How COVID19 has changed the way we communicate and collaborate

​There has been a massive shift in the way we work over the last year. The sudden move to remote work at the start of the pandemic left distributed teams looking for ways to collaborate and communicate. Organisations were forced to adapt rapidly to these changes, with many employees not familiar with video presenting or creating content through cloud-based services. What began very much as a needs-must solution, has since evolved into a much more sophisticated way of working, bringing with it an increased expectation of professionalism.

Presentation skills and professionalism
With audiences now adapted to video communication as the norm, expectations have grown. Many introductions are now taking place via video, so first impressions matter, highlighting the need for employee training across presentation skills and content creation.

Collaboration and communication
Being able to communicate instantly has been essential for collaboration. Microsoft Teams chats have replaced discussions over cubicle walls or in offices. Ideas and brainstorming sessions take place on shared whiteboards that users can write or draw on with devices such as the x360, and cloud-hosted shared documents havebecome the norm. This all serves not just to enable collaboration but to actively encourage it.

Performance and Security
Secure cloud storage and cloud-based tools have proved essential for productivity and collaboration, with Microsoft 365 proving a popular choice for many organisations. The importance of cloud-based job and customer management services has become apparent, giving users access to the information they need to perform their job. At the same time, more users are needing to create high-quality image, video and presentation content, increasing the requirement for higher performance laptops. The newest 11th Gen Intel Core-i5/i7 Elitebooks meet this need well, featuring powerful HP with Intel iRIS Xe graphics, previously the domain of design and comms teams.

Flexible Tools and Flexible roles
Business continuity and resilience have been priorities, as organisations are faced with ongoing uncertainty around COVID-19 and the wider economic implications. Employees have needed to be flexible and able step in to cover tasks outside of their roles. Consequently, we are seeing staff developing more generalist skills than before, while those in more specialised roles are increasingly stretched. This has led to increased training requirements, more versatile devices, along with a need for instant communication, access to cloud storage and cloud-hosted documents.

Looking forward, the technology and changes to working practices that were initially adopted out of necessity, now present new opportunities for agility and innovation. As organisations and users continue to adapt, becoming more professional and skilled in their approach, they will find themselves in a strong position to grow. And ready to face whatever the future may throw at them.

The Evolving Workplace

COVID-19 changed the way we work forever, and remote working looks likely to be here to stay. Organisations that have embraced these new working practices, have found great opportunities for innovation. ​

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