86% of businesses can picture a hybrid workplace in the future

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The vast majority (86%) of companies see the digital workplace co-existing with the physical workspace in the future, with 78% expecting to increase the amount of remote work conducted, according to Verizon's latest research.

The report explained that the increase doesn’t mean everyone will work from home in the future. Rather, organisations will be able to pick and choose which types of work and which people will require a physical presence, and where the company can gain efficiencies and productivity with virtual work.

Similar to other research, this report also unveils the benefits of remote working. While 61% of business leaders reported that the quality of remote work was on par as that conducted in the physical workplace, more than half experienced improved collaboration and a boost in business agility. Nearly half (44%) witnessed an increase in productivity .

The majority of businesses benefited from the use of collaboration technologies to maintain productivity such as videoconferencing (98%), file sharing (97%), instant messaging/chat (95%), other collaboration methods (such as Slack or Teams – 88%) and cloud-based collaboration (85%). In addition, the use of online interactive training to keep employees engaged in their own personal development was considered key (85%).

The report also highlights that businesses that have a digital workplace strategy are consistently more likely to see greater returns from their investments than those that don’t. For instance, more than halt (52%) saw increased productivity versus only 40% of those without such a strategy.

The potential of 5G technology was seen as going beyond basic operational improvements to assist in business transformation, with one fifth (20%) of respondents saying that it will enable them to do work they have never been able to do before. A total of 41% of those surveyed expected 5G to become a reality for their own organisation within two years, opening the door to applications that employ higher-quality/lower-latency video and augmented or virtual reality (AR/VR).

Not surprisingly, security was flagged as a potential barrier, which may slow digital work momentum (35%). The report suggested that companies should also consider implementing end-user security awareness training, acceptable use policies that mitigate user exposure to threats and new security policies for remote working such as two-factor authentication.