Enterprises reap the rewards of hybrid working with UCaaS

Sebastien Baillot

July 15, 2022

A hybrid workplace with UCaaS lets you benefit from improved employee productivity and customer satisfaction, a reduced operating model and a great ROI.

Enter the ‘hybrid workplace’

The last couple of years have been difficult – for everyone. When enterprises scrambled to keep their businesses open and sent the bulk of their employees to work from home, little did they know that getting them to come back to the office would be a struggle.

Now, as businesses devise strategies to transition their business back into the office it’s clear that things have shifted, and expectations have changed. In fact, according to Gartner, 65% of employees say the pandemic has made them rethink the place that work should have in their lives.¹ Additionally, a recent RingCentral return-to-work survey of 9,000 employees found that more than 25% of employees say they would resign if forced to return to the office, and 56% of full-time employees who worked hybrid or remotely during the pandemic would rather work from home permanently.² Gartner further suggests that by 2023, the number of remote workers will have doubled to more than two-thirds of digital workers, shifting buyer requirements to demand work-anywhere capabilities.³ To say ‘times they are a changin’ would be an understatement.

Hybrid workplaces have become the new norm with a combination of remote and on-site employees, with others continuing to work fully from home. The challenge for enterprises will be to keep teams cohesive and connected, as if they were all in the same space, despite the distance.

Rising to the challenge

With the hybrid workplace comes the flexibility to work from, well, anywhere. To retain existing talent and attract new talent, enterprises will need to adapt their strategies to accommodate the expectations of a growing hybrid workforce and innovate with an operating model that works for everyone.

The right communications and collaboration solution that keeps employees engaged and productive wherever they work is essential. A cloud-based tool such as Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) should be high on the priority list for medium and large enterprises. Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral, for example, is a public cloud UCaaS solution that lets enterprises offer an easy-to-use, secure and integrated communications platform to address employee needs in the digital workplace. Check out our Rainbow Office Top Tips video for a quick look at some compelling examples of how Rainbow Office can help you create a successful hybrid workplace with:

1. An engaging user experience: With a unified and intuitive application, available on any device, employees can control their communications and engage with internal and external audiences the way they want. They can easily connect using audio or video, check presence, chat, make or receive calls, schedule and join meetings, share screens and files, and assign tasks.
2. Simplified administration: IT workflows can be very complex. A solution that tears down siloed applications and offers unification of a variety of services can simplify things immensely. With Rainbow Office, administrators get everything they need with an easy-to-use, central management interface available from anywhere, including access to integrated reporting and insightful analytics.
3. Integration: Integration is critical for both IT and enterprise employees. An open platform, such as Rainbow Office, provides industry-recognised APIs and 250+ out-of-the-box integrations with business applications. Medium and large enterprises can streamline and automate their business processes for increased employee productivity, customer satisfaction and maximum Return on Investment (ROI).

Reaping the benefits

To embrace the new hybrid way of working as part of their strategy, medium and large enterprises need to offer their employees and customers UCaaS communications and collaboration from the cloud. With Rainbow Office, enterprises can easily create a hybrid workplace with improved employee productivity and customer satisfaction, and benefit from a leaner operating model with a great ROI.

To learn more download our white paper, Why Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) matters for medium and large enterprises, and visit our Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral web page.

1. Gartner, Future of Work Reinvented, 2021
2. RingCentral, What does work look like in 2022?, 2022
3. Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide report, 2021