According to a study by Mckinsey, 9 out of 10 organizations will adopt hybrid workplace experiences in the post-pandemic future.

The pandemic saw an explosion in remote work adoption, but as many professionals have realized, remote work is not without challenges, especially communication and project coordination.

Yet, remote work trends persist. Hence, to mitigate the challenges of both sides of work (on-site and remote), hybridity is the foreseeable future of work where the digital merges with the physical.

The rapid shift to remote work increased the need for more bandwidth and greater network connectivity. As companies had to scramble to accommodate more people working in dispersed locations, there has been a surge in demand for secure and reliable access to cloud applications.

In this way, it is obvious how hybrid work environments can be significantly more challenging because you have to balance digital and physical considerations and deal with compatibility issues.

As more companies move to a work environment that encompasses traditional office space and remote workers, it’s essential to understand the impact on your network. Your network is expected to deliver strong performance and high availability within budget constraints and business priorities.

These priorities can be divided into two, encompassing considerations for successful workplace collaboration and maintaining a high-security standard across multiple network configurations to protect against any contingency.

Collaboration Considerations

Companies are implementing collaborative technologies such as video-conferencing and accessing applications from mobile devices to get work done anytime, anywhere.

Few workplaces and organizations rely exclusively on a single method for supporting collaboration, and even fewer will continue to do so in the future. How you handle these multiple factors can enhance communication and drive innovation while avoiding costly pitfalls.

1. Future-proof your network by investing in solutions that remove complexity and allow users to connect across locations, devices, and applications seamlessly. Now that collaboration tools have moved beyond desktop phones to include mobile platforms and apps, your network must support multi-platform use cases. Your network architecture must be flexible enough to meet the connectivity needs of a wide range of devices, from laptops and desktops to tablets and smartphones.
2. Can your network handle the extra demand? Will your network be able to take an increased number of users accessing your services and applications remotely? You’ll need to test the speed and capacity of your network connections between on-premises offices and remote locations. Will you have enough bandwidth available for audio/video collaboration?
3. Prioritize resiliency and reliability. Resiliency means having a network that is built for agility. It’s a network that allows your company to scale up or down when changes occur — whether that’s from an unexpected influx of offsite users or the loss of an essential piece of hardware — so you can remain agile enough to adapt to changing conditions. To prepare for this hybrid environment, look for network solutions that can help you stay agile enough to adapt to the evolving needs.

Security Considerations

In the past, security teams have defended their perimeter by focusing on physical locations. For most companies today, that perimeter no longer exists.

The perimeter is now every device and person that accesses the network and data – including users working remotely. Therefore, as organizations move towards hybrid work structures, leaders must revamp their security strategies to meet new realities and prepare against contingency.

1. Access Management: The most common threat comes from malicious insiders or trusted third parties accessing the corporate network. How will you manage access? With some employees on-site and others remote, how can you make sure that everyone has access only to the resources they’re authorized for? And how can you ensure that data doesn’t spill outside company boundaries by leaving an endpoint or network device exposed?
2. Is the data safe? You should consider implementing a secure file-sharing solution for remote collaboration between employees and partners. This will ensure that sensitive information is protected on endpoints and when it’s being shared by email or mobile devices. Take the time now to consider the state of your remote collaboration capabilities and how they can help keep your sensitive information safe in transit and on endpoints.
3. Visibility: As more devices connect to your network from home and other off-site locations, it becomes more difficult for IT teams to identify threats before they cause damage. The ability to detect threats on your network before they cause damage is critical. With less visibility into what is going on with devices on the network, it becomes more challenging to take action when needed.
4. Contingency: Preparing for contingency is a critical component of the network security strategy. Network segmentation and a comprehensive zero-trust network access strategy are vital components in ensuring a safe, scalable and flexible hybrid work environment. The risk assessment performed as part of this process will show where the weak spots of your current infrastructure lie and what measures you should take to ensure optimal protection.

Conclusion

Whatever else may change, it’s clear that workplaces will continue to embrace increasing levels of flexibility and adaptability. Hybrid workplaces are a massive part of that trend, and organizations must up their readiness as the future of work is being unravelled.

Connectivity, flexibility, and growth are all facets of workplace hybridization that can benefit the growing needs of organizations. These areas should also be your primary considerations when preparing for workplace hybridity, from collaboration and communication to security contingency planning. Effective preparation ensures seamless business continuity.