Guest blog: Does flex working lead to less (social) contact in the workplace?

It’s not strange to take a critical look at digital developments. While digitalisation brings great progress, it can also have a downside. We all know those couples who are having a nice dinner and are both busy with their phones, which causes a lack of personal conversations, and also in the office it may seem that people are becoming less social because of digital developments. In this article I’ll look into the influence of the digital workplace on social contact.

More personal communication between colleagues

With the new digital working, colleagues are not always in the same office. There’s more and more mobile working, on the road to customers, from home and, of course moderately, from idyllic places like the beach, a terrace or even a holiday address. Obviously this means less face-to-face contact. But it also has its advantages:

1. More concrete: Exchange more data and details more efficiently
2. External expertise: Through chat you can always get in touch with the right expert
3. More personal: When you speak with your colleagues, it’s more about opinions and personal stories

It is considered burdensome to walk into a busy colleague’s office, however many offices have big spaces in which multiple people work. By digitalising a part of the communication, your colleagues can decide for themselves when there’s time to process their colleague’s digital messages. This allows them to work more focused. Also, people communicate more concretely when they’re communicating digitally, and all information is saved so it’s easy to retrieve.

This makes personal contact more valuable. Since you’re continually supported by several digital communication tools you exchange all relevant information through these channels, so that the leftover time can be spent on personal conversations, ideas and opinions.

Examples of communication improvement

At Micros Internetdiensten we have implemented some solutions for our customers and ourselves, which intensified the social contacts within and outside of the organisation:

• Micros365 (our version of Workspace 365):
  With this personal digital workspace, everyone in our organisation has insight into their e-mail, calendar and shared documents. We also share knowledge through the Yammer tile, in which we for example share interesting solved call center questions, tips & tricks and recently introduced products. This keeps everyone updated on each other’s work.
• Skype for business or Microsoft Teams:
  Quick personal contact, a message, a call or a small meeting, but also the possibility to let others know that you’re not available, so you can focus on your work. We recently visited a customer and during this visit, a question was asked which we could not directly answer. However, during our visit we received an answer to our customer’s question from our colleague via chat, which allowed us to instantly help the customer.
• VoIP – Mobile telephony connected to flex workspaces:
  Colleagues are instantly reachable, whether they’re somewhere else in the building or they’re working from home. I start the digital phone from my workspace, so I have access to my corporate phone on any device.

Cloud solutions make communication personal

There has already been a study by PGi in 2014, which revealed that 82% of people who sometimes work remotely say that it reduced their stress, and 69% of the respondents even said that there are less absentees because of flexible working. In our organisation we also see that the distance between colleagues may have never been bigger, but has never been this personal. There’s attention for each other in the workplace, because all business exchanges have already happened digitally.

Old-fashioned personal contact in a modern world

With all these possibilities we also see that it is important for IT specialists to show all the nice things of the modern digital world to their colleagues, while at the same time make sure to deliver a feeling of old-fashioned service.

Establish what your organisation’s goal is for the new digital workspace, chat tool or new intranet solution. Digitalising should not be a goal on itself, but a tool to help you improve your work processes.

Micros Internetdiensten as Workspace 365 partner

At Micros Internetdiensten we want to let people experience all the benefits of the Cloud, but also quickly bring known experts on the line who look further than one-sided solutions. In a dynamic location like the Schiedamse Wiltonhaven (harbour, ed.) we can easily understand your wishes surrounding a flexible work environment. We seamlessly integrate solutions like application hosting, online workplace management and VoIP telephony in your current organisation, but with that personal approach to give the modern digital workspace that old-fashioned safe feeling. You can always call personally and directly, but if at a later time suits you better, you can always leave a message through Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger or e-mail 😉

Target group Micros Internetdiensten: self-employed and SMBs in Rotterdam area