Better than the Office
DIGITAL ECONOMY
Better than the Office
“ In the hybrid office of the future , collaboration tools will be a vital part of productive cooperation . Our goal is to one day make Zoom meetings even better than face-to-face meetings by adding features faceto-face can ’ t replicate . These include AI-generated meeting transcriptions , meeting summaries , and real-time language translations .”
- Phil Perry , Head of UK & I , Zoom towards the fact that , if they can ’ t see employees working , they aren ’ t actually working - something that multiple studies have found to be demonstrably untrue . But there are plenty of companies where a fully remote approach just isn ’ t viable .
There is a middle way , however . “ We are now seeing the rise of a hybrid model that gives employees the choice to work in the office , remotely , or a mixture of both ,” says Phil Perry , the UK and Ireland boss at Zoom . Hybrid work , he continues , is increasingly emerging as a way for companies to meet their in-person needs while giving employees the flexibility that has proved so beneficial over the past 18 months . “ The increased flexibility helps workers operate from anywhere , fitting their jobs around their individual needs . It offers a better work-life balance , where employees have more time to take care of their families or themselves ,” Perry explains , adding that the hybrid model has also been shown to improve companies ’ access to talent , “ as the pool of candidates widens beyond the commutable location towards a global marketplace .”
It ’ s worth noting that Zoom itself has a lot riding on the future of hybrid work . When I asked Perry about the experience of going from being a business tool to the bedrock of human civilization more or less overnight , and what a return to the office would mean for Zoom , he reflected that the growth that Zoom experienced was “ seismic .” In 2019 , Zoom clocked about 10mn meeting participants per day . Last year , that number repeatedly exceeded 300mn as people turned to Zoom ’ s platform both for work and human connection . “ For many , video conferencing offered a respite to the isolation that people felt during the pandemic . It ’ s
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