percent responded that staff and consulting employment should return to pre-Covid-19 levels by fourth quarter 2021.
CxO Survey Question: Has employee productivity been impacted during the pandemic in 2020 and into 2021?
40 percent responded that employee productivity has been impacted by an increase of 11–20 percent.
20 percent responded that employee productivity has been impacted by an increase of 21–30 percent.
40 percent responded no change or no comment due to confidentiality.
CxO Survey Question: Will your staffing and sourcing strategy change as your organization comes out of the pandemic and returns to a more normal operating environment (assume 2022)?
60 percent responded that their sourcing strategy would change (yes).
20 percent responded that their sourcing strategy would not change (no).
20 percent did not respond due to confidentiality reasons.
80 percent responded that more than half of staff would work two to three days per week remotely.
40 percent responded that 75–80 percent of IT staff would work remotely two to three days per week compared to 50 percent for non-IT staff.
20 percent of respondents indicated that staff would work 5–20 percent of the work week in the office with the remaining time spent working remotely.
Yes. We will still look for folks (staff and consultants) in our area, but we are not limited on geography unless necessary for a client. This is a change from pre-Covid-19 in terms of willingness to consider the remote worker earlier in the process and as a viable alternative to being in a physical office.
—SHAUN POULTON, Chief Operating Officer, Edgewater Federal Solutions
Online Meeting and Collaboration Tools in Organizations
During the pandemic, organizations flocked to online meeting tools in larger quantities to accommodate a larger percentage of staff working remotely outside of corporate offices. The prominent online meeting tools include Cisco WebEx, LogMeIn GotoMeeting, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Skype for Business/Teams, and BlueJeans. A recent report from MarketsAndMarkets indicated that the “global video conferencing industry is expected to gain traction” as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic “to connect with remote workers, customers, and employees at the same time.”73 Bans on travel domestically and internationally combined with increasing numbers of knowledge worker employees working from home helped drive increased adoption. Zoom was a major winner throughout the pandemic and is anticipated to retain a top leadership spot post pandemic due to its scale and feature set. Organizations looking for robust online meeting and webinar solutions with features like breakout rooms flocked to Zoom in 2020. Companies could leverage Zoom for free if they kept meeting durations to 40 minutes or less. Otherwise, organizations would have to opt for the fee-based solution. Note that most, if not all, the online meeting/videoconference solutions on the market only charge for licenses that set up and run meetings. Participants can join for free from either a full client installed version or a browser plug-in. This model allowed organizations to carefully select the appropriate team members that would set up (from an administrative perspective) meetings for various departments, thus optimizing license purchases.
Microsoft Teams, the follow up to Microsoft's Skype for Business solution saw robust growth during the 2020–2021 pandemic as it rapidly scaled the number of concurrent video sessions and added more advanced features like breakout rooms. The organization where I serve as the CIO moved from GotoMeeting to Zoom for scale and feature reasons early on in 2020. We also upgraded our Skype for Business platform to Teams and adopted breakout rooms when Microsoft added that feature in the middle of our remote work environment.
According to IBM, the future of knowledge work will be a combination of virtual and in-person settings.74 The study by IBM goes on to indicate that 81 percent of respondents indicated “they want to continue working remotely at least some of the time” post Covid-19.75 Cisco recently reported an upgrade to its WebEx video conferencing solution that includes integration with online storage giant Box and a telehealth video connector to Epic, the healthcare electronic medical records (EMR) provider.76
According to a recent study of small business, 92 percent converted to virtual meetings via tools like Zoom and WebEx, with 34 percent of respondents finding the tools extremely valuable, followed by 43 percent moderately valuable.77 The report goes on to indicate the following statistics:
39 percent of small businesses adopted video conferencing for permanent use, whereas 23 percent adopted it for temporary use.
47 percent reported the software increased productivity.
45 percent reported improved engagement with customers.
45 percent reported increased sales.
42 percent reported reduced costs.78
What's also fascinating about the small business study is that 45 percent of organizations indicated that they would increase their IT spending in 2021 from 2020 by somewhat or much more.79
Although it's safe to say that a large percentage of organizations adopted or expanded their online meeting/teleconferencing solutions throughout the pandemic, not all had a positive experience with the tools. Following are some of the reported advantages and disadvantages of online meetings:
Advantages of Online Meetings
They can significantly reduce the cost of travel as an alternative.
There's a positive environmental of using online meetings versus travel (ground, rail, air).
It beats trying to find an open physical conference room.
Recordings are easy and can be posted and leveraged for future need on company intranets.
They are useful tools when screening job applicants.
Knowledge workers working from home can avoid traffic and commuting times.
Disadvantages of Online Meetings
They require extra software (including updates) on computers and mobile devices.
Time differences for online meetings between participants can be sometimes tricky to navigate.
There
