The Future of Work: How Will the Workplace Look and Run in a Post Covid-19 Era?

One area of particular concern is End User Computing (EUC). Legacy infrastructure and poorly designed implementations pose security, business continuity and disaster recovery risks, and will need to be revisited to ensure that remote workers can securely and reliably access corporate applications and resources. Moving forward, more companies will need to adopt virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) models, as well as digital tools and technologies that simplify collaboration and communication with colleagues and stakeholders.

Enterprise IT infrastructures are under pressure to handle increasing workloads and storage needs. Given that budgets are shrinking and businesses are being forced to do more with less, IT departments must find ways to reduce operational overhead and costs. Managing separate silos for compute, storage, virtualization, and networking is slow and labor-intensive, and often requires organizations to hire pricey IT specialists.

On-demand, secure cloud-based infrastructure and software-defined network architectures will be key enablers of the new hybrid work environment, giving organizations the flexibility to scale up and back as needed. Many enterprises IT organizations are turning to hyperconverged infrastructures that provide agility, intelligent operations, and financial savings. IDC found that hyperconverged infrastructures can decrease operating expenses by 60% and deliver a 5-year ROI of 534%. This level of efficiency will enable organizations to digitally transform without delay, while realizing substantial cost savings and productivity gains that will help them weather the economic uncertainty of the Covid-19 era.

Supporting Employees Through Change

As businesses grapple with adopting new hybrid workplace models and digital technologies, employees will struggle with change. Managing that change — and supporting employees through it — is critical to success. All the technology and work flexibility in the world won’t matter if employees feel disconnected and disengaged.

According to Donna Kimmel, Executive VP and Chief People Officer at Citrix, defining the new way of working isn’t simply a cost-savings initiative, but a means of enabling employees to work how they work best. “It's about understanding what's important to our employees, leading with empathy and understanding, and providing what they need to work as effectively as possible,” she said in a recent Cloud Council episode hosted by Nutanix. Kimmel added that culture, physical space, and digital space are the three key elements that go into driving the right kind of employee experience. In today’s new hybrid work environment, “digital wellness” will be particularly critical to ensuring employees feel connected and empowered to perform at their best.

To that end, Citrix has taken steps to support effective collaboration and help to drive a sense of balance and unity, such as providing secure remote access to desktops and applications over the Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure. Having the right infrastructure and digital tools in place ahead of time helped Citrix transition smoothly into a remote working environment when the pandemic hit. Not only do they use this solution internally, their customers use it to create secure digital workspaces for their employees, to drastically reduce VDI costs, and to prepare to support hybrid workplace initiatives post-pandemic.

The Time is Now

No one could have anticipated how quickly the future of work would collide with the present conditions, but here we are. And if your organization is late to the game, that’s ok — there will undoubtedly be more challenges down the road. To seize the opportunity, be proactive in adopting enabling technologies and infrastructure, so you’ll have what it takes to support your employees and achieve business continuity no matter what the future holds.