With one in three organisations wanting their workforce in the office five days a week, attempts to entice employees back to the office could be completely undermined if they are slowed down by poor connectivity. Additional ‘return to work’ enticements such as free food and drinks, free parking, and wellness classes are not as important as being able to work flexibly or having the right tools to be productive.

New technologies are helping to improve the situation, with platforms like Webex introducing cutting-edge AI to enhance poor-quality video. This means high-definition video is now possible even when the network isn’t up to scratch. However, this doesn’t mean organisations can stop worrying about their network altogether, the demands continue to increase as they begin to use more devices in a wider variety of locations.

To succeed in a hybrid world, organisations are going to need to reconsider their office connectivity to achieve effective hybrid working. The good news is that 60% of organisations intend to prioritise improving internal workplace wi-fi in the next two years.

This increase in video calling needs a lot more bandwidth than many offices were originally set up to support, leading to 74% of IT executives looking at how they can update networks to deal with the increased demands of video conferencing and HD video.

To satisfy these growing expectations, organisations will need greater visibility and control over their traffic to monitor and optimise experience. Solutions like Meraki now provide real-time dashboards, so organisations can stay in control of their network at all times. They’ll also want the flexibility and scalability to increase capacity or prioritise certain applications as they adopt new functions or expand their collaboration portfolios.

Crucially,  our research found that high-quality collaboration is now seen as a success driver – 76% of respondents drew strong correlations between IT investment, effective collaboration, and their organisation’s achievements.

Audit and assess

A key step towards building your future workplace strategy is assessing your network technology’s ability to support the needs of your entire workforce – whether they’re in the office, on the move, or at home. This will highlight where new investments will make the most difference to your network capabilities.

Think about the bigger picture

Deploying new wireless coverage is complicated and it’s important not to take a siloed approach. Think about it from a three-dimensional point of view, and the impact it might have on floors above and below. This can be a particular challenge for organisations in shared office buildings, where new systems may cause interference with coverage of companies on other floors.

Get started today

We’re experts at providing reliable network infrastructure, having delivered services to customers in over 180 countries for many years. From design through to user adoption, we can help you build the network and infrastructure that will bring your digital workplace strategy to life. Then, we’ll work with you to audit your collaboration and network technology to identify the best approach to support your employees’ evolving needs.

Find out more about our range of digital workplace solutions.