About six months ago, Canadians started working from home. We couldn’t leave our houses; our kids were running in and out of our meetings; there was nothing normal about our shared predicament.
Many of us have since settled into our virtual grooves. And looking ahead, it’s fair to assume that we’ll only feel more comfortable with remote work six months from now, and six months after that.
Virtual work is both our present and our future. With people now available to work from anywhere, at any time, businesses around the world suddenly have access to a global talent pool. And we as a country must act quickly to take advantage of these emerging opportunities.
This is the time to ensure our people stay ahead of the curve by investing in the advanced technologies and training necessary to keep Canada’s workforce competitive globally.
Customer needs are shifting wildly in this mercurial environment, putting added pressure on our nation’s businesses to transform at a much faster pace than they have in the past. There’s a greater urgency for Canadian companies to evolve away from legacy platforms and systems and adopt modern hybrid cloud infrastructures that make it easier to scale their operations.
During the pandemic, we witnessed the negative side effects of running old technology as some of the country’s largest, most well-known brands struggled to move their operations online, or to allow their people to seamlessly work remotely.
Building a dynamic organization starts with technology. Only from there can Canada’s businesses scale to other markets and start to create the kind of workplace capable of attracting and retaining the best and brightest talent from across the globe.
In a pre-pandemic world, tech start-ups could woo young employees with the promise of free lunch and an on-site masseuse. Today, the focus of leading businesses has shifted to developing stimulating virtual work environments where smart people can connect with each other to solve problems.
As humans, we still want to interact with each other and feel like a part of a team. And this requires much more than just video-conferencing technology. (After all, how quickly did we all tire of those weekly video calls with friends?)
To build the type of workplace where talented individuals can work, learn and grow together, companies need to adopt an agile approach to business that spurs frequent interaction, better conversation and bond-forming collaboration between team members. Your people are important. And it will be more incumbent on businesses to invest in employees so they have the certifications and skill sets required to advance their careers in what will be an uber-competitive global work environment.
Technology underpins all this, but it’s not about the specific tools. The Canadian organizations that will thrive both domestically and globally in this new work-from-home reality will be the ones who seize the opportunity by adopting agile platforms and processes that empower their people and meet their customer needs, wherever they may be.
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