From remote work to hybrid work: the technology you will need to connect home and office

Welcome to the exciting new world of hybrid work.

“Somewhere in the vicinity of 60% of the workforce choose the hybrid option,” said Gartner analyst Suzanne Adnams, “which means their ideal is to work from home and come to the office three days a week.”

If I had a dollar every time I heard “two or three days at the office” while reporting this column, a social steak dinner would be on me.

What is not as clear? Where will you go once you get to the office. That depends on your employer. Here are three possible options:

• equally old office: Business as usual. You still get your own desk, but maybe now, your colleague’s chair and chair are further away.

• Hot office: The horribly named trend in which employees do not have a permanently assigned office. Also called hoteling, flexing or office swapping, this is becoming the most important hybrid option for a key reason: it doesn’t make sense to have one office per person if people only come a few times a week.

• No office: The office is not for solo work, but for collaboration. So instead of offices there are mostly group meeting areas, with a privacy phone booth here and there. Companies, including Dropbox, have embarked on this journey.

I certainly can’t tell you in detail what will happen to your company, but I can say that this hybrid life will make you even more dependent on your technological tools. The very technology that allows us to work from anywhere (laptops and smartphones, video calls, Slack) is also the technology that makes this so messy.

Your colleagues are at the desk, but are you stuck at home in a small Zoom box? You survive the shuttle to the office, only to discover that you left the USB-C key on the kitchen table. Hey, accounting Bob, stop yelling at your video call. This is not your basement!

But I have hope. Not only did we prove our technological resilience when we engaged in the Great Work-From-Home Experiment a year ago, but the manufacturers of the most addictive products are careful and adapt for the next phase. Here are some of the biggest hybrid challenges and some potential solutions.

I went back to the good old shuttle, but I have nothing at my hot desk, not even a cup of coffee stained.

There are no two ways to do this, you will need a bigger bag. And to say: whoever tells you a backpack is only for high school students, is wrong.

When you head to your building (assuming you remember where it is), you may need to remove the phone. Your employer may need Covid-style health checks and other precautions, but it can also give you the opportunity to reserve your workspace through systems such as Robin or Sales.com Work.com

Congratulations, you’ve reached your “office”. I can’t guess the technology that will be available when you get there, but expect it to be pretty empty, especially if BYOL (you know, bring your own laptop).

In SalesforceS

redesigned spaces, for example, employees receive only one desk and two side-by-side monitors, Jo-ann Olsovsky, the company’s intelligence director, told me.

At least Salesforce employees will be able to keep other things in cabinets and easily get other technological peripherals – mice, keyboards, headphones, chargers – from the technology machines around the desks. You don’t pay. Just drag the employee badge, press the button for your item and grab it from the bottom tray.

If your office vending machines only distribute obsolete Doritos, you can request things through the IT department. Regardless, you will probably pull your favorite equipment back and forth. Certainly, the more expensive equipment you don’t have two – tablets, microphones, noise canceling headphones – will be in your bag.

For smaller things – batteries, charging cables, a mouse and various adapters to connect drives, memory cards and cables to your laptop – you’ll need a bag of dongles. Don’t have one yet? Oh, you have to. The one I just received, the InCase nylon accessory organizer, has pockets and mesh straps for organizing various ropes and adapters. It’s listed for $ 50, but I got it for $ 15.

I’m at the office with some colleagues. Other colleagues are at home.

If you think returning to the office means the end of video calls, we have bad news for you. Expect most meetings now to have a video component and more rooms in the office – and not just in the conference rooms.

“It’s hard to imagine going into an office now and all those little enclosed spaces that could have had a phone in them without video activation,” Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell told me, adding that he expects some companies to put webcams warm. office stations as well.

Managers working on Microsoft collaboration platforms,

Google, Slack and Zoom said that an essential need is for employees at home and at work to feel that they are on an equal footing when calling and working together. Here are the initiatives they have launched:

Microsoft Teams: A system called Teams Rooms connects conference rooms to remote users who want to join. Voice recognition in new compatible speakers can identify who is speaking in a room, and the person’s name will appear on the screen. You won’t be embarrassed by calling from home, either: a new presenter mode removes the background of the video and places you in front of the presentation or positions the presentation in a box above the shoulder in “reporter mode”.

Google Desktop: Google also powers speakers and office cameras, but as people get out of the house, they’ll use their phones more for video calls as well. An update to the Google Meet phone app will better show people on video. A future update to Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentations will include the ability to overlay voice and video chat as people work on documents together.

Slack: An audio camera feature comes in so users can quickly access a conference call. Think Clubhouse, but for quick meetings. The company, which Salesforce has agreed to buy, also adds a feature for sharing pre-recorded video messages. This could help a manager send an announcement to everyone, whether they are at the office or at home.

Zoom: The pandemic burst star has her own conference room service called, tell me, Zoom Rooms. The company’s Zoom Rooms Controller app for iOS and Android allows people in the conference room to control meetings on their phones – no need to touch the dirty shared keyboard or camera control panel.

A bigger challenge: What if the personal meeting includes some physical things, such as a whiteboard? How do I keep people at home and contribute?

Google and Microsoft have tried to make this easier. Microsoft makes Surface Hub – a giant Windows desktop tablet running the cloud-connected Microsoft Whiteboard. Those who participate in a Microsoft Teams call can view and add to the digital whiteboard. Same idea with Google Jamboard. People in the office can scribble on the huge screen, and those in a Google Meet video call can view and add it. Zoom works with third-party hardware manufacturers to integrate whiteboard.

I work from home today – how can I share this with the world?

The bad point for all this is locking in your home will not be as bad as it used to be. You are already improving your configuration, and some companies even intend to further subsidize the needs of office employees. And now that you’re used to over-communicating your schedule and deadlines? Keep doing this wherever you are.

Google has added a few features to its calendar to help you, including what it calls “segmentable work hours.” You can clarify to your colleagues where you work or if you do something else, such as exercise or commuting. Slack is also exploring adding more status options to show you where to go.

This return to the office may have a weak name – hybrid work – but make no mistake, it’s as hybrid as Frankenstein’s monster. Remember, a year ago we went through a rather cataclysmic change of work and we will do it again. Just don’t forget the dog.

—For more WSJ technology reviews, reviews, tips and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Write to Joanna Stern at [email protected]