Whether you transitioned to a remote-work environment because of the COVID-19 pandemic or you have been in the digital space for a long time, a strong culture is essential to your bottom line. For starters, it helps employees develop healthy relationships with one another, makes them to want to show up for work, and improves productivity.
Sharing and editing documents is fairly easy with widely used digital tools. But other critically important types of collaboration remain challenging when colleagues don't share physical space — or even time zones. Remote work may be here to stay even after the pandemic subsides, so how do you move forward?
According to a Digital Defense Report published by Microsoft in 2021, the private industry's support of remote work, in addition to factors introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic, has made remote workers a lot more susceptible to the actions of cybercriminals. Per the 2021 Microsoft report, "While most industries made the shift to remote work due to the pandemic, it created new attack surfaces for cybercriminals to take advantage of, such as home devices being used for business purposes."
Will we need more or less office space as companies ask people to come back to the office this year? Will employers negotiate smaller, cheaper digs after having made their peace with employees working from home more often, or will square footage be necessary to give workers safe distancing space? Will we say goodbye to open floor plans and hello to enclosed offices and even — gasp! — cubicles?