hi everyone welcome back to today in tech I'm Juliet Beauchamp and I'm here
with computer world senior writer Matthew Finnegan today we're talking
collaboration and how collaboration tools are being used in this new remote
workforce so stick around alright Matthew thank you so much for calling in
really appreciate all the way from Sweden correct all right
so by now many of us are working from home you're almost always working from
home and Here I am working as our viewers know from my parents basement
but you know we've been settling into this at least here in the US for a few
weeks so we're gradually getting used to it
and we've been relying on a lot of these collaboration tools
zooom slack Microsoft teams really just take your pick a lot of the people here
in the US have been relying on those as we move toward this mandated remote
workforce but I want to talk going forward so what can you tell us about
how the transition to a remote workforce has been yeah so there's obviously been
a huge and very sort of increase in the number of people working from home in
response to the codes outbreak and so although many people will will likely go
back to work in in the office as before after the the outbreak ends it's likely
that we will also see a sustained increase in remote working after this
sort return to normal as it were and for those jobs that are able to some remote
working has been on the rise for for many years especially recent recently
with the availability of communication and collaboration tools as you mentioned
like slack and Microsoft teams for and what a team chat video tools like zoom
and and strapped for business in the past and tools like Trello and other
absolute that you make it easier to manage work that's carried out remotely
but even so most people still been working in an office for out.we keywords
party availability of these tools as it hasn't
a major impetus for change or hadn't been obviously now that's that has
changed and the situation is quite different and there's a there's been a
huge increase in the number of people from working remotely and the question
yet as to whether remote working will continue in the long term back up it
depends on different businesses and different needs also depends on
different people and what situation they prefer but there was an interesting
survey by the job search site Glassdoor recently which found that 67% of remote
workers currently would like to see that that these that the changes permanent
and that they're able to continue working remotely in future so basically
we've seen a big society-wide experiment in remote working and it
could be that as this becomes the normal for weeks and even months that the
question might be for some organizations why return to no longer supporting
remote work so beyond the more traditional in-person industries
healthcare hospitality I would imagine that those groups are going to need to
return back to their offices and workplaces pretty quickly once it's safe
to do so but I'm wondering what the incentive
will be for other organizations that don't necessarily need to be in person
to then now mandate all of their workforce to now come back into the
office I'd imagine that could be a difficult transition what people would
describe is knowledge workers they a lot of tasks it depending on the
organization and on the role within the organization if they can be carried out
remotely then there are all the capabilities to support people doing
that there are benefits of course to work in face to face and there will be
certain jobs where if there is a big reliance on that maybe in sales roles
for example or where face-to-face communication has has real benefits that
see a big call for people to be to be working in new your face but if it's for
many tasks if it's possible to carry it so for them to carried out remotely yeah
it could be the companies the employers might have to really see what would be
the advantages of returning to the to whether the situation was before so what
sort of benefits are remote workers seen in their work-life balance in retention
rates do you think that it's going to be difficult for office workers to now
transition back to that and on top of that do you think that there's a benefit
to remote working in general yes for people who haven't worked remotely
before never seen there's definitely pros and cons to doing so the advantages
can be quite clear as you mentioned this employee retention rates can be higher
so benefits if an employer but that's due to the the improved work-life
balance so for instance obviously people who were commuting for hours that they
of course will not need to be doing so so there's more time to be to be at home
and to be around family and have that work-life balance
there's and that's one of the big sort of Appeals of being able to work from
home and also and having the greater flexibility maybe in working hours to be
able to devote time to being with family or or whatever they would need would be
so a lot of people will be will be seeing those benefits and will maybe be
questioning do they want to go back to the district 9:00 to 5:00 and office
with the with the daily commute there and back right I know my current commute
is down two flights of stairs so it's much less than my usual you know 35 to
45 minute drive so I'm gonna think now about how employers can look at how
they're now remote employees are performing do you think that this is
this is going to be a sort of effective trial
period or with more tests and trials need to be done on behalf of the
employer to really assess whether or not they can change or adapt to a remote
workforce well for for a lot of organizations this is going to be
entirely new in terms of supports in a remote workforce there will be many
where in certain instances they support remote workers for throughout some parts
of their workforces there's even companies which are entirely remote
there's a software company could say Pia exactly oh that's a hundred percent
remote workforce now and and it's not the only one these are the kind of rare
examples and maybe an idea of where it could go for for some companies but for
many this is a yeah this is kind of a large-scale trial that maybe they
weren't prepared for so we're going to be seeing organizations try to adapt to
this in terms of rolling up the right infrastructure to technology
infrastructure to support remote workers as well as putting in place sort of
policies and working from home practices and so yeah for some organizations will
be further along with this and others so it could but for some this this could be
a difficult process for others it's more of a case of just scaling up what's
already there sure and I also imagine now that there's going to be a really
big shift in any sort of events business I mean as we know pretty much any event
that was going on between no March and I mean I've seen events cancelled as far
out as into the summer I mean the Olympics have even been postponed I'm
wondering how this is going to affect the events business and businesses that
really rely on in-person meetings and in-person interactions yeah so this is
obviously had a huge effects many many conferences many tech conferences
have moved to be either to be virtual digital events and some of these even
Google cloud next which was expected to go ahead I believe in the part of April
has now been cancelled altogether but for the most part events are moving
online and will be interesting to see what the well as the feedback is on how
successful they are there's the reality is a lot of them will be canceled as
well and organizations like tech analyst company partner has seen a always
forecast in a significant drop-off in revenues and due to it being as well as
its research arm being a heavily event focused business so there is going to be
a significant impact therefore for the foreseeable future at least so there
will be more virtual events going ahead presumably booked and while there is
technology to do that of course one of the big benefits have been at a
conference is the the kind of spontaneous meetings that you might have
for people aside from keynotes and breakout sessions for example it's been
able to to interact with with peers and to meet new people so yeah that's that's
an everywhere we would expect that there will be and renewed demand once it's
possible to have conferences by that again got it but you know it's not all
doom and gloom I would imagine that there's very many sectors that can
really benefit from this new remote work and I'm wondering what sort of sectors
are really doing well because of cool and by relying on collaboration tools
and where this could go just beyond the enterprise I mean people meeting over
zoom or Skype to chat with friends who they haven't spoken to in a while or
attend social meetings that they may not be able to get to yeah exactly so as you
mentioned before there's a lot of industries where this isn't going to
make sense we're in hospitality
in retail and in a lot of in parts of healthcare for example where you have
these first line workers remote working isn't going to make sense but for the
knowledge workers for people who we used to work in in an office at a computer
yeah this makes a lot of sense and so we're seeing that for for companies
which have a lot of their work carried out online for software companies for
example and for software developers for people who can continue work online and
this is yeah they're able to continue doing so and so this is also in terms of
companies which have kind of benefiting from it there's been a lot of technology
companies which are selling collaboration tools which is selling
video conferencing tools for example which we've seen a huge increase in use
of their products so zoom for example with share price has gone as has
increased massively over in recent weeks as uses of the platform has has
increased slack today announced that it's had record to use usage levels
Microsoft teams has added 12 million daily active users within the space of a
week and many many of these platforms have seen widespread uses now and and
significant increases so it's really accelerating the trend that was going on
around there and as you as you pointed out yet this isn't just in the workplace
this is everybody now it's becoming a few weeks ago most people who could know
what zoom was they didn't they weren't aware of zoom as a company or what the
app did now most of my friends will know about that people asking what zoom like
is we'll be using that in their you know basis they live to connect with with
their family and friends and remotely in different countries so this is this
isn't just the work about workplace obviously this is a lot of these tools
are being being east people's personal lives as
well yeah I know I've seen zoom used in ways that it necessarily hadn't before I
mean there's new workout classes and religious services and it really seems
like the general public is taking advantage of these collaboration tools
that they may not have known about beforehand but Matthew before I let you
go I do want to touch on productivity a collaboration tools are often billed as
a way to increase productivity or spark productivity and I want to know how
we're going to be able to assess how productive we all were during this I
mean at least here in the u.s. seemingly indefinite work from home period yeah
productivity is an interesting topic and this is actually one of the concerns the
managers and employees can have around supporting a remote workforce it's
around productivity but there's been various studies which have shown the
actually remote workers tend to be on the on average more productive due to
factors like being able to to have time to really focus on tasks without
necessarily distractions although there can be distractions as well and so on
the whole and there's this generally perceived to be actual improvements
around this but it can also mean for for managers that they have to to trust
staff a bit more to be working independently and to be focused really
on what on the work that's produced and and the outcomes of individual employees
and someone that wanted to that and to discuss with employee to set
expectations around their personal productivity for a review got it make
sense I mean it really is just like how you would assess any other performance
but you just need to keep in mind that people are working from home I would
also mention that there's a benefit like you said fewer distractions and the
ability to maybe work outside of typical work hours so you can take care of
whatever you need to whether it's I mean certainly not right now but dropping
your kids off at school taking care of a pet an elderly relative whatever you
need to be doing during perhaps tradition
work hours can now be adapted because you're already at home just work earlier
in the morning later into the evening yeah so it gives people time or the
ability to structure their time to really focus on work as and when they
need to and to to set aside the time whenever that would be doing it they to
really focus on work so in that sense although there can be plenty of
distractions from working from home there are there are definitely benefits
from that as long as people especially if if employees are there's discussions
around us and employees that are trained to get the best from remote working as
well great great well thank you so much Matthew for calling in all the way from
Sweden and I hope your commute wasn't too bad however many steps it was from
your you know living room to your office all the way to my kitchen cycle yes
thanks so much for calling in and thank you all so much for watching this
episode of today and tech if you like this video be sure to give it a thumbs
up and subscribe to our Channel if you have any questions about collaboration
or advice on how to increase productivity while working from home
please leave a comment below and I would love to see them if you have questions
I'll get back to you or get back to you on Matthews behalf thanks again for
watching and we'll see you next time