Will hybrid work witness a decline in the post-pandemic era: Ashish Gupta, Barco India

One the biggest trends that the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to in the ambit of digital adoption is  “Hybrid Work”. With a focus on adhering with the mandated rules of social distancing, companies across sectors adopted remote and hybrid work models. However, the wold is once again resuming normalcy, and employees are being called back to their respective places of work. Does this mean that the hybrid work trend will witness a decline? Ashish Gupta, VP, Head of Software, Barco India answers this and more in an interview with Dataquest.

DQ: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of hybrid solutions, and gave rise to the hybrid workplace. However, now that the world is back to normal - will this trend witness a decline?

Ashish Gupta: Yes, the pandemic was the main reason behind the hyper-scale adoption of hybrid solutions but many organizations especially in IT were already operating in a hybrid mode based on their business needs pre-pandemic as well.  But now due to the pandemic,  the entire workforce has an experience of flexibility offered by hybrid work, it is unlikely that the trend will witness a major decline and more organizations will find ways to provide optimum and best employee work experience both in the office and at home It is true that several major companies have called employees back to the office but its not 100% work from office call so hybrid will stay. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 58% of the employees believed that hybrid work played a role in enhancing their productivity, improving inclusion and diversity in the workplace, and boosting employee engagement. Given these statistics, and employees’ preference for hybrid work, the hybrid work trend is not likely to decline significantly going ahead but full remote will see a decline moving forward.

DQ: What are some of the future trends in collaborative technology and solutions?

Ashish Gupta: The collaborative technology and solutions segment came to fore with the COVID pandemic and has since grown in leaps and bounds, thanks to the prevalence of hybrid workplaces and work-from-anywhere culture. According to market reports, the global enterprise collaboration market is estimated to reach a valuation of 101. 7 billion dollars by 2028, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 12. 1%. This indicates the huge potential inherent in the market and Barco is one of the foremost players catering to this growing segment. 

Some of the future trends we foresee in this space include more widespread adoption of asynchronous collaboration, wherein team-mates can collaborate and work on projects without being in the same room or getting into lengthy meetings, making it ideal for employees spanning different time zones. Also we see more of social collaboration, a practice wherein employees can collaborate with each other through internal social media platforms. These collaborative technology trends will decide the future of the workplace and play a major role in the way workplaces function in the years ahead.  

DQ: What are the latest trends in the hybrid workplace post-pandemic?

Ashish Gupta: One of the lasting trends that have been precipitated by hybrid workplaces is the imperative need for flexibility. Employees today are keen on better work-life balance, and look for flexible and agile workplaces when they consider a new position. In this scenario, one of the latest trends revolves around flexible leadership – leaders must accept the changing times and create a workplace focused on highly productive inclusive hybrid experience taking care of the need of both remote and in-office workforce. Another major trend we have noticed is to focus more on key results then the time spent on the job. The productivity metrics and the OKRs are also getting defined in different fashion based on the hybrid workplace needs. Hybrid workplaces have also helped boost inclusivity, with more women returning to the workplace as the hybrid work style makes it easier to manage varied responsibilities.

 DQ: How is your Software Labs catering to this demand?

Ashish Gupta: At Barco’s Software Labs, the focus is on enabling bright outcomes for customers, employees, partners and the community in general and we are especially focused on creating superlative hybrid experiences in our enterprise collaboration vertical. We are leveraging new-age technologies to deliver innovative services through our ClickShare solution. Our ClickShare Conference Solution is gaining huge traction in the enterprise segment and we are working towards augmenting the same with next generation software to further boost customer experiences and to cater to the increasing demand for hybrid workplaces. ClickShare automatically connects employees’ laptop to room cameras, speakerphones, and sound bars and its smart meeting flows guide them to intuitive and stress-free meetings. With no cables and a triple-agnostic feature of being able to connect with any conferencing platform, on any device and instantly connects with your brand of meeting room peripherals, ClickShare allows hybrid meetings to get started within seconds and employees can wirelessly share their screen or start a video meeting with just one click. 

DQ: What are some of the innovations you are working on keeping in mind the needs of the IT industry in future?

Ashish Gupta: Barco is taking all possible efforts to harness innovations and enable bright outcomes across our key verticals – entertainment, enterprise, education, and healthcare. The IT industry is a growth market and we are strengthening our position here, while ensuring a customer-centric approach. We have brought in innovative and cutting-edge solutions like SecureStream and comprehensive wall management suites to cater to the growing requirements of new age control rooms and phygital organisations. The ClickShare Conference is another superlative product which can greatly enable the IT industry going ahead. Across industries, we are working to deliver mission critical solutions based on co-creation and innovation, led by digital transformation. With Software Labs and a focus on delivering a combination of hardware, software, services and experiences, Barco is prepared to be the service-provider of choice and this has enabled us to align our solutions with the exact needs of our customers, including the IT industry.