Our thoughts: New office expectations - are you ready for the new normal?

After three months in lockdown, restrictions are loosening and we’re seeing glimpses of normality for the first time since March. But as we approach the ‘new normal’ we need to consider what the next phase will look like. The phase that comes before normal will be a deciding factor in a business’s success with leaders needing a mix of complete focus, clear direction and extreme flexibility.

Over the course of the lockdown period, one thing has remained: businesses of all sizes have shared a desire to improve. Specifically, businesses have shown a willingness to digitise their operations. Video calls replaced meetings, cloud-based apps have replaced storage on a server and colleagues are more connected than they ever were working within the same four walls.

Businesses have gone through a ‘digital transformation’ without even knowing it. Working with agility and resilience, they’ve looked at new processes and marketing tools and adjusted the interface that they have with their customers. Small firms have taken their business online, increased their social media presence and have collaborated with other businesses to make these tools viable.

The question now is: as some employees return and some remain remote, can your office handle the increased digital load that you’ve worked so hard to adopt?

One of the essential workers which we’ve overlooked during lockdown is the South West’s IT businesses, who have been more in demand than ever. They have helped businesses to adopt new tools and now there is a new challenge on the horizon: get businesses ready to operate with the tools they now use and the bandwidth that’s now required to support flexible working. With better broadband, businesses will avoid reverting back to a life limited by poor internet connection. 

The South West is lucky. It’s been gigabit enabled for years now and so the opportunity is there for businesses to be up and running in 6 weeks with world-class connectivity. The opportunity is there to enable businesses to maintain their innovations as more people return to the office. However, thousands are now going to experience an insufficient broadband network to operate in the new world.

So now, leaders need to move as a collective of businesses to demand more from our internet connectivity. It’s now much cheaper than even two years ago to have dedicated leased lines for businesses and even more so on the huge CityFibre network. However, the behemoths of digital connectivity don’t want you to know that or for us all to demand better connectivity - at a better price and across all the areas of the country.

While the country returns to normal, it’s time to work together to integrate the efficiencies which businesses have adopted while working remotely back into the office and now is the time to do it. Better broadband connectivity is the way to ensure success as we work to welcome the new normal.

To learn more about setting your business up for success in the new normal, reach out or visit: www.trianglenetworks.co.uk.