Join any conversation about workplace collaboration, and chances are, the focus will be on technology – meeting room displays, video conferencing platforms, digital whiteboards. And while the right tools matter, they’re only part of the equation.
In this post I share four of the broader trends redefining collaboration in today’s workplace. These trends aren’t just influencing what AV solutions companies invest in – they’re shaping how employees engage, share ideas, and get things done. Because at the end of the day, great collaboration isn’t about the technology you buy. It’s about the experience you create.
During the past year, we’ve witnessed many organizations move from suggestions to mandates when it comes to their return-to-office policies. At the same time, most workers still place a high value on the ability to work remotely. To decrease this friction, workplace leaders are adjusting their strategies to ensure they’re offering environments that employees want and choose to return to. In short, organizations are striving to “earn the commute” back to the workplace.
Research from market leaders like Gensler and HOK shows that, for most workers, this doesn’t mean “fun” amenities like ping-pong tables and Free Taco Tuesday. Instead, employees want a variety of immersive spaces and furniture that supports both solo and collaborative work.
In terms of technology, flexibility is crucial. Employees want to move around within the office and have a consistent and seamless experience wherever they go – from desk to conference room, from collaboration zone to focus pod or from lounge to innovation lab. (All of which should be equipped with space reservation capabilities, by the way!)
Every workforce has different needs when it comes to collaboration tools. That’s why your organization must plan to create standardized solutions that take are mindful of the user experience. Ultimately, the goal is for the technology to fade into the background as it supports employees in their work.
Of course, if we’re offering a trends article, it must mention artificial intelligence (AI). In the Pro AV industry, we’re seeing a multitude of AI-driven features within the collaboration tools we’re delivering to our customers (with more being introduced on the regular).
In general, we find it helpful to view current AI collaboration technologies under two primary umbrellas:
It’s important to note that the line between these two categories is fluid and constantly shifting, with certain AI user experiences today limited to specific camera and microphone models and specific configurations with proprietary software.
Recent releases from unified collaboration (UC) developers like Microsoft Cloud IntelliFrame and Zoom Intelligent Director are striving to simplify these complex dependencies by moving more of the actual AI computing that drives the experience from the hardware devices to the cloud. Regardless of this current complexity, it's clear that AI is only going to become more and more prevalent in our collaboration workflows as we look to the future.
Another trend we’re seeing addresses something that’s long been a struggle for workplace managers: obtaining actionable data on the utilization and performance of their spaces.
For many, the only way to even approximate these metrics was to manually compare datasets from different badging, occupancy, networking, and conferencing platforms. Not only is this approach labor-intensive, but it also doesn’t provide a holistic real-time view of how employees use spaces and the technology within.
Thankfully, both UC platform developers and hardware manufacturers have listened to the market demand. They have greatly expanded the reporting that we can get out of our systems and the ease with which we can get it. This is extremely valuable information for transformation and space planning personas, but it’s also crucial to technology managers who want to know:
We also see more companies (especially global enterprises) implementing workplace satisfaction scores or similar metrics where they regularly poll their own users. Closing this critical feedback loop allows IT and workplace managers to hear directly from the end-users of the systems so they can have confidence in the solutions they are deploying throughout the workplace.
The final trend relates to how collaboration tools are managed across a company’s estate – especially for global customers with hundreds or thousands of collaboration spaces. In these cases, a program-level approach is non-negotiable.
For years, we’ve used an ITIL-based methodology to support our enterprise customers. This approach emphasizes continual innovation, standardized solution catalogs, and scalable deployment workflows. We also provide a clearly defined support strategy, backed by a dedicated program team. To ensure transparency, we offer cloud-hosted dashboards that give customers real-time visibility into program status.
Now that many smaller organizations have rapidly increased the size of their video estates, we're seeing increased demand from all customers for a similar approach, just on a smaller scale.
For customers who are beginning this journey, establishing a process for innovation and continual improvement is a crucial first step, which generally consists of the following:
The end goal is to develop standard solutions that deliver what users actually need and then give employees a chance to use the technology, hear their reactions, and make sure the solution is right before you roll it out companywide. This also gives your team a chance to ensure the tools play well with your network, meet all of your security policies, and don’t pose any other unforeseen risks.
When I started in the Pro AV industry in 2005, customer conversations usually revolved around AV hardware (e.g., technical specs, number of inputs/outputs needed). Nearly every project was a one-off custom design. And if customers had standards, they were focused on a specific product or manufacturer.
Today, with many features and core functionality delivered via software, customers are less focused on specific products. Instead, they’re focused on the overall user experience and bigger-picture workplace problems they want to solve, such as:
As your strategic business advisor and global systems integrator, we strive to meet our customers where they are. Whether you struggle with lack of innovation, deploying systems at scale, supporting your estate, all of the above, or something else entirely, we have the tools to help. By first uncovering what “good” looks like for your organization, we can then advise and develop a strategy to help you get there.
We're ready to start the conversation with you!