Cybersecurity is an ongoing, growing threat, and all businesses are a target. The conventional approach to protecting what’s behind your four walls is not aligned with the realities of today’s workplace, let alone what the future of work holds in store. Not only does hybrid work mean distributed teams, but also a lot of virtual interaction via an Internet connection. Data security and privacy risks become elevated well beyond what’s needed for a physical office environment, and this raises two sets of future of work challenges. First are the threats that IT must manage to protect the network and all the data running across it. The second challenge pertains to employees, whose personal privacy needs to be protected whether working at home or in the office. Both challenges must be addressed, not just to ensure business continuity, but to maintain employee trust as AI-driven applications become ever-more pervasive. Cybersecurity is more important than ever with future of work, and this panel will review leading technologies and best practices for IT.
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When it comes to deploying leading edge technology, the future of work will not be all that different from the world of gamers, where immersive experiences become an appealing proxy for in-person experiences, and for some, the preferred option. Many of these forms are already finding their way into the workplace; virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and even the metaverse. While these may be years away from being mainstream, immersive forms of interaction will be FOW-friendly, especially for businesses trying to improve employee engagement with hybrid work. Before going too far down this path, IT needs a clear sense of the use cases, as well as the technologies required to support these new modes. Only when those pieces are in place can virtual options become reality, and that’s where our panelists will bring their expertise to bear.
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Since 2020, businesses across the world have adopted Microsoft Teams. In most cases, it was rolled out with minimal planning in response to changing hybrid/remote workforce needs. This session will explore how you can reimagine your Teams implementation, and even leverage AI and chatbots, to take it from being a reactive tool to an essential component of your digital culture strategy. Bring your questions, and get ready to think big – this session will change how you think about your Teams deployment for years to come.
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Join us for an enlightening session as we exploring new performance data insights for today and tomorrow’s hybrid workforce.  Go beyond traditional numbers to leverage more agile metrics for team growth, effectiveness, and well-being.  You’ll leave with an understanding of holistic Agile metrics, strategies that foster a positive team culture, better leadership and coaching skills, and performance insights.
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Just as we were getting comfortable with first generation AI applications like chatbots, translation and transcription, along came ChatGPT in 2023. This took AI to a new level, and we’re still grappling with how it fits for future of work. Nothing stands still with AI, though, and the latest wave in the revolution is large language models (LLM). With each new breakthrough, AI becomes more strategic than tactical, and IT leaders need to think in terms of the organization-wide impact rather than point applications like speech-to-text. Just as Generative AI became part of the FOW lexicon last year, LLM is this year’s acronym, and you might be surprised at how it can drive new business value. Last year’s ChatGPT session was standing-room-only, and if LLM isn’t on your FOW roadmap yet, you won’t want to miss this one.
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Today’s ecosystem of workplace endpoints is broader and more connected than the world of legacy desk phones and wired headsets. Both vendors and businesses want to support “work from anywhere”, but they can’t do it without the right endpoints and devices. With digital transformation turning all modes of communication into data streams, endpoints are central to the Future of Work experience as they provide the interface between workers and technology. Workers need endpoints that are easy to use and integrated with their everyday applications, and IT needs to tap data from them to better manage their networks. This session will address the critical capabilities needed from today’s wide range of endpoints - tablets, softphones, mobile phones, video hardware, conference systems, headsets, and even biometric devices – along with how they enable more intelligent communications from wherever workers are based.
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Seamless connectivity for a distributed workforce is a must-have when planning for future of work. Not only is state-of-the art technology critical for driving anywhere, anytime productivity, but it must enable smart workplace capabilities for all settings – in office, at home or on the go. The implications for IT are foundational, as the rise of digital transformation is creating both new forms of data, and massive volumes of data that would overwhelm legacy-based networks. Each of these needs represent major challenges for IT, but also major opportunities to rethink how data networks can deliver new value. Just as networks had to adapt when shifting from hardware to software, future of work will dictate the need for enhanced connectivity and data management capabilities to harness all this data. New approaches need to be considered, such as SD WAN and private 5G, and this panel will assess the merits of each, along with how IT can become an agent of change for FOW.
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Workplace norms have become very fluid, not just with the rise of hybrid work, but the challenges of managing workloads that never seem to ease up. AI-based technologies are creating ever-expanding volumes of data that need to be managed, and without the right tools, workers can be easily overwhelmed. Knowledge management capabilities are essential for finding the right data for the task at hand, and applying it to improve performance. Without this, employee engagement will suffer, and some will even view AI as being on track to take their jobs. While AI is driving much of this new data creation, it can also be deployed for knowledge management to help workers navigate all this data. This will give workers a sense of agency, where human input still has value, and AI is viewed more as job enhancement than job replacement. The future of work will very much be technology-driven, but there will be no workers if everything is automated, and this session examines the nuanced approach that IT leaders must take with AI that does not erode employee engagement.
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For businesses that manage a contact center, these operations have long been viewed as a cost center that runs separately from everything else. This may still hold true to some extent, but the prevailing thinking for any business that aspires to being customer-centric is quite different. In today’s post-pandemic world, employee engagement is a key factor for hybrid work, and that applies to all employees, not just those in the office. Consider as well the strategic importance of providing great customer experiences, and how agent engagement is a key factor for CX. With agents being on the front lines with your customers, there is too much at stake for business leaders to view them as replaceable labor units in a cost center. Instead, they need to be viewed as valuable enablers for customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. That’s the lens through which this session will view contact center agents, and why they should be an integral part of your future of work strategy.
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Most businesses have long-stopped being solely office-based, and the pandemic accelerated that trend to the point where hybrid working has become the norm. Technology was the great enabler for this, especially Unified Communications, which provided workers with a consistent experience regardless of location, endpoint or network. These platforms have become even more effective for businesses that have adopted the cloud, and can now support UCaaS. As workforces become further distributed, UCaaS provides everything needed to collaborate, thus minimizing the challenges when most team members cannot meet in-person. However, there is much more to effective collaboration than video meetings, and this session will address the bigger picture for how UCaaS is making hybrid work work.
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Artificial Intelligence isn’t just the dominant trend in tech, but also the most transformative force for future of work. Every aspect of work will be transformed by AI – how we work, where we work, why we work, etc. – but no operation inside a business is being impacted more right now than the contact center. The reason is simple – AI can address many of the shortcomings of legacy-based contact centers that are having ripple effects across the entire business. Today’s digital customers have adopted new technology faster than contact centers, and as their expectations keep rising, the business risk keeps rising as well. When agents don’t have the right tools, customer service suffers, along with their performance and morale. Business leaders cannot afford to wait for a years-long modernization program, and the contact center is a prime use case when considering the role of AI in your future of work plans. Great success stories are in the market right now, and we’ll be sharing some of them during this session.
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Technology considerations for future of work are focused mainly on workers and what we will need as individuals to make us more productive. The environment in which our work gets done plays a critical role as well, and new thinking is emerging around the role of workspaces. Few businesses can be fully remote, but many are struggling with RTO, return to office. As employees become more comfortable working from home, office environments need to provide a better experience, and supporting both has become a core future of work challenge. Making the office a “magnet” requires more than free lunch, and with advances in areas like AI, 5G and biometrics, there are promising technology-based opportunities to consider. This may be the domain of IT, but a broader vision is needed to fully rethink the office, and this session will also look at the role facilities management and HR can play for the future of workspace.
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Agility is the watchword for 2024, as organizations face continuous pressure to be competitive, to innovate, and nurture an engaged workforce. The work from home model remains fluid, and a top-down style of command-and-control management will no longer be effective. What’s needed instead is a flatter, less hierarchical structure where employees feel like stakeholders instead of interchangeable labor inputs that are on the cusp of being replaced by a chatbot. Technology has a key role to play, but this is more about taking a human-centric view of your workforce, and making flexibility central to organizational structure. This session will look beyond the technology being used to drive personal productivity, and focus more on the bigger picture for how organizations are adapting.
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