March 09, (THEWILL) – Country Manager for Microsoft Nigeria, Ola Williams, has advised that, to succeed in the global digital economy and prevent further job losses in an increasingly digitized society, Nigeria’s businesses must digitally transform to support remote work alongside in-office work within the modern hybrid environment.
Ola is of the view that, local companies unable to offer this balance will lose valuable staff who now have the opportunity to work from home for businesses based outside of Nigeria.
According to her, Microsoft has collated its experiences into a best-practice guide to hybrid meeting success, which will help business owners across Africa unlock future-proofed ways of working.
According to Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index (WTI), the remote-work world that we embraced at the height of the pandemic has evolved with blended, hybrid environments now taking centre stage, adding that this will define the post-pandemic business landscape,
As the WTI highlighted, Ola pointed out that, enabling successful hybrid working will mean reimagining office space and investing in supporting technology; the latter helping to shape the former.
“This hybrid phenomenon is what Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, refers to as the “messy middle”. It references the fact that while many companies have mastered the art of having everyone working in the office pre-pandemic and having everyone working from home during the pandemic, a combination of the two has given rise to new issues,” she said.
Ola however, in a statement issued recently, informed that Microsoft has innovated on the technology front with new Teams Rooms features to better manage the messy middle. Each of these technologies, she said are designed to ensure equitable meeting experiences for all staff, no matter where they’re joining from.
She said “for Microsoft, Herskowitz shares that following the “ABC” practice on Teams-based meetings has been key. The ‘A’ is for Audio, because having the right tech to give everyone an equal opportunity to be heard clearly is a cornerstone of inclusive collaboration. The ‘B’ is for Bring Your Own Device (turning on your camera but muting your mic). This allows in-person staff to participate with online team members through chats and live reactions in Teams meetings, while remaining more visible to remote colleagues, to keep everyone engaged. The ‘C’ is about Collaboration; specifically, about assigning a facilitator to streamline interactions between virtual and in-office meeting attendees.”
While it is messy, Ola observed that meeting middle ground between remote-based and in-person staff can be managed, with technology as the linchpin.
In the statement she equally explained how it has worked for Microsoft, saying that “Just like the rest of the business world, we’re learning as we roll out these hybrid-enabling changes. On what we’ve learnt, Nicole Herskowitz, Microsoft Teams General Manager, highlights that hybrid meetings have been a game-changer for shaping a successful work environment. The caveat? They need to be done we’ll.”
Listing out the advantages of getting hybrid work right, the Country Manager said that happy, productive employees are a key predictor of business success, which is why employers should be taking the prevailing workers’ desire to integrate remote work seriously.
She also hinted that remote work has opened new career opportunities for employees – not to mention that employers, too, benefit from a wider, geographically varied talent pool for hires.
“Navigating this messy middle in a way that ensures streamlined, real-time collaboration and inclusive employee engagement is the challenge. It will require employers to reimagine physical workspaces where meetings take place, and re-examine the digital tools required for remote and in-person staff to remain productive, together. As the WTI notes, the objective for employers embracing the necessary work-flexibility approach is to “give everyone the tools they need to equally contribute from anywhere,” she said.
Meanwhile, 2020 figures from Statista, indicated that 74 percent of Nigerians were willing to work remotely full-time. The high number points to the country’s unemployment rate at the time, which the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics reported as 27 percent, adding that 20 percent of the country’s workers lost their jobs at the height of pandemic lockdowns.
About the Author
Anthony Awunor, is a business correspondent who holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics (UNILAG). He is also an alumnus of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria Kaduna State. He lives in Lagos.
