Hybrid Work in 2022: A Look Ahead from Cisco Customers

It’s no exaggeration to say that you can rest assured that you have most of your COVID in your rear-view mirrors when possible. We cheered when the trade fair returned to the fair and when cotton candy sellers and ferris wheels replaced temporary hospitals and test sites. And even those who aren’t usually fans of trade shows may welcome the next opportunity to travel for work.

We want to put off a lot of things, but we also learned what we want to do during the pandemic. for example:

• What positive changes did the pandemic make?
• How do they shape the world of our post-virus work?
• What do you still need to work on?

We talked with our Cisco customers (in effect, of course!) To find out when the New Year is coming. This is what they had to say.

San Francisco City and County Technical Bureau

The early days of the pandemic posed a major challenge to IT teams in cities and counties around the world. San Francisco was no exception. Like its peers around the world, CIO’s Linda Gerull team has transformed the convention center into an emergency management center (using the Webex contact center). They expanded wireless services to connect children when the school closed the door. They have gone from a handful of teleworkers to tens of thousands.

In the challenge, there were some silver linings. For example, we launched a major network upgrade in 2019. As part of the move to Software Defined Networking (SDN), we have placed Cisco’s next-generation firewall, Firepower, just outside the major data centers. Little did they know that this change could help teleworkers in the COVID era support a flood of VPN sessions on the network.

“When a pandemic occurred, the transition to SDN proved important. This was a big problem because we hadn’t actually tested it before. This demand for urban infrastructure. It never happened, “Gerull said. “The project was only partially completed, but Cisco’s network has made it extremely agile and flexible.”

The team was also able to accelerate major projects and save $ 6 million a year a few months earlier than planned. They abolished legacy technology and standardized it with Cisco Telephony sooner than planned. This is because people are working remotely so they don’t have to wait for the network to complete at each site. “With the Cisco Expressway, employees can now use softphones without a VPN, moving the entire department from legacy systems faster than planned, which has saved us a lot of money,” Gerull said. Mr. says.

The pandemic also encouraged teams to think out of the box about some deep-seated work habits. And they may never come back. For example, if the blockage prevented you from using your office whiteboard to sketch network changes, you switched to the collaboration tool’s whiteboard feature and found that you liked it even more. Also, when remote work scans halls and break rooms and you don’t know who’s around, they look back at the collaboration tools, “going out for lunch,” “dog walks,” and “dog walks.” We have started a space to share the latest information such as. Working onsite “; It turns out that tracking who is doing what is a much easier way. Also, deploying chat across the city (5,000 new Cisco Jabber users go online in a short amount of time) makes it easier than ever to connect with anyone in any of the 52 departments. It means that.

See the masses with hybrid eyes

Some pandemic changes were for residents. These can also have an impact on the future. Committee meetings, where residents give their views on issues ranging from budget to ethics to police, are usually held directly, but were virtualized during the COVID period. In the post-COVID world, such meetings are unlikely to be completely remote, but this experiment shows how a hybrid environment can help the general public.

“Some members of the community aren’t very tech-savvy. You might be surprised to hear about San Francisco, but that’s true everywhere,” Gerull said. She said that 100% virtual meetings could exclude residents who do not have access to technology and sufficient digital literacy, but Gerull said that by holding remote meetings, transparency and accessibility I also admitted that it will improve. This is especially true of the automatic language posting and presentation features available in Webex. “The more access we have, the more transparent we are and the more transparent we are for all of us. Perhaps there are hybrid solutions that are moving forward.”

The future of hybrid work

What are their biggest challenges in advancing in the world of hybrid work?

“One of our biggest challenges is perception,” says Gerull. “Many private companies easily adopt hybrid work, but the taxpayer’s eyes are on us. Some people think that people working from home are not very productive.” She reveals that internal indicators have improved productivity and that their ongoing work and projects will help change the public’s view of how effective hybrid work is for the public government. He said he was confident.

As San Francisco recovers, the city’s technology department is accelerating the aforementioned software-defined network development and VoIP deployments. The latter already brings cost savings of $ 500,000, while the former quickly brings more reliable and cyber-secured networks to city services and applications. This is especially important in a world that is familiar with the costs and risks of cyber threats.

These improvements pave the way for expanding web call centers to serve and assist the public faces of different departments. This task is supported by the flexibility of the Webex Contact Center, which provides call recording and bandwidth for simultaneous use of both traditional wired, mobile and softphone. Even when San Francisco is doing hybrid work, the tools you get stay here!

Cisco Hybrid Work Solution Details here..