后疫情時代，向混合型辦公轉型
特刊
2021-05-17
在我多年的 IT 行業從業經歷中，曾幫助過很多國際企業成功實現關鍵的數字化轉型。從早期實施幫助企業端對端運營的ERP系統，到工業 4.0 時代對分布式供應鏈及自動化生產的數字化，這些轉型都為企業帶來了新機遇，也為企業創造了顯著的競爭優勢。然而，如果缺乏一些最基本的核心要素，企業也無法取得成功。
所有成功的企業都擁有一個共同的核心要素：「有效溝通」。
把「有效溝通」數字化
在商業世界中，有內部溝通，也有外部溝通，有效的溝通構成了一個成功的循環。高效的內部溝通可以提升員工的參與感，從而更好地協作，共同實現公司愿景。有效率的外部溝通則能帶來合作伙伴和客戶，創造營收。這就形成了一個循環：協作良好的員工可以為更多客戶提供更好的產品和服務，而客戶的高滿意度將有助于員工更深入地參與公司的愿景建設，為公司的持續發展做出貢獻。只有實現有效的內外部溝通，企業才能循環的獲得成功。
RingCentral 鈴盛軟件正是一家提供可靠的云溝通平臺的公司，旨在通過高效靈活的溝通，為全球企業以數字化的形式實現這一成功的循環。
后疫情時代的工作模式
隨著突如其來的疫情，整個世界在發生飛速的轉變，傳統的溝通方式正面臨挑戰。在新冠疫情前，幾乎 100% 的員工都在辦公室工作，面對面互動是主要溝通方式。疫情期間，由于隔離及其他原因，員工只能在家或在其他安全的遠程地點工作，并通過線上工具進行交流。由于大家都面臨著同樣的情況，所以沒有人感到不便，況且當時也別無選擇。隨著疫苗開始廣泛接種，我們終于看到了曙光。全球各地的企業正在計劃恢復正常辦工，但你是否意識到疫情后的工作環境面臨著哪些新挑戰？
許多人認為，疫情結束后，生活會重新回到 2019 年的狀態。但遺憾的是，許多研究表明，結果并非如此。疫情后的世界商業生態更像是疫情前 + 疫情期間工作模式的混合。有人稱其為混合型辦公，即由在司辦公和遠程辦公組成。
以我們中國的辦公室為例，因為中國的疫情較早就得到好轉，2020 年中我們已經開始回到公司上班，但是公司仍然容許員工可以選擇繼續遠程辦公。盡管有些員工經歷了長時間的在家辦公后，迫不及待地想回公司，但實際上，我們發現了一個穩定的趨勢：大約 1/4 的員工仍然選擇長期在家辦公。這個結果讓我們深入的了解到員工在混合型辦公環境中的偏好與工作習慣。
混合型辦公環境下的有效溝通
如何在混合型工作環境下保持有效溝通是當今世界面臨的全新挑戰。盡管存在不確定性，我們的中國團隊依舊取得了更好的業績，表現出了更高的員工敬業度，甚至還獲得了 2020 年亞洲最佳雇主獎以及 2020 – 2021 年中國卓越健康領袖獎。在此期間，我們新產品的發布速度更快、質量更高。這其中的許多實踐都值得研究。
我們的團隊并未把復工簡單地當成“回到過去”的過程，而是當成一個以更好方法進行轉型和協作的良機。使用可靠的 RingCentral 通訊云，線上和線下的同事都可以無障礙地參與會議，這是我們的新常態。有些項目的團隊利用 RingCentral Rooms的領先技術設置了敏捷的虛擬作戰室，同事們想要討論或聊天時，無需一直待在會議室，可以用移動設備加會，實現無縫連接，在任意地點繼續參會。這一新常態不僅使遠程辦公和在司辦公的同事得以在線上相聚，也幫我們一并解決了一個老難題，把不在同一辦公樓或者不在同一樓層辦公的同事快速聚集在一起。
一些員工反饋，他們原先在經過走廊或者在咖啡間時會和其他同事聊天交流。現在的混合型辦公環境可能會減少偶遇的機會，但借助科技，你會發現自己更容易找到想要聊天的同事。使用RingCentral Glip 應用，興趣相投的人得以同氣相求。無論你是在喝茶還是等電梯，動動手指就可以進行語音或者信息溝通。我們的中國團隊不僅使用 Glip 進行項目討論，還開設了很多有趣的興趣話題組，如廚藝美食、周末活動或者育兒技巧等等。這里還有一個由所有員工組成的大群，里面常常會有獨具創意和搞笑的內容分享。這些實踐的結果，收獲了更強的士氣以及團隊凝聚力。
變革需要領導力
像其他轉型一樣，領導力對轉型成功至關重要。領導者必須承認，是否允許員工遠程辦公不再是個選擇。你不允許不代表其他公司不順應潮流。領導者需要意識到混合型辦公將會帶來的挑戰與機遇，雖然有其局限性，但也有顯著的優勢。接受差異是轉型過程中的重要一步。如之前提到的，技術提供了有效溝通的可靠方法，但要形成一個新的工作模式，仍需領導者制定出相關政策并加以鼓勵。復工初期，希望繼續遠程辦公的員工不太確定“遠程辦公”的政策是否會繼續，也不確定自己如果長期不在辦公室，會不會變得邊緣化。而另一方面，決定在司辦公的員工也會擔心，有些團隊成員不在身邊的話，是否還能有效協作。此時，如果領導者能提供強有力的支持來使公司政策保持穩定，員工就會更有信心在這個新時期中取得成功。
轉型的過程中會產生大量反饋。我們在中國的管理團隊公開收集員工的建議，來更好地支持新的工作模式。我們成立了一個員工溝通委員會，由在司和遠程辦公的員工自愿組成。委員會定期開會討論大家的反饋意見，商議可以改進之處。沒有一個放之四海而皆準的政策，所以我們需要邊實施邊調整，而員工也可以看到過程中的優化與改進。如何打破地理距離隔閡，更好地提升團隊參與度，委員會提出了很多創新的想法。引導這些反饋到正確的渠道，并制定相關工作政策予以支持，是領導者實現轉型成功的關鍵。
改變或被改變
有些公司進行轉型是為了在大潮流下得以生存，有些則為了抓住新機會把業務提升到新的高度。其實這是個雞先蛋先的問題，何時開始轉型決定了企業將處于哪種情況。
最后，我想以我最喜歡的作家之一馬爾科姆·格拉德威爾 (Malcolm Gladwell) 的一句話作為總結——“轉型不是改善，而是重新思考”。希望我們的經驗可以幫助你在后疫情時代更好地籌劃，并取得成功。
本文作者Marc Chan, IT行業全球五百強跨國企業資深高管，現任RingCentral全球副總裁及大中華區總經理。
關于RingCentral
RingCentral, Inc.（紐交所代碼：RNG）是全球領先的云商務通信——消息、視頻、電話 (MVP)、客戶溝通和聯絡中心解決方案提供商。相比于傳統的本地PBX和視頻會議系統，RingCentral以更靈活、更節約成本的方式，使現代移動和分布式工作人員可隨時隨地、通過任何設備和任何模式進行溝通、協作和連接。RingCentral的開放式平臺與領先的第三方商業應用相集成，支持客戶輕松定制業務工作流。RingCentral總部位于加利福尼亞州貝爾蒙特，在全球各地都設有分公司。目前在中國廈門、杭州及香港均有辦公室，支持全球范圍內云面試、云入職， 部分職位開放長期遠程辦公。
In many years of my career in the IT industry, I have helped numerous global enterprises crucial and successful Digital Transformation. From implementing ERP for governing end to end corporate operations in the early time, to digitalizing distributed supply chain and manufacturing execution in the era of Industry 4.0, transformation brought in new opportunities and provided these enterprises distinct competitive advantages. However, none of these enterprises could have been successful in their field without the most fundamental core value they all share.
Successful enterprises share one common ingredient of success – Effective Communication.
Digitalizing Effective Communication
In the world of business, communication happens both as Internal and External, and the effectiveness of them constitutes the cycle of success. Good internal communication can engage your employee and facilitate them to collaborate towards your corporate vision. Efficient external communication brings in partners and customers and directly contributes to your revenue. This turns into a cycle as engaged employees can deliver better products and services for more customers, and high customer satisfaction will engage your employees deeper to the company’s right vision. No enterprise can be successful without being effective in this cycle. RingCentral is a company that aims at providing a reliable cloud platform to digitalize this cycle of success through effective communication.
Post-COVID Work Model
As the world is transforming under the unexpected pandemic, the traditional way of communication is being challenged. Before COVID, employees were almost 100% in office making communication primarily in the form of direct physical interactions. During COVID, due to lockdown and other reasons, employees have to work from home or in a remote and safe location. Communication is limited to online tools but since everyone is in the same situation, no one actually feels disadvantaged or honestly has alternatives. As vaccination begins to be widely adopted, we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Many companies have started planning for RTO (Return To Office), but are you aware what new challenges may come in a Post-COVID work environment?
Many believe that after COVID is over, life will be back to what it exactly was in 2019. Unfortunately, many studies show a different result. The Post-COVID business world will likely be a mixture of Pre-COVID + During-COVID work models. Some call this a Hybrid Workplace, composed of employee on-site and remote.
We did a study in our own offices in China. Since the COVID situation there was eased earlier, RTO was started in mid 2020 but employees could choose to continue working remotely. Despite the first few days where we saw employees suffering Work-From-Home (WFH) fatigue rushing to office, we saw a stable trend that approximately 1/4 of employees chose to work remotely consistently. This allows us to understand the mix of employee’s preferences and habits in a hybrid work environment.
Communication in a Hybrid Workplace
Maintaining communication effectiveness under a hybrid work environment is something brand new to the world. But despite the uncertainty, our team in China came out of this with higher productivity and employee engagement. The team was even awarded Best Company to Work For in Asia 2020 and China Healthiest Workplace 2020 - 2021. New products were released even faster and in higher quality during this time. Some practices there are worth studying.
Our team did not see RTO as the process of returning to how things were done in the past, but instead, an opportunity to transform and collaborate in a better way. Based on the reliable RingCentral communication cloud, meetings involving colleagues online and offline are scheduled as a normal practice. Some project teams even setup virtual scrum rooms leveraging state-of-the-art technologies like RingCentral Rooms, where colleagues can hop in and out physically in the office or anywhere via the mobile app, whenever they need to discuss or chat with someone. This new habit not only brought our WFH colleagues virtually together with the folks in office, but it also helped us address an old headache of bringing employees from different office sites or different floors of the office building together instantly.
Some employees provided feedback that they used to have casual chat with other colleagues while they walked down the hallway or in a coffee corner. Hybrid workplace may have reduced the chance that you accidentally bump into someone for a chat, but with the help of technology, chances that you discover someone you want to have a chat with are much higher. Leveraging the Glip by RingCentral app, people with common interest can be pulled in a team easily. Whether you are having a cup of tea or waiting for an elevator, you can chat verbally or via text messages at your fingertips. Our team in China not only uses this for project discussion, but also for any interesting topics like cooking ideas for dinner, weekend suggestions, or childcare tricks, etc. There is also a large group involving all employees and that group is never short of creative and hilarious content. The result is an even stronger morale and sense of together-ness established.
Leading the Transformation
Like any transformation, leadership plays a crucial role in success. Leaders must acknowledge that it’s not their choice whether they allow people to work remotely. If they don’t, someone else will. Leaders should also understand the challenges and opportunities a hybrid work model can bring. There are hard limitations in a hybrid workplace, but there are also distinct advantages in it. Embracing the differences is an important step in the transformation process. Technology, as mentioned above, provides reliable ways to deliver effective communication, but it requires work policies and encouragement from leaders to form a new work model. At the beginning of RTO, colleagues who planned to work remotely expressed feelings of uncertainty on whether the Work From Anywhere policy will continue and whether they will be left behind by not being in office. Employees who decided to work in office, on the other hand, have concerns about how effective the collaboration can be when some team members are not in their sight. As the policy remains stable through strong leadership support, employee’s confidence level of being successful in the new world increases.
Throughout the transformation process, there was a vast amount of feedback flowing around. Our management team in China openly collected them as a way to adapt to the new world. An Engagement Committee composed of voluntary employees in office and remote was formed and they meet regularly to discuss the feedback and improvement areas. There is no one-size-fits-all policy, so adjustments were made as we go, and employees can see improvement and progress along the way. Creative ideas are constantly generated from the committee on how to engage the team better without a physical boundary. Channeling these inputs into a right direction and form related work policies to support them is exactly how leaders can make the transformation a success.
Change or Be Changed
Some companies go through transformation in order to survive from an unwanted situation, some do it to harness new opportunities and take business to the next level. Whichever situation you are in depends on when you start the transformation.
Let me share a quote from one of my favorite authors Malcolm Gladwell – “Transformation isn’t about improving. It’s about re-thinking”. I hope our experience can help you better plan for and be successful in the Post-COVID new world.
Author: Marc Chan, VP and General Manager of China at RingCentral.
About RingCentral
RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG) is a leading provider of business cloud communications and contact center solutions based on its powerful Message Video Phone?????(MVP?) platform. More flexible and cost effective than legacy on-premise PBX and video conferencing systems that it replaces, RingCentral empowers modern mobile and distributed workforces to communicate, collaborate, and connect via any mode, any device, and any location. RingCentral offers three key products in its portfolio including RingCentral Office??, a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform including team messaging, video meetings, and a cloud phone system; Glip?? ??the company's free video meetings solution with team messaging that enables Smart Video Meetings?; and RingCentral cloud Contact Center solutions. RingCentral’s open platform integrates with leading third party business applications and enables customers to easily customize business workflows. RingCentral is headquartered in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world. In China, RingCentral has offices in Xiamen, Hangzhou and Hong Kong.
