{"id":40237,"date":"2020-06-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newrcblog.wpengine.com\/how-cloud-technologies-prepare-your-organization-for-the-post-covid-19-workplace\/"},"modified":"2024-11-04T10:29:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T18:29:42","slug":"how-cloud-technologies-prepare-your-organization-for-the-post-covid-19-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/us\/en\/blog\/how-cloud-technologies-prepare-your-organization-for-the-post-covid-19-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"How Cloud Technologies Prepare Your Organization for the\u00a0Post-COVID-19 Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Renee Chang is a software developer for a large audiovisual technology company based in Southern California. When COVID-19 struck and tech companies led the <\/span>work-from-home charge<\/span><\/a> in early March, Chang\u2019s company opted to stay the course. As surrounding organizations continued to send employees home, Chang\u2019s colleagues wondered why their company had no similar plan. It wasn\u2019t until the end of March, when California Governor Gavin Newsom <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> a statewide shelter-in-place order, that the company finally shut its campus and allowed employees to work from home<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the decision to wait until the eleventh hour might seem like a strategic business move, the reality is that, like many organizations, Chang\u2019s company simply wasn\u2019t ready for the sudden, forced exodus. The company\u2019s infrastructure wasn\u2019t designed to handle the unprecedented surge in remote work traffic. Data security also wasn\u2019t ready, and most employees had never even worked from home before. As a result, the company rushed to design and implement a work-from-home strategy in less than a few months\u2014a process that normally takes years to achieve.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blindsided by the pandemic<\/b><\/h2>\n

The onslaught of COVID-19 caught many organizations off guard, and IT teams around the world scrambled with unprecedented haste to adopt solutions that allow employees to work from home. For example, many organizations finally doled out laptops to every employee or installed collaboration apps for team messaging and video conferencing that enabled working from home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unpreparedness, however, was the Achilles\u2019 heel for many of these organizations. IT leaders <\/span>panic-bought<\/span><\/a> solutions left and right without truly evaluating if they met business needs, knowing they only had a few months to get everything running. This meant implementing short-term solutions that would simply last through the storm until things returned to normal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Normal, however, likely won\u2019t come anytime soon. In fact, the post-COVID-19 workplace might look drastically different from the pre-COVID-19 workplace. Organizations will have to adapt, and cloud technologies play a pivotal role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The workplace after COVID-19<\/b><\/h2>\n

As organizations eventually get the green light to reopen, juggling employee safety with business objectives is going to be priority number one. Some businesses are already considering redesigning office spaces to maximize distance\u2014open offices might be a thing of the past. At the same time, many organizations are considering expanding policies for permanent remote work. A recent Gartner <\/span>survey<\/span><\/a> of 317 CFOs revealed that 74% of companies plan to permanently shift to more remote work post-COVID-19. Nearly a quarter of those plan to move 20% of their on-site employees to permanent remote positions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Organizations have several reasons to make remote work permanent:<\/span><\/p>\n