Managing the Technology Challenges of a Distributed Workforce
Today’s distributed workplaces and teams create new and formidable challenges for organizations, especially IT teams. In this article, Howard Beader, vice president of product marketing, Catchpoint, discusses how IT can manage hybrid workplace challenges and set up a strategic framework to improve the digital employee experience.
It is not as if the pandemic introduced the trend of working remotely. In fact, I have worked remotely for most of my career. For more than a couple of decades, teams have connected from coffee houses, airports, and home offices. Yet, when shutdowns and lockdowns appeared in early 2020, things changed in a profound way.
Suddenly, organizations had no choice but to rapidly enable workers to connect remotely. In many cases, the switchover to hybrid work arrangements had to take place within the span of only a few days. All told, about 42% of all businesses adopted a more flexible framework for at-home work, according to Zippia, and 31% increased the use of telework, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While people are now heading back to the office, it is clear that the hybrid workplace is here to stay.
Distributed workplaces and the teams that comprise them create new and formidable challenges for organizations, not least in IT. It is crucial to understand network and performance issues on a whole new level. Slowdowns and service interruptions not only affect customers but also undermine employee productivity. On both fronts, there is a growing intolerance for subpar performance.
See More: How Balancing IT and Business Concerns Can Transform Customer Experience
Beyond the Black Box
Digital employee experience (DEX) for a hybrid workforce cannot be an afterthought. Functions like finance, sales, marketing, IT, operations and HR must communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Virtual call centers and support teams require high-quality connections. DEX has to be built into the fabric of the organization. Too often, businesses wind up with blind spots.
A hybrid workforce magnifies these issues. Instead of a handful of services residing within the four walls of the enterprise, hundreds or even thousands of potential trip wires exist across devices, software, APIs and endpoints. For organizations looking to emerge as digital-first leaders, this lack of visibility can prove troublesome and can undermine everything from brand reputation to business results. The task of IT is incredibly challenging because today’s systems span so many elements and components that an enterprise does not control.
CPUs, memory, disk usage and network performance deliver highly realistic insights into factors that undermine employee productivity and often ripple out to customers and business partners. Yet, a system must also be capable of pinpointing issues across the internet, cloud, and SaaS services, all of which exist in a black box beyond IT’s control.
With the right strategic framework and the right technology and tools in place, however, it is possible to shine a light on this black box. Blind spots disappear. IT teams can pinpoint where issues are popping up and the specific factors impacting DEX. As well as the ability to unleash business productivity at scale, this, in turn, can help an enterprise improve its management of vendor relationships better. The result is more enforceable service level agreements (SLAs) and better collaboration based on neutral, third-party data.
An Eye on Performance
What does an effective observability environment look like? How can an enterprise establish a best practice framework? The starting point is to approach hybrid work arrangements from the perspective that real-time 24×7 monitoring is not just a good idea but also mission-critical. Employees must be able to use systems and applications wherever they are and whenever they need them. In their minds, who owns and operates the technology is completely irrelevant.
This more evolved state of monitoring revolves around complete observability. There is a need to zoom in and understand performance in terms of what employees are actually experiencing at any given moment and in any given location. Since each situation is different, and there are numerous factors that potentially affect any given employee, the lens must be able to zoom in and out as needed. A global synthetic network combined with visibility from all sites, data centers and remote employee locations is essential to be able to deliver this.
With a best practice observability and remediation framework in place, an organization eliminates the all-too-common problem of a dashboard flashing green while employees are complaining about performance problems stemming from undetectable latency, configuration issues or something else.
See More: What Is Driving the Evolution of Enterprise Technology Management?
A holistic visibility strategy for workforce experience offers an additional advantage: the business is better equipped to establish realistic IT performance objectives based on metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that truly matter. It can understand the specific conditions and factors that lead to superior DEX and create a map to navigate to this higher plane.
Complete telemetry data from the endpoint, enterprise and public, visible within a single pane of glass, is at the center of a best practice hybrid work environment. With this data, it is possible to build relationships with service providers based on transparency and trust. It is possible to offer employees the flexibility and performance they need as they connect from multiple and often changing endpoints during a typical workweek.
In the end, everyone comes out ahead. An organization is equipped to deliver optimal performance all the time, employees can work in remote, office or hybrid environments seamlessly, and customer experience and satisfaction rates likewise rise. Organizations that adopt best practices for digital experience observability attract and retain top talent and boost their brand reputation. It is a winning formula for everyone.
How are you overcoming the tech challenges of a distributed workforce and developing a frame to improve digital employee experience? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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