On a recent interview series “Marketing for the Now,” host Gary Vaynerchuk invited Brad Anderson, former corporate vice president, Microsoft 365, to discuss the future of work in context of the monumental shifts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can watch the full 10-minute video here, but we’ve curated a list of key takeaways for our audience. Read on for the highlights:
Corporate Culture Is Changing
- Thanks to COVID-19, people work in a totally new way, utilizing remote collaboration and video-conferencing tools as the new “default” way of interfacing with colleagues, clients, and more.
- These remote solutions are becoming the expected norm for white collar/information workers, and up to 50% of employees continue to report that even after the COVID-19 crisis is under control, they will want to work remote full-time, Anderson said, citing recent statistics.
- Employers are forecasting that no more than 50% of their employees will be on site on a given day, and as employees are given a choice about where they are most productive for what kind of work, it will likely be a different 50% each day. When a team has a meeting or internal workshop to run, for instance, most employees on that team may decide to come to the office to work together in person, especially after such a long period of remote work dictated by the pandemic.
Employers Stand to Win in New Ways
- Experts predict business travel to decrease by 50% even after the pandemic, saving companies millions in travel expenses, lodgings, and per diems.
- With a remote-first work environment, businesses are poised to significantly reduce their real estate and physical operating footprints as well. Microsoft’s research found that each on-site full-time employee costs an office an average of $30,000 per year. So by reducing the size of offices to accommodate only half the local employees, businesses will be able to save millions of dollars per year. Another study revealed that over 40% of managers expect a reduction in overhead costs with regard to their future remote/in-office policies.
- Research still shows that remote workers are no less productive than they were on site full-time.
How to Leverage Changes to Strengthen Your Workforce
- Perks such as on-site catered lunches and gyms are not going to be the strong draws they once were in attracting and retaining talent. Instead, the tech stack employees are provided for working from home will be a powerful incentive.
- Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams have bypassed the modern dilemma between “good UX” or secure platforms, instead offering both solutions, as well as integrations to the most popular SaaS products businesses may already utilize, such as Salesforce, Asana, Hubspot, Adobe, InVision, Zapier, and more.
- Microsoft found that utilizing a world-class tech stack for all employees makes employees 120% more likely to feel valued by their company.
- The same study found that employees who use a tech stack like Microsoft Teams are 59% more likely to report that technology helps them better serve customers.
- In a huge win for HR departments and internal product managers, companies using great tech stacks like Microsoft Teams see a 75-point increase in internal NPS (net promoter score), said Anderson, a rating which is the main indicator of how positive employees feel about the work they do for your company.
Gary Vaynerchuk has leveraged his success and fame to gain access to other highly successful entrepreneurs, product managers, and experts in the business world, such as Brad Anderson from Microsoft 365. We hope you gained value from our recap of their conversation, and if you can, be sure to watch the whole discussion.
It’s becoming more clear that the office environment will never be quite the same. If you’ve been putting off investing in the right system to empower remote employees, contact Windows Management Experts today for a free Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams Roadmap session! Call us at (888) 307-0133 or email us to register for our next Windows 365 webinar.
