The hybrid approach to work has not only survived the pandemic but grown over the past few years, becoming a long-term or permanent solution for many employees, depending on their role and position within a company. The concurrent decline of fully remote work and disinclination to push for a full return to the office demonstrate that flexibility and resilience have become cornerstones of the modern workplace.
The hybrid work model offers myriad benefits for both employers and employees. For workers, it provides the much-desired flexibility to balance personal and professional commitments, leading to increased job satisfaction, improved mental health, and reduced burnout. For employers, it offers broader access to talent, without geographic restrictions, and greater flexibility in hiring and scheduling.
The requirements for successful hybrid working can vary based on organisational needs and industry-specific considerations. Common challenges include access, security, collaboration, and performance management.
HEAVY INVESTMENT
Many companies invest heavily in technology to facilitate remote collaboration and communication, but secure remote access from employees’ home offices is also a top concern. Virtual Private Network (VPN) solutions often are critical to ensuring remote workers can access company resources – including systems on the KVM network – and data securely. To enable remote access to systems in the office while maintaining both the high level of security and user experience of working on premises, purpose-built remote applications can empower employees to convert their laptops into KVM user stations to achieve simple, secure access to physical and virtual systems on the KVM network (LAN, WAN, VPN).
Cloud services also support hybrid work models by allowing employees to access data and applications from anywhere with an internet connection. Such solutions enhance flexibility, scalability, and collaboration for remote workers.
Addressing the challenge of collaboration across remote and on-prem teams, virtual collaborative workspaces can promote seamless teamwork. Within such spaces, KVM-enabled system sharing can allow experts to guide new or less experienced employees through tasks simply. Teams working on IT support or troubleshooting tasks can use KVM-over-IP to collaboratively diagnose and resolve issues on remote computers. With Black Box KVM systems, for example, up to eight team members can access and control the same system simultaneously, facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing.
By implementing performance management tools, managers can set expectations, track progress, and offer feedback regardless of the physical location of employees. KVM management systems can provide visibility into which employees have logged into different systems on the network, and for how long, and also track and log failed login attempts. This information can be useful not only for performance management purposes, but also as part of the company’s ongoing security monitoring efforts.
Looking to the future, employers must continue to address the fundamental challenges of hybrid work while factoring in employee retention and work-life balance. To support the connectivity, accessibility, and security essential for hybrid workers, companies must continue investing in technology infrastructure by upgrading network capabilities, expanding cloud services, and ensuring that remote access solutions are scalable and reliable.
