Search Results

Zendesk's Relate user conference last week marked an important milestone for the company. Two years into its second act as a private company, it has sharpened its focus on two key markets: customer experience (CX) and employee service. Let’s dive into the announcements and key takeaways from the event. Zendesk has historically served employee support more by default than by design—customers adopting its intuitive help desk software for internal use. Now, with the formal introduction of the Zendesk Employee Service Suite, the company is making a deliberate push. With 17,000 companies already using Zendesk for employee-facing operations, this move feels not just logical but overdue. The newly introduced suite brings purpose-built capabilities, most notably a Service Catalog that extends beyond help desks to deliver a seamless employee experience from onboarding to ongoing support. The highlight of the event was the launch of the Zendesk Resolution Platform, with AI Agents at its core. Zendesk has made it clear—it wants to be your AI provider, and its newly released agentic platform is definitely worth your consideration. The company shared that it already has 10,000 customers using its AI products. Customer support automation is one of AI's most promising use cases. Support operations are highly digitized, with vast datasets concentrated in help centers and ticketing systems—capturing both interaction transcripts and resolutions. With over 13 million resolutions processed daily, Zendesk has transformed its data goldmine into a powerful knowledge graph. Zendesk's agentic platform nicely exposes the chain of thought of its agents, giving you both visibility and control over processes and actions. It leverages Zendesk QA to oversee not only human agents but also automations—an ingredient the company highlights as part of its secret sauce. Its architecture is built for a swarm of highly specialized agents—Zendesk's approach to achieving accuracy at scale. Zendesk has centered its AI vision on driving resolutions, setting an ambitious target to automate 80% of support inquiries within the next few years. While the "driving outcomes" messaging pervades vendor marketing, Zendesk backs this positioning by aligning both its value and pricing with the key result you can expect—resolution. This is already reflected in its pricing at $1.50 per automated resolution. And as we shift toward a world where resolution is predominantly automated, the company plans to evolve its seat-based pricing model into an outcome-based structure, offering the flexibility to convert pricing between human and automated support. I commend Zendesk for tackling the challenges of knowledge management—an essential yet notoriously difficult domain. Its new Knowledge Builder introduces GenAI-powered tools to enrich, refine, and repurpose content, taking the tedious out of the job. Eventually, Zendesk’s Resolution Platform brings together its recent acquisitions, bolstering its contact center capabilities. While the Local Measure acquisition is still awaiting regulatory approval, the path forward is clear. Zendesk also aims to be your contact center provider for two key reasons. First, as automation takes hold, it sees voice becoming a more strategic escalation channel for complex issues, with research already showing that voice is used in 52% of resolution journeys. Second, as markets converge, Zendesk seeks to prevent CCaaS vendors from encroaching on its territory. It plans to leverage Local Measure technology and expertise to package Amazon Connect for the mid-market, a segment where its offering particularly excels. Combined with its WFM and QA modules, as well as PolyAI’s Voice Agents, Zendesk will be well-positioned to provide a comprehensive contact center solution. Relate 2025 represents a significant turning point for Zendesk with the launch of its agentic platform, a key step in realizing its aspiration to become your AI provider. The event also highlights the company's strategic focus on two key market opportunities: employee services and customer service with an expanded scope to include contact centers. By aligning its value proposition and pricing model around resolutions, Zendesk cleverly differentiates itself amid the growing number of vendors positioning themselves as broad CX providers.

(Podcast length: 33:03) BCStrategies Experts David Maldow and Kevin Kieller discuss WebexOne 2024 while Experts Blair Pleasant and Jon Arnold discuss their adventures in Zambia at the NICE Analysts Summit 2024.

(Podcast length: 34:38) Lawyers and BCStrategies Experts Martha Buyers and David Maldow discuss some of the legal implications and issues related to artificial intelligence (AI).

(Podcast length: 38:58) A collection of the BCStrategies Experts including Blair Pleasant, Martha Buyer, Charles Vondra, Kevin Kieller, Steve Leaden, Dave Michels and Nicolas de Kouchkovsky talk with co-founder Joe Eisner, CEO, and co-founder Jay Yeras, CTO, about how blissAI helps organizations turn their existing call recordings into "gold" that can help power AI initiatives.

(Podcast length: 23:45) Experts Blair Pleasant, Nicolas De Kouchkovsky, Evan Kirstel, David Maldow, Dave Michels, and Kevin Kieller discuss what we expect to see more of and less of in 2025 related to UCaaS, CCaaS, AI, and other communication and collaboration technologies. As always an informed and opinionated discussion!

(Podcast length: 21:16) Experts Joseph Williams, Kevin Kieller, Chuck Vondra, Blair Pleasant, Marta Buyers, Dave Michels, and Jon Arnold recap the year that was 2024. What were the highs and lows related to UCaaS, CCaaS, AI, and related technologies. As always, there is no lack of opinions and a wide-variety of perspectives combined with deep industry insights.

(Podcast length: 34:52) Can AI agents demonstrate empathy equal to or better than human agents? Are human agents really demonstrating empathy or simply trying to keep you as a customer? The BCStrategies Experts discuss this interesting topic and offer different points of views and opinions.

More features brings more complexity and a need to change how we manage. As 2024 draws to a close, it is worth reflecting on the fact that Microsoft Teams has now been available for seven and a half years, having been launched worldwide on March 14, 2017. (This is either a short or long period of time depending on your perspective.) Overall, each year with Microsoft Teams has seen more users, more features, more licenses, and more complexity. Teams is Successful Teams has certainly been successful, and provides many organizations with strong communication, collaboration, and workflow capabilities, as witnessed by… 320 million monthly active Teams users 20 million monthly active PSTN users 3 million Teams Premium users >1 million Teams Rooms The Teams “universe” currently looks like this (as of October 2024): 320 million monthly active Teams users is indeed a big and impressive number. However, despite a huge “push” from Microsoft, Teams Phone, as a replacement voice system (PBX), appears to be an underutilized capability, with only 6% of active Teams users taking advantage of this robust capability. An additional 24 million users have unused licensing for Teams Phone via their E5 license. An estimated 60 million users in total are licensed for Teams Phone, 44 million as part of their E5 bundle and an estimated 16 million additional Teams Phone license purchases, most often as an add-on to an E3 license. Certainly, an opportunity in 2025 for organizations and Microsoft partners. To get to the current state, Teams growth has been explosive, but is leveling off, granted at an impressively high level. Teams is Powerful and Keeps Adding Features Over the past years Teams has grown more powerful, with hundreds of features added each year. 2024 was no exception to this trend. Recently, Microsoft introduced a  new chat and channels experience  that was described by many as one of the biggest changes to Teams ever. The new chat and channel experience works well, even with lots of channels it displays quickly and allows you to easily monitor unread messages. The numerous configuration options might be overwhelming to some users and different modes of displaying the same information can make helping a user more difficult; giving instructions on what to click on depend on their configuration choices. At Microsoft Ignite (week of November 18, 2024) additional Teams features were  announced : Multilingual meeting transcripts Translation for intelligent meeting recaps Microsoft Places  which helps better manage hybrid work scenarios Storyline integration into Teams (previously part of  Viva Engage ) Of course, lots of new  Copilot  features which extend Teams were also announced, including: The ability for Copilot to analyze content presented in Teams and reason over shared content Copilot will now give quick summaries for files shared in a Teams chat Copilot Pages  which provides persistent results for prompt results from BizChat (aka Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat). Pages can be shared and co-authored. A Copilot Interpreter agent that provides real-time language translation during a meeting. Participants can choose to have the Interpreter simulate their own voice. A Copilot meeting Facilitator agent that will take real-time summary notes that can be co-authored with meeting participants An Employee Self-Service agent that can provide answers and take actions related to common HR and IT scenarios from within Teams BizChat While the addition of new features to Teams is welcomed by power users, there is starting to be increasing “rumblings” from standard users related to the seemingly incessant UI changes Microsoft is making. Administration and Support of Teams With most new Teams features, options, or capabilities there is a need for a system admin to understand and configure who gets what option. Many options have security, compliance, data residency, and/or licensing implications. New features also require that the Teams Admin Center (TAC) continues to evolve or additions to the PowerShell scripting language are needed. Keeping up with both options, as hundreds of new features are added, can be challenging for IT Pros. With more complex configurations, and potentially many different sets of options for different user groups, diagnosing problems becomes more complex. Licensing is Complex and Getting More Expensive In the beginning Teams was included as part of Office 365 (and M365 licenses), now there are  business  and  enterprise  plans where Teams has been “unbundled” from Microsoft 365. In addition, there are multiple add-ons to Teams, including  Teams Premium  ($7/user/month),  Teams Phone  (included with E5, otherwise $8+/user/month), Copilot ($30/user/month), and  Teams Rooms Pro  ($40/room/month). A full enterprise plan comparison chart is available  here . Microsoft also recently  announced  that Teams Phone licenses will increase in cost in 2025, going from $8+/user/month to $10+/user/month. Monthly billing annual plans will all now have a 5% price increase (as compared to upfront paid annual plans). Teams Management Options Throughout 2024, I have had numerous discussions with many individuals at  VOSS  focused on their approach to simplifying some of the above noted challenges with Teams. Here are some of my key takeaways from these discussions. VOSS Automate  is designed to simplify the administration of Teams, and also can provide a “single pane of glass” if you need to manage both Teams and other systems (e.g. Cisco). I’ve seen examples where VOSS: Insulates admins from needing to deal with finicky scripting Can be used to automate multiple systems and multi-step processes Allows you to delegate capabilities based on office location, or any other logical grouping Can present a simplified user interface, with limited options, to first-tier support workers Can help standardize sets of configuration options applied to users Provides a complete audit trail (and supports rollback in case a change has an unintended effect) VOSS Insights  extends the built-in Teams reporting to provide a unified view across multiple systems. I wrote recently that  Teams reporting is improving but there are still gaps . Cost and license optimization is an area where organizations often use VOSS Insights. Taming Teams At the end of 2024, organizations looking to fully leverage Teams in 2025 need to: Provide adequate initial and on-going training for end-users (This includes establishing a process for keeping up to date on new features and how these might be integrated to improve your business processes) Analyze and optimize Teams and add-on licenses (Copilot, Teams Premium, Teams Room Pro) Ensure IT has the time and inclination to keep up with management and configuration changes within Teams Admin Center and O365 Admin Center (This may involve considering third-party tools to simplify management and reporting) Leverage built-in tools and reports (and potentially third-party tools) to monitor, manage, and operate your Teams environment efficiently and effectively If you work for a large enterprise organization, do you have the same impression as me? In 2024 did you see Teams get more powerful, more complex, neither or both? I would love to hear your thoughts.

In the early days of unified communications adoption, the idea of virtual meetings was often promoted as a way to reduce both costs and the environmental impact associated with business travel. However, in recent years, with the rise of an increasingly divisive debate pitting remote work against traditional in-office work in terms of collaboration, innovation, and culture, the sustainability benefits associated with cloud-based, virtual communication and collaboration seems to have been largely forgotten. The Evolution of Communication and Collaboration Tools The journey towards remote work and virtual meetings has been a long one, marked by significant advancements in communication and collaboration technologies. At first, we had basic email and telephone calls, which were sufficient for simple communication but lacked the richness and interactivity of face-to-face meetings. The advent of video conferencing and web conferencing tools revolutionized the way we connect and collaborate remotely. These tools enabled us to see and hear each other in real-time, replicating the experience of in-person meetings to a great extent. Cloud-based communication solutions further enhanced the capabilities of remote work, providing seamless access to communication and collaboration tools from anywhere with an internet connection. This eliminated the need for expensive hardware and software, making remote work more accessible and affordable for businesses of all sizes. The Challenge of Environmental Sustainability The growing awareness of climate change and the urgent need to reduce our environmental impact have been major drivers of the shift towards remote work and virtual meetings. The transportation sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing the need for travel is crucial in achieving our sustainability goals. Remote work and virtual meetings offer a powerful solution to this challenge. By enabling us to connect and collaborate remotely, these technologies reduce the need for travel, leading to lower carbon emissions and a smaller environmental footprint. The Sustainability Benefits of Remote Work Cloud-based communication tools have revolutionized the way we work, enabling us to connect with anyone, anywhere, at any time. This has had a profound impact on the environment, reducing the need for travel and the associated carbon emissions. Yet, these days this benefit is rarely mentioned in discussions about the future of work. For knowledge workers, virtual meetings and remote work arrangements mean fewer flights, train journeys, and car trips to attend conferences, meetings, and training sessions. Imagine a company with employees scattered across the country. Instead of flying everyone to a central location for a team meeting, they can simply hop onto a video call. This not only saves the company money on travel expenses but also significantly reduces the carbon footprint of the meeting. Contact center agents are another group that can benefit from the sustainability of remote work. Originally contact centers were centralized, requiring agents to commute to a physical office every day. With cloud-based communication solutions, agents can now work from anywhere with an internet connection (provided it is a reliable internet connection!). This eliminates the daily commute, reducing traffic congestion and carbon emissions. The environmental benefits of remote work extend beyond reduced travel. When more people work from home, companies can reduce their office space, leading to lower energy consumption and resource usage. Although this may be difficult for those in the real estate industry, those who have large office investments, or who have built businesses to serve daily commuters (e.g. restaurants in the downtown core). Conclusion It's time to remember and celebrate the sustainability benefits of remote work and cloud-based communications. While the focus has often been on the increased flexibility and work-life balance that remote work offers, the positive impact on the environment is equally important. By embracing remote work and cloud-based communication technologies, we can reduce our carbon footprint, conserve resources, and contribute to a healthier planet. It's a win-win situation for both employees and the environment. It really is a triple-win situation as a sustainability focus through cloud-based communications also can (and should) reduce overall costs for an organization which leads to another form of sustainability, financial sustainability. About CallTower CallTower is one organization that continues to focus on competitive, financial, and   environmental sustainability   offering industry-leading   Unified Communications as a Service   (UCaaS),   Contact Center as a Service   (CCaaS), and   Collaboration   solutions. They do this leveraging 15 geo-redundant data centers strategically located around the globe,   providing connectivity in 80+ countries . CallTower provided me with this opportunity to highlight that remote work, enabled by cloud-based communication technologies, can have environmental benefits by reducing commuting and business travel.

It was sad to say goodbye to the Gaylord gators yesterday afternoon (pictured above).   While it is exciting for EC26 to be in Vegas, I will miss my 15 years at the   Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center   (one or two of which were virtual due to Covid).   Coming back to the Gaylord was always like coming home. I knew all the restaurants and meeting spots; I had memorized the conference center layout and the most effective path through the waterfalls to get from point A to point B. I also had a tradition for the last day of EC. I would meet up with my aunt and uncle, who live in Florida, and have dinner at the Old Hickory Steakhouse in the Gaylord Palms ahead of catching a late evening flight back home. And so I found myself saying goodbye to the gators yesterday afternoon between when the Locknote session finished at noon (one of my favorite EC sessions!) and when the restaurant opened at 5:30 pm. Caffeine as a Catalyst for Thought Congregation While I will publish additional vendor- and topic-specific articles over the next week, I wanted to share an initial, high-level congregation of ideas related to EC25. Note: A group of alligators is called a congregation, hence the title of this article. Having arrived home at 1:30 am and waking at 6 am to walk my husky Kai and my daughter's golden retriever Promise, both of whom are often featured in my EC presentations, it seemed this morning was a perfect time, fueled by caffeine, to gather and share a few overall impressions and takeaways from the conference. In my session this year I discussed "playing fetch with a husky" Tell and Show Many of the vendor messages sound the same. Customer Experience (CX) vendors all talk about agent assist, virtual agents, and AI-powered call summaries. Employee Experience (EX) vendors all talked about meeting and call summaries, and agentic AI. However, the difference in delivery across the EC25 keynotes was at times stark. Authentic presentation styles and live (or semi-live) demos resonated more strongly with the audience, compared to heavily scripted and "stoyboarded" demos. First person, "this is how I use AI", or simply "this is how it works", demonstrations were easier to understand compared to more complex scenarios where fictional characters were described in fictional situations (two keynotes created scenarios where their characters were operating in theme parks). Articulating core principles, for example "responsible AI", and then showing how your organization translated the abstract into specific product features is more powerful than simply stating a principle that all your competitors also purport to adhere to. The proof is in the pudding and the devil is in the details. Tell but than show how. Execution can Differentiate While showing features that are currently available, in addition to talking about them, works for the here and now, as we look ahead, demonstrating the ability to execute on defined roadmaps will set vendors apart. Scaling simple agents created in demos to production ready agents is not as easy as many believe or portray. As the number of agents grows, the ability to coordinate (or orchestrate) the behavior of agents becomes critical. If I ask a question, or define a goal, how will systems effectively and efficiently decide which agents to invoke? (Today some solutions make users explicitly reference a single agent at a time.) When there are multiple agents that do the same thing, for example two HR benefits agents created by different people, what methods are used to determine the more effective agent to invoke? When different participating agents return contradictory information, what process arbitrates between the possible solutions? With respect to data, which as the modern cliché goes is the "fuel for AI", how will organizations effectively manage their reams of corporate documents to ensure out-of-date or incorrect information is not fed into AI systems? And what if a disgruntled employee decides to create erroneous information in order to "poison the well"? How quickly will this information be detected and deleted from customer-built LLMs or customer-indexed vector databases?   Given the probabilistic nature of AI models, what tools will be used to monitor and ensure agents continue to deliver accurate information, especially as these virtual, and potentially agentic, agents are unleashed externally to serve customers? All of these problems are solvable but none are easily solvable. Vendors who invest in R&D, establish testing, build effective partnerships, and have the leadership to develop, prioritize, communicate, and deliver on a publicly shared roadmap will increasingly win both mind and market share. It will not be dreaming up a new "whiz bang feature"; but rather, the ability to execute that will become the key differentiator. Hybrid Solutions for the Win? Vendors can deliver CX and EX features but ultimately they need to provide value that exceeds implementation costs (which of course is the idea behind ROI, return on investment). While full cloud solutions provide great agility, scability, and ease of deployment, it may be hybrid solutions with some components deployed on customer-owned equipment connected to some services in the cloud that provide the best blend of cost-predictability and data security. Panel Sessions are Popular but can be Painful It takes a good amount of time and effort to prepare 45 minutes of well-researched content. I know this directly because   Brent Kelly   and I spent the last 3+ months working on and refining the content for our session on AI Assistants. And of course, because things change so quickly, we spent the days right before EC25, updating our slides to keep the slides accurate. We discuss Zoom, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, and Salesforce AI  I spent a similar amount of time preparing my session that detailed the strengths and weaknesses, and best practices needed to leverage Microsoft Teams and M365 Copilot Decoding licensing, optimization, and Copilot In contrast, you can theoretically identify some target panelists, assemble a few questions, and meet for the first time 15 minutes ahead of a panel session. Then, depending on your panelists, the session will either go well OR one or more panelist may spend 10 minutes giving their bio or answers will involve large quantities of repetition without specifics or depth. Even when you spend time with panel prep calls, it takes special skill, and a little luck, to moderate an effective panel. As such, panel sessions, while great in theory, can be painful for both the moderator and the audience. Often the greater number of panelists the higher the risk of going off the rails. Still, I was surprised when a handful of people, unprompted, thanked me for NOT delivering a panel session after my Wednesday morning Teams+Copilot session. Sidebar  -- on Thursday morning I attended a session moderated by   Irwin Lazar   of   Metrigy   which was a fantastic panel session. Irwin did a great job moderating and the panelists were knowledgeable, succinct, and very informative: Tabice Ward, Muhammad Muneer, Garth Landers, Shawn Rolin. Irwin Lazar did a great job facilitating this session A fantastic group of panelists discussed AI security and compliance At the end of this session, I overheard several audience members comment that this was the best panel session of the week that they had attended. The Congregation of People For me, EC has always been about the people. It was a true pleasure to collaborate again with   Brent Kelly . I learn something each time I have the opportunity to work with Brent. Even though it is hard work to synthesize as much information as we do into a 45-minute session, working with Brent is something I look forward to every year. Being able to connect in person with other   BCStrategies.com   Experts is fantastic:   Blair Pleasant ,   Jon Arnold ,   David Maldow ,   Thomas Brannen ,   Elizabeth English ,   Melissa Swartz ,   David Danto ,   Dave Michels ,   Steve Leaden ,   Jim Burton ,   Nicolas de Kouchkovsky ,   Martha Buyer ,   Robert Harris . Thank you to the vendor teams from Microsoft, Zoom, Cisco, Genesys, Concentrix, Five9, and more for your hospitality and conversations at various breakfast, lunches, and dinners. And of course the spontaneous conversations are unexpected treasures.   Special thanks to   Eric Krapf   and team for bringing us all together. I am confident that while in 2026 we may be congregating in a new place, the   Enterprise Connect   crew will once again create an environment to learn, connect, and deepen our industry connections. See you in Vegas!

The good (Lenovo), the bad (Samsung), and the weird (LG) from my week in Berlin. Recently, I had the pleasure of attending two back-to-back events in the beautiful city of Berlin.  The first was a product launch event hosted by  Lenovo , and the second was IFA, a massive international consumer electronics trade show.  If you aren’t familiar with IFA (I wasn’t), it is similar to CES held annually in the US but with a more European-centered focus. The good was found at the Lenovo event, while the bad and the weird were displayed at IFA. Let’s start with the good.  Lenovo launched several new laptops, all leveraging AI, but all very different and supporting different users and use cases.  Lenovo is now sourcing three different chip manufacturers:  Intel Corporation  ,  AMD  , and  Qualcomm .  While this does introduce some complexity for them as well as buyers, it allows for the ultimate in choice.  Buyers can select the price/performance of AMD, the unbelievable battery life of Qualcomm, or the advanced features of Intel. Click on the video below for my full recap from Lenovo Innovation World 👇 Speaking of Intel, Lenovo also announced a special edition for laptops co-developed with Intel called Aura.  This multi-year collaboration resulted in AI-powered smart features unique to Lenovo devices and only those with Intel processors.  This project started with surveying users about the things they needed most, and the result is a set of “Smart Modes” designed around the user experience. Smart Shield is a mode that is focused on security and privacy.  If a user tries to conduct work on a public WiFi network, the system will automatically launch a VPN.  Another exciting feature is it can blur the screen if someone comes up behind you and starts looking over your shoulder at your screen. Smart Wellness is a mode that is designed around the wellness of the user.  It can suggest a time for breaks based on screen usage and can even detect poor posture.  While this would normally raise flags over privacy concerns, AI processing is done on the device, meaning data isn’t being sent to the cloud for processing. One of the most popular features is called Smart Share, where you tap your iOS or Android device on the side of your Aura laptop, and it automatically brings up your most recent photos on the laptop screen, with easy drag-and-drop functionality between the devices.  It doesn’t take a ton of market research to know users always want longer battery life, and that is where Qualcomm comes in.  The Qualcomm-powered laptops contain the Snapgradon X Plus processor, allowing for a more mobile-like experience, including more than 30 hours of battery life.  While we are still in the early days of ARM-type processors on laptops, the success Apple has had with Apple Silicon has elevated the need for similar - if not better - battery performance on Windows devices. The Lenovo Twist was the event's surprise.  This proof-of-concept laptop has a single-motorized hinge that can open, close, and rotate the screen with simple voice commands.  While the novelty wears off after a while, they did demonstrate an interesting use case.  Using AI face tracking, the screen and built-in camera can follow a presenter, tracking them as they move about the room.  While time will tell if this is a feature people really want, I applaud them for looking at new ways to innovate in a form factor that has not changed very much in decades.   See the Twist in action in the video 👇 Speaking of features people want, I’ve never heard anyone say, “If only I could answer phone calls on my washing machine.”  Now, there might be a market for an Instagram app on the washer with a certain demographic, #laundryday #cleanclothesareawesome.  But phone calls?  I’m not always against technology for technology’s sake, but this one baffled me.  While I like the idea of integrating personal devices with home devices, I don’t get this one, and it strikes me as unnecessary at best and dumb at worst. Let’s shift gears from dumb to weird.  At the large LG pavilion, we got a glimpse of the future.  And the future is apparently weird.  I guess the concept of the smart home wasn’t working, so the LG marketing folks worked overtime to come up with “The Delightful Home” and “The Affectionate Home.”  I want my home to be delightful, but I’m not sure if I want it to be affectionate.  And while later, I did see a booth that might fall under this category, I’m too embarrassed to go into the details. There was also messaging around the “Second Youth Home,” which, according to the grey hair on the avatar-like characters in their videos, serves the needs of senior citizens.  It’s not like me to feel like a grumpy old man at a technology conference, but maybe that means I’m getting closer to my “second youth.” Then, there was the overall concept of intelligent connecting: connecting with our home, food, wine, and home appliances, all powered by AI.  I love technology and am a sucker for a good marketing message, but it seems like these companies are reaching.  I don’t want to connect with my food intelligently; I want to eat it. IFA wasn’t all bad, though.  Display technology continues to improve and amaze, including transparent screens, laser projectors, and rollable screens that disappear into a small projector box.  And the Honor 3 foldable phone is still my favorite mobile device on the market, though sadly not available in the US.  It fits a gorgeous foldable screen in a form factor about the size of an iPhone Pro Max.  8k video screens are nice but remind me that we have very little 4k content today, and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Events like the IFA should leave us optimistic about the future of technology, though I left this one with a mix of confusion and disappointment.

The right work model is one where there is a balance between business needs and employee needs; there needs to be shared value for all stakeholders-- so engage in open and transparent dialogue with employees to find a balance that works for everyone. Over the past five years, management concerns around remote and hybrid work have changed. Understanding how and why this change has occurred may help managers better define the optimal work model for their organizations. In turn, this work model will drive key requirements for your communications and collaboration solutions. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, essential workers continued with modified work conditions, focused on safety, while non-essential workers shifted to remote work. As the pandemic and remote work continued, organizations began expressing concerns about the impact of remote work on productivity and business continuity. Prevailing thought was that in-person work led to more efficient and effective work processes. Interestingly, research was indicating that working from home could be boosting productivity, as employees had more time and energy once they were no longer commuting daily. Understanding the productivity impacts of remote work was difficult as there is rarely a baseline, or regular measurement, of productivity for most knowledge workers. A single universal metric does not exist to measure knowledge worker productivity. As the pandemic and remote work continued, the narrative of concerns with remote work expanded to include innovation, collaboration, and company culture. Companies argued that in-person interactions fostered a stronger sense of community, leading to crucial elements needs for innovation such as creativity, spontaneous idea-sharing, and stronger team dynamics. Akin to the challenges of measuring productivity, quantitatively determining levels of creativity, collaboration, company culture, and innovation is equally difficult. Simultaneously, employees continued to prioritize work-life balance and saw remote work as a primary means for maintaining that. More recently, concerns about continued remote work and reasons cited for mandated in-person work have become multi-faceted and nuanced. Reasons cited include: Employee well-being: a balance between remote and in-office work may help reduce burnout and improve overall job satisfaction. Improved mentorship opportunities for younger workers. Economic revitalization: in-office workers can help revitalize city centers and support local economies. Economic concerns: recent layoffs and the spectre of a potential recession have prompted some organizations to suggest that more in-person work may ensure business continuity and help the organization regain control during uncertain times. Hybrid work challenges: some organizations claim a fully remote or hybrid work model has made it challenging to manage and maintain productivity, prompting a re-evaluation of their work policies. This most recent list of concerns is significant because we are finally seeing the emergence of an approach that includes employee-focused interests into the dialogue. Initially, reasons cited for in-office work were solely focused on what was good for the organization. Now, reasons given serve the organization, possibly the employee, and potentially the broader community. Determining the Right Reasons for Your Organization With the inclusion of employee well-being and employee feedback as reasons for return to office announcements, organizations are stepping closer to getting it right. The right work model is one where there is a balance between business needs and employee needs; there needs to be shared value for all stakeholders. The most straightforward path to success begins with an open and transparent dialogue with employees to find a balance that works for everyone. Each organization has unique needs and contexts. A balanced and flexible approach that considers employee preferences and business needs tends to yield the best results. Most employees continue to prefer hybrid; the positive impact on the quality of life/work blend cannot be understated. Organizations who wish to attract and retain top talent will be unable to compete without providing what employees want – flexibility and adaptability. An organization that demonstrates that it is listening and responding accordingly to articulated employee needs leads to higher employee engagement which can lower attrition. In contrast, some recent announcements on return to office have come across as tone deaf, giving employees the sense that management is not at all aware of what their mandate means, such as changing personal circumstances that can’t necessarily be done quickly: childcare, eldercare, etc. This disconnect could have negative effects among the workforce. When gathering input from your employees, keep in mind that there will be differences across different employee groups: Several surveys -- such as this one and this one -- highlight demographic differences with younger workers (18-34) often preferring in-office work for ability to socialize. Workers who face long commutes may prefer remote work to save time and reduce stress. Sales professionals may prefer a hybrid model, balancing remote work for administrative tasks and in-person meetings for client interactions. Experienced employees who are already familiar with their roles and the company may prefer the flexibility of remote work. Employees with caregiving responsibilities may prefer remote work to better manage their personal and professional lives. UC&C Tool Selection and Deployment Cloud-based UCaaS solutions, aggressively adopted during the initial days of the pandemic, provide location flexibility. Anywhere you have an internet connection you can work effectively, at least technically. This flexibility is key as you sort out your work model, and as that model evolves. It has become fashionable for technology vendors to talk about being people-centric, or human-centric (especially in this year that is hyper-focused on AI). Employee engagement is the domain of human resource professionals, and not IT professionals. The challenge for IT professionals is that being employee-centric relies on equal parts of technology skills and people skills. Technically enabling a solution, does not mean the solution will be adopted, understood, or used productively. With many strong UCaaS offerings, it is less about choosing the right solution, and more about making your choice be the right solution. (Zoom, Cisco, Microsoft, RingCentral, and 8x8 are all in the “leaders quadrant”, scoring high in both completeness of vision and ability to execute.) Any of the leading UCaaS solutions (+Google Workspace) are viable options for most small, medium, and large companies. However, enabling employees to be effective using the tools, wherever they work, requires more than technical implementation. Change management and communication is key to helping employees understand the “what” behind new technology. What value does this bring for the organization? What value does it bring to me? Effective training is critically important to unlocking the power of increasingly sophisticated communication and collaboration tools, especially with the rise of “AI assistants.” Do not assume that any of these tools is simple enough that no training is required. With every vendor releasing hundreds of new features each year, training needs to be on-going. Also, for training to be useful, you must create time in employees’ schedules so they can partake of the training. On demand training is often ignored in the world of back-to-back-to-back meetings. Lunch and learn sessions continue to work well and might serve as a valid reason to journey to an office. Proactive monitoring, especially for meeting rooms and other in-office equipment, helps ensure that those who make the commute are not disappointed. A support mechanism that is easy to access and responsive is critical for when things go wrong. Some studies have shown that only 16% of users open a ticket when they encounter an issue. This means 84% of users are suffering in silence, and likely not being as effective as they could be. Do This: Ask People What They Want As organizations mandate or try to “magnet” employees back to the office, different departments have different approaches to luring workers back: facility leaders focus on amenities like “cool” office design and espresso bars, AV professionals focus on multi-camera meeting rooms, ceiling microphones, and video resolution, while IT professionals focus on UC&C platform selection, although these days perhaps being distracted by “all things” AI. HR professionals are more likely to ask employees what they want (Seinfeld reference). Through an effective combination of employee engagement surveys, recruiting data, and exit interviews, HR professionals can help your organization clearly understand what employees want, and what is a deal breaker. IT plus HR is a powerful combination. Deciding the right reasons to encourage or mandate employees to return to your office is complicated. Involving business leaders, technology leaders, and people leaders significantly increases your chances of creating the best blueprint for how work gets done at your company. A solid plan, based on employee feedback, is much more likely to drive wide-scale adoption and positive employee engagement. Adoption and engagement are critical to return on technology investment.