The hybrid workforce is becoming more and more common, and as it does, unified communication also moves to the forefront. Let’s discuss what unified communications is, how it fits into the hybrid workforce, and some tips for success.
What is Unified Communication?
The hybrid workforce includes everything about the post-pandemic workplace experience, from work schedules, to working from home, the office, or anywhere, to learning how to implement new solutions for these changes. Unified communication (UC) fits into the hybrid workforce, too.
Unified communication “describes not only how we connect to different communication systems for the digital workforce, but collaboration tools too,” according to UC Today.
UC incorporates messaging, voice, and video calling, team collaboration, video conferencing, file sharing, and more. Essentially, UC is to communication what the hybrid model is to the global workplace. Unified communication encompasses all the ways your teams converse and collaborate. But with all these new ways to work, we are finding that some things are effective, and some are not. Let’s go through some of the most effective aspects of UC.
Some Trends in UC Success
We’ve all heard some form of that analogy about using the right tools for the job – in our experience, it was something about how a hammer is great, but not if you need a screwdriver. The same is true with unified communication. So here are some of the practices and concepts that are leading professionals toward success when it comes to UC.
The first of the top characteristics that are key to UC success is increasing IT spending. This spending increase encompasses tools like collaboration security, video conferencing, team collaboration, headsets and other collaborative assets like virtual whiteboards and targeted or tailored workflow apps. The trend here stems from finding the best tools and only using those in your business operations.
Embrace Video and Cloud Solutions
Another way to achieve success in unified communication is to focus resources on improving and increasing video solutions. This means buying better mics, cameras, and software so your teams can communicate clearly and effectively within your preferred virtual platform or collaboration tool.
And cloud storage is another must. Successful companies know that to stay competitive in finding and hiring quality candidates, hybrid work models mean having the cloud capacity to store and sort all necessary files and operations in the cloud. The ability to work from anywhere isn’t a far-fetched request anymore – it needs to be an integral part of your business model.
Security, Security, Security
It’s common knowledge that with the massive shift to online operations and virtual problem solving comes a huge influx of cybercrime as well. Instances like the Colonial Pipeline hack show us that the time for a cybersecurity check is before your operations start losing thousands or millions of dollars because of hackers.
Collaboration tools and their integrations are changing at a near-daily pace right now, and that means business leaders need to stay ahead of the trends in cybersecurity and online crime.
We’re All Meeting in the Cloud – Let’s Make the Most of It
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