Cisco almost went back to 20% face-to-face work, but the US company has backed down and will remain at 10% for the time being, especially for its 24 Luxembourg employees. "Every Monday, we check the evolution of the statistics on vaccinations, hospitalisation and others linked to covid. And we will stick to the policy with the least risk for our employees. But in any case, we won't go back to 100%,” says Spirlet, speaking via Webex.
"Productivity is better, provided that management is up to the task,” he says. "Inevitably, we have to adapt to this new context in companies, despite the temptation to go back to the previous method and to have employees under control. Some people have lost their bearings and there is a sense of conservatism. The central question is whether the job you ask of your employees is done, and done well. In reality, we should trust the people we have recruited to work for us."
Periods of lockdown have boosted adoption of technology solutions like the ones Cisco sells, to the extent that it has doubled its revenue in Luxembourg--the company's most successful country in Cisco Group's EMEA region in 2020. "All parts of our business have grown strongly, from networking to collaborations with Microsoft, security to meet CSSF requirements or data centres," says Spirlet, who is looking to recruit a Luxembourg country manager to replace Romain Siebenaler.
Noise reduction and raise hand adopted
"Hybrid mode must be accompanied by training and inclusion. Management has to be very careful about the time everyone has to speak, including those who are at home. We have seen different phenomena: a generational phenomenon--the over 45s couldn't stand having to turn on their cameras whereas generations X, Y, Z have no problem with this--and a technological phenomenon--in all the companies where we were not well equipped, we had to equip ourselves like everyone else and, given the demand, turn to suppliers of lower quality products." This inevitably affected the quality of the online work.
The integration of Slido into Webex has made the meetings more interactive than ever. One of the tools that was adopted in 2020. (Photo: Cisco)
Cisco, for its part, "aimed for the moon" by wishing to improve the tools it markets "so that their use provides a better experience than the real thing and has integrated pooling thanks to the integration of Slido, social media and facial recognition. And above all, the "raise hand", a small icon that a caller can click on to say that he or she would like to speak and that allows the manager to avoid untimely interruptions.
But what has been most welcomed is the noise reduction. "When you find yourself at home with the noise of children, pets, the neighbour mowing his lawn or the dishwasher, it's understandable." Not to mention customer demands for data security, which has caused a lot of backlash at one competitor, Zoom, with "zoombing", when strangers barge in on the teacher in the middle of a virtual class.
"We are also seeing requests from customers for touchless devices. If everyone has to type in their code on the same device, it obviously doesn't help in the context of the pandemic," explains Spirlet. Especially since voice and facial recognition technologies exist. "We are looking for the easiest access to our technologies. One click away."
This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.