The landscape of work has changed forever. Hybrid working models — in which businesses combine remote work with regular visits to the office — have proven to be effective. Plus, the hybrid workplace offers many benefits for employees.
Driving this revolution in work are software platforms like Microsoft Teams. These collaboration tools boast features like live chat and video conferencing to bring teams together wherever they are. In some industries, digital transformation has been accelerated by decades.
This article will look at how tools like Microsoft Teams are helping businesses thrive and grow in a hybrid workplace.
Advantages of the Hybrid Work Model
The hybrid work model isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Some companies will lean towards a more fully remote model, and others might benefit from a more office-based style with only a small amount of remote work. Whatever type of hybrid model you choose, however, there are several benefits for both employees and businesses.
For employees, hybrid models are a good way to satisfy a range of work styles. Research from Microsoft indicates that over 70% of workers want flexible remote work options to continue, while over 65% are craving more in-person time with their teams. There’s demand on both sides — and the only solution that works for everyone is a hybrid model. According to another survey, workers prefer a hybrid model 83% of the time.
For companies, hybrid models can allow for significant savings on office space and facilities by cutting down on the amount of real estate required. If many of your employees are able to work from home, there’s no longer any need to pay high rental and maintenance fees for large downtown offices.
Hybrid models also help businesses acquire and retain talent. As mentioned, many of today’s workers crave the hybrid lifestyle, and businesses that can offer this will find it easier to attract valuable staff. Hybrid models can also help businesses expand their geographic recruiting range. The potential for remote work means you can hire talented staff and benefit from their skills even when they can’t reach the office every day.
How Microsoft Teams is driving hybrid workforces
Microsoft Teams is built to connect people much more easily, regardless of their location. It removes the need for teams to be in the same room or even the same country to collaborate effectively.
Users can access a wide range of features to make virtual meetings more inclusive and interactive, like live captions, a whiteboard, and the ability to raise your hand. With Teams, meetings start smoothly and easily to minimize friction. You can choose from several different room sizes to accommodate the needs of your meeting.
All devices, software, and Cloud are secured by design. Teams is also an Al-driven managed service with predictive management and threat analytics.
Teams checks all the boxes for businesses looking for the perfect tool to make the transition to a hybrid model. But, in order for Teams to be effective, it needs to be supported by the right eCDN.
Why an eCDN is critical for organizations using Teams
Video can take a massive toll on your network, and as hybrid workforces become the norm, the issue will be increasingly problematic.
While tools like Microsoft Teams allow businesses to have constant video meetings, it can quickly overwhelm networks and cause delays and disruptions in other areas. This is why integrating an eCDN (enterprise content delivery network) is crucial to avoid:
- Poor Viewer Experience:
Jitter or laggy video and audio, with viewers unable to access the feed. For example, in the case of large company meetings, viewers may experience unstable streaming due heavy network congestion. - Frustrated Executives:
With a lot of time and expense invested into large-scale streaming events, executives expect a flawless event. Technical glitches can be frustrating, especially if they are preventable. - Impact on Mission Critical Applications:
The network is the backbone of nearly every business application. Streaming video can rapidly overload the network, causing issues with other applications such as project management, financial, or customer information systems.
Without a good eCDN solution, you’ll fail to access the benefits of Teams and find it very difficult to run a successful hybrid working model. As this type of collaboration becomes the norm, businesses that don’t embrace eCDN technology risk falling quickly behind their competitors.
How the Teams-Ramp partnership works
Ramp has integrated with Teams to allow users to access all the benefits of video collaboration and hybrid work without running into many of the problems associated with such an uptick in video usage.
This integration provides many benefits, such as:
- Create live events with Teams, at scale. With Ramp eCDN, you can achieve up to 99% bandwidth savings, which allows every employee on the team to experience high-quality video delivered securely to any location on the corporate network. This helps you create large-scale events without compromising on quality or speed.
- It’s universal. Ramp is the only Microsoft Teams eCDN partner that can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid cloud in a single solution. Ramp flexibly fits your security and network requirements, not the other way around.
- Security. We ensure enterprise-grade security with end-to-end encryption across the network. This provides peace of mind in a time when cybersecurity incidents are growing in frequency and sophistication.
- Real-time video analytics. Ramp’s analytics features allow you to understand your audience and network performance much more clearly at a glance. Analytics allow you to constantly tweak and optimize your video experience for everyone.
Looking to the future, a hybrid work model seems unavoidable. Businesses are under pressure to give their teams more flexibility. While employees have clearly expressed that they will simply leave companies that fail to modernize in this way.
Embracing this hybrid future is entirely possible with platforms like Microsoft Teams, bolstered by eCDN technology like Ramp. To learn more about how we can help you implement these benefits and move towards the new future of work, book a demo.
