Defining a New Way of Working in 2022
As we move into a new year, the broadcasting industry is still navigating some old challenges. Despite teams responding to changing circumstances admirably, the pandemic continues to seriously impact processes and workflows, as well as limit interactions within organisations.
Over the last two years, there have naturally been peaks and troughs in the productivity and effectiveness of departments needing to work remotely. Certainly, individual productivity has had an impact, with employees shifting from crisis overdrive to periods of inevitable burnout. As numerous articles highlight, companies from all sectors are “increasingly recognising that pandemic-induced burnout is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed”.
But there are ways to facilitate change and it starts with a focus on organisational productivity, rather than individual productivity. Let’s look at 3 important considerations to help define a new way of working in 2022.
Professional Bubbles
One of the main downsides of fully remote working is that many people transitioned into silos. A 2021 Harvard Business Review article with research from Microsoft, noted how a year of working from home impacted interpersonal relationships. It explained “the significant impact that a year of full-time remote work had on organizational connections — the fundamental basis of social capital” in particular how, “connections with people outside our immediate teams has shrunk dramatically”.
Extended networks within organisations are crucial for success and as the industry moves towards a hybrid working model, many broadcasters are working to connect people and systems wherever possible. While remote tools are there to facilitate more repetitive tasks and workflows, technical provisions need to be put in place for the kind of spontaneous creative collaboration that helps organisations to thrive over the long-term. With more options available than ever, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s the people that make the company’s systems successful.
Seamless Workflows
In a hybrid model of working, improving connections between staff wherever they are based and enabling them to work seamlessly, should be a top priority. Of course, broadcasting workflows involve increased levels of complexity when compared to general remote working. One of the key hurdles to overcome for many organisations is the lack of continuity between broadcast infrastructure and corporate IT systems. It is vital to ensure that applications can talk to each other efficiently and throughput remains unhindered.
While ease of use is a key consideration, both on-premise and remote access needs to be secure. The nature of complex content workflows and the demand for hybrid accessibility can leave system holes, which in turn can open broadcasting organisations up to security vulnerabilities.
Visibility will ensure successful blended working environments, everything from remote workstation deployment to user behaviour and file access can now be monitored effectively from anywhere. Not only does this protect valuable content, but it can also streamline workflows to make them more efficient. Resource utilisation stats help administrators see how their system is being implemented, so that file system quotas can be added and modified with ease.
A Hybrid Working Environment
Everyone, from broadcast engineers to editors and producers, have adapted to the continually shifting landscape. But there are some key areas where all companies should continue to facilitate both operational and cultural change to help support their staff. In Deloitte’s State of the Worker report, which highlighted the pandemic’s impact on UK workers’ and explored their views on the future of work, “70% expect their employer to be supportive of their desire to choose how often they should work from home in the future”.
For staff to feel part of any infrastructure changes which move an organisation towards a hybrid working model, a holistic approach to systems integration is crucial. Too often technical considerations are dealt with in an isolated way, resulting in linear processes that offer individual teams too little autonomy. With no two workflows the same, the team at 7fivefive helps content creators and service providers navigate an increasingly complex broadcast landscape.
Get in touch to discuss how our committed approach, delivers efficient solutions tailored to individual business needs.