While some firms in current months have been rolling again remote-work insurance policies, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been reticent to set any in-office mandate — and even casual objectives — for its staff.Various groups have in-office employees conferences, and staff who reside near an workplace web site have a tendency to return in two or three days per week. But HP sees its path to the way forward for work as enabling staff to have the identical expertise within the workplace as at residence, thereby engaging staff to return again to their cubicles just for particular causes, similar to in-office collaboration.The firm’s inside analysis discovered that 77% of HP staff like the concept of hybrid work, they usually weren’t lured into the workplace with free lunches, new health club tools, or extra open workplace areas. What did rating extremely with almost 9 out of 10 staff? The proper expertise to do their jobs as successfully and effectively as they may at residence.Beyond that, as HP appears down the street, it has set itself on a round path of sutainability — with a mission to achieve some extent the place all of its merchandise are recyclable or reusable in. Sustainability is just not solely a enterprise aim; it is also a technique to hold staff comfortable, as 66% of its staff indicated they need to work for a corporation that’s environmentally accountable. HP
Loretta Li-Sevilla, HP’s head of Future of Work, Collaboration and Business Incubation.
Loretta Li-Sevilla, HP’s head of Future of Work, Collaboration & Business Incubation, works out of the corporate’s Palo Alto, CA headquarters, which underwent a drastic renovation to assist hybrid work. Hot desking, or the power for any worker to make use of any out there desk, is now the usual. Every desk has an identical tools that makes it simpler for workers to dock their computer systems and get to work when they’re on web site.Last 12 months, HP purchased office collaboration vendor Poly, a transfer to develop the enterprise and outfit its personal collaboration areas with new videoconferencing software program, cameras, and headsets. Li-Sevilla has labored for HP greater than 30 years, starting her profession as an engineering intern and transitioning into advertising and enterprise technique over her tenure. She has been in her newest function the previous eight years. The following are excerpts from an interview with Computerworld.What is the way forward for work by way of residence versus workplace? And do you imagine that we’ll ever return to a pre-pandemic office? “It’s unlikely that we will return to a workplace environment resembling what we had before the pandemic. We’re already on this train heading toward a future of work that looks very different and is centered around the employee-employer relationship, which has shifted in the last few years. At the core is a shared sense of purpose — employees want to have a sense of fulfillment and feel that their work is meaningful. When they feel connected to their work and colleagues, they’re more likely to be engaged and motivated. “To be successful in their future-of-work strategy, companies need to focus on a cross-functional response that takes these three pillars into consideration: mindset, toolset, and skillset.“The mindset is about providing an environment of trust, flexibility, and equity for people to be their best selves. It includes things like policies, principles, leadership, and work norms that encourage autonomy and psychological safety. When employees feel supported and empowered, they perform their best.“The toolset enables people to be productive, connected, and collaborative — no matter where they are. This pillar includes things like technology, space, food, and amenities that make employees feel effective and supported. With the rise of hybrid work, it’s crucial to have a smooth transition from the office to home or any other location so employees can maintain their productivity.“Skillset focuses on supporting personal and professional growth and hiring for lifetime potential rather than a role. This pillar includes things like upskilling and re-skilling, attracting and growing talent, and ensuring employee wellbeing. When employees have opportunities to learn and grow, they’re more likely to stay with the company and contribute to its success.” What are the highest methods HP is utilizing AI and the way do you reassure staff that this is not about eradicating their jobs? “AI isn’t about replacing people. It’s about augmenting and improving people’s productivity with repetitive tasks so they can be more efficient. At HP, we’re looking at how we can optimize in the right areas and offer better support to our customers with AI, as well as how we can make the experience better for our customers with our products. Audio and video capabilities with AI-powered technology are a big part of this. We want to make people feel like they’re in a room together, regardless of the environment, with tools that enable noise cancellation, attendee tracking, and so much more.”How is HP getting staff again into the workplace, and has it reached its aim? “At HP, we’re adopting a cross-functional approach to solve problems in new ways, working with team members across HR, facilities, and other business functions. We start by continuously listening to our employees via focus groups and experiments while gathering real-time feedback to see what strategy works best for us.“We’ve also launched initiatives across the mindset, toolset and skillset pillars so we can optimize and deliver the best employee experience possible. To empower employees and set the tone for mindset, we have dedicated office days for people to come together and collaborate in-person, host weekly events and lunches, and our leadership team sets the example by creating opportunities that bring people together in-person.“To ensure people have the right toolset, we pair people with the right device and ecosystem for their workstyle so they can be productive — from high-performance notebooks with long-lasting battery life when working on the go to the right conferencing tools to feel present from anywhere. We also believe it’s important for employees to have the flexibility to come into the office, so we’ve designed our office spaces for building a sense of community and collaboration with communal spaces and hot desks that have docking displays with built-in webcams that allow connection with one cable so people don’t have to re-learn how to set up their environment every time they come into the office. “We’ve also established learning cohort programs for people training and developed onboarding resources to ensure employees have the right skillset, in addition to various career growth opportunities.”Why is it essential that staff return to the workplace? What proof is there that workplace staff are extra productive than at-home staff? “Our research shows that employees and our customers’ employees believe the office is key for building collaboration and a feeling of comaraderie. But productivity means different things for different people, so we can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to the return to office.“Our research shows that 77% of people prefer a hybrid work model, but only 22% of hybrid workers feel like they’re thriving in their environment. So we looked at what is most important to people for returning to the office, and we found that having the right technology is number one — even more so than a beautiful office design or free food. If you don’t have the right technology in the office for your workers to be productive and collaborate seamlessly, that becomes a major pain point.“At HP, we’ve identified personas based on individual roles and their workstyles. And what we’ve found is that an engineer or specialist may need to be in the office more often versus a mobile trailblazer out on the road every week, like a sales rep or executive. We need to ensure that, regardless of where and how they work best, all employees are effective and feel supported to do their best work. Digital and collaboration equity is key.”What share of staff are required to be within the workplace at the very least a part of the week at HP? “There is no official HP corporate mandate because we want to enable flexibility while also encouraging people to come into the office. But we’re seeing people come in an average of two to three days per week.”How is IT serving to to handle a extra numerous workforce? “IT’s role has become extremely challenging; 62% of ITDMs feel their job is harder and faster than ever with a massively distributed workforce and the macro climate. They need to be able to manage a fleet of devices, have the right telemetry to maximize employee productivity, and have support available and at the ready, no matter where their employees are. If a worker is working from home, they can’t just walk up to the help desk. We saw this challenge during the pandemic. IT also needs to be able to deliver equipment quickly and easily to remote workers. As we see an increasingly diverse workforce across various spaces, it’s even more critical for IT to provide a secure environment.”What are the highest initiatives HP is pursuing to make sure sustainable practices and the way essential is that to staff right now? “Sustainability is very important to employees across industries. Sixty-six percent of workers want to work for companies that care about giving back to the planet and environmental impact. That’s at the core of who we are at HP.“We’re continuously innovating with recycled materials and new methods to build a more sustainable PC portfolio. We think about sustainability across the product lifecycle, sustainable design and eco-friendly materials. We’ve integrated recycled materials in our PCs like ocean-bound plastic, used coffee grounds and used cooking oil, and all outer packaging for our PCs and displays are 100% sustainability sourced. Since 2020, we’ve also had more EPEAT Gold and Silver Personal Systems products globally than any other PC vendor.”How does sustainability match into how HP designs and builds merchandise? “We think about sustainability from the design standpoint, in terms of the materials that we use, the ease of repair, what kind of end of life a product has. How do we make sure that that we have a circular economy?“So, we’ve made great strides in this, like, in the personal system side; 100% of our PCs and displays launched in 2022 and 2023 have contained recycled materials, so pretty much 100% [have some] recycled materials. That applies to our packaging as well. So, 100% of our paper packaging comes from recycled and sustainable sources.“We have the HP device recovery service. It provides a secure and sustainable device repurposing and recycling capability [for HP products]. That includes free pick up, free recycle and also a certificate of destruction so that you can have confidence and the transparency of what’s been done with those.”How essential is sustainability to your staff? Is it engaging to potential expertise? “I believe it was 66% of staff [in HP’s survey] stated they need to work for a corporation that cares about sustainability and environmental duty.”
Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc.