Top Technology Trends For Indian Workplaces In 2023-Ankur Goel

The past year was filled with several changes to the conventional workplace, and hybrid work emerged as the new norm. Per a study conducted by Poly earlier this year, 74 per cent of Indian employers agree that hybrid working is the future and is here to stay for the long run.  

We can only expect this trend to continue to evolve as remote, freelance, and contract employees become even more prevalent, and employees seek more work-life balance.

Hybrid work, however, comes with a few challenges

For instance, the biggest challenges that most organisations with a dispersed workforce face are ensuring that every employee feels heard and seen, regardless of location, and that every employee has the technology and tools required to be productive. 

Apart from this, the other challenge many companies are facing is productivity paranoia. The recent reports of some employees moonlighting has led to a culture wherein managers are unsure of their team's productivity when they’re in a hybrid setup. This creates a disconnect and distrust between the leadership team and employees. 

These challenges can be tackled with the right policies, culture, and technology in place. 

Hybrid work trends in 2023:

The workplace has been evolving drastically, and technology has continued to be at the centre of everything. 

As we enter 2023, here are a few considerations that Indian organisations need to keep in mind to succeed:

1. Matching varying employee workstyles with the right technology: Each employee has specific technology needs to excel in their role, whether at home or in the office or anywhere in between. 

A one-size-fits-all approach will not work. 

For instance, someone early in their career may want to be in the office more often for camaraderie. At the same time, established workers with families may prefer to work remotely a few days a week to have a better work-life balance and save on their commute time. The technology and collaboration needs for each work style will be different. 

Therefore, organisations should first understand how people do their best work and configure workspaces to enable workers to get the most out of their working hours, and by extension, invest in technologies that enable a seamless, flexible, and more equitable working experience for all workers.

By identifying the attributes, pain points, and communication intensity associated with each persona, businesses seek to better match workstyles and employee behaviours to devices and technologies, increasing organisational productivity and meeting equality for workers collaborating from different locations. 

2. Re-evaluating/redesigning workspaces: In 2023, offices will become collaboration hubs, serving as a place for teams to gather to brainstorm in small groups, host client meetings, celebrate milestones, and work on joint projects. They will also serve as a central hub for community socialisation that will help provide a culture that cannot be replicated via remote working.

Conference rooms and meeting space set-up have changed drastically since the pandemic. It will become essential to re-evaluate how physical spaces are used in a hybrid arrangement and how spaces will be used to ensure they deploy the right audio and video solutions. Be it, video devices that allow the speaker to be in the front and centre or audio technology that keep out background distraction.  

Further, video collaboration will become the norm of communication. This will drive the demand for pro-grade technology and collaboration tools that are geared to drive better user experiences. Collaboration facilities with improved video technology and maybe virtual reality rooms will help boost communications not only in physical but virtual environments as well.  

3.The rise in the adoption of AI with a focus on the end-user experience: For any meeting to be successful, there are action items that need to be done during its entire lifecycle. This includes sending meeting minutes, reviewing past content, summarizing to-dos, and following up on action items. Artificial intelligence that will enable smart collaborations and communications like video innovations, transcriptions and translations of meetings will increasingly be adopted. 

Hybrid working is still in its early days, and there is still quite a bit to figure out - for workers and organisations.  

However, if companies can ensure equity in a hybrid work setup, create employee-friendly policies, and focus on embracing collaboration technology deep into an organisation's DNA, hybrid working can not only survive as the future of work but thrive. 

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