in time where you walk in
and you see the laminated sheet on how to start a meeting in that room.
That's a surefire sign right there, that that room's not ready for the hybrid work model of the of the future; really of the present here in 2022.
And it's about the new technology put into the space that allows people to
collaborate and communicate in a more efficient manner than we were doing before everyone left the office in March of 2020.
It's about 700,000 or 800,000 rooms that we see in North America, you know,
through different conversations we're having with consulting firms,
that will likely be refreshed over the next let's call it 12 to 18 months.
And that technology is such a key component to what the room needs to look like to prepare for these changes.
And it's about making sure that you don't have two classes of citizens:
folks that are sitting in the office that can be seen and can be heard and can collaborate versus those that are remote.
And I'm sure you've been a part of some of these conversations as well with a hybrid meeting where some people are in and some people are out
and those that are out today, if the technology is not set up appropriately,
the audio is not correct, the video is not good enough.
Then those people that are remote aren't really participating. They might be in a passive way but not actively the way
that they should be in their voice, their opinion, their recommendations are not being considered,
you know, the way that they need to be.
So what is gonna happen? What are the benefits gonna be of the hybrid model as it adjusts to 2022?
I think there's so many benefits of a hybrid model, I really do.
And I think the way that we've all learned to work over the last almost two years at this point is here to stay.
I heard a speaker mention this a couple of weeks ago, and I've been using it in conversation ever since, is that
flexibility in the workplace is foundational, right? It is here to stay. It's the way we're going to engage with one another is we move forward.
I can tell you from personal experience. I've got two young girls that are 10 and 8 and to be able to shut down at night and be
here in time to, you know, help with homework, for example, versus being stuck
out on I-540, in Raleigh, trying to make my way back from campus is a benefit to me and my family.
My overall health I hope has benefited a little bit to be able to maybe work out in the morning
versus being sitting in traffic on my way to the office. There's all sorts of things like that.
That make this hybrid model much more efficient for everybody in
the terms of how we not only work but also how we live. The other piece that's important though
is being there in person. There are things that get done in person that don't get done remotely
the way, you know, that we've had to work over the last two years. And what I mean by that
is those those hallway conversations, the interactions that you have with colleagues,
that I would call maybe kind of marginal members
of your professional community. Those conversations aren't necessarily
happening as often as they once did. We're a bit more siloed nowadays and we're more
connected to the closest parts of our professional colleagues and and that's
not necessarily a great thing in terms of the overall organizational structure.
Getting back into the office, working face to face at times, not a hundred percent of the time,
and then making sure that there's not two classes of citizens, and if you're
in or out and having the flexibility to say, you know what, my kid is sick today,
I'm not going to be able to be there in the office and I'm still going to be able to execute and do
my job as effectively, just as if I were there.
Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's something really great to remember
and definitely going to be a good model and value to kind of take forward
if you're one of these companies that are looking to update.
Brian thank you so so much for our conversation today.
Absolutely. I appreciate the opportunity. It was good to see you Victoria.
Good to see you too.
Thank you so much Brian for spending the time with me today. I hope you guys really
enjoyed our conversation and if you're looking for any extra information on anything we talked about,
check out some of the links in the description or reach out to your Lenovo representative.
I hope you guys have an awesome day and I'll see you in the next one.