The changing face of the
workforce in the Philippines has resulted in a need for organizations to foster
a new culture of work to achieve digital transformation success, a Microsoft
Study has concluded. In fact, half of the respondents polled felt that more can be
done by their organizations to invest in culture development.
The Study found the following factors
influencing the culture of work in the Philippines today:
1. Increasingly mobile
workforce and exposure to new security risks: The
rise of mobility and proliferation of mobile and cloud technologies have resulted
in individuals working across multiple locations and devices. In fact, the
Study found that only 21% of respondents are spending all of their work hours in
the office, and 81% of respondents are working off personal smartphones. The
latter raises new security challenges for organizations.
2.
The
rise of diverse teams: The Study found that 29%
of workers in the Philippines are already working in more than 10 teams at any
one point in time. With the BPO industry being significant in the country, more
workers are working with different and even virtual teams from different
locations. This makes the availability of real-time insights and collaboration tools
crucial to get work done.
3. Gaps in employees’
digital skills even as leaders are in the motion of embracing digital
transformation: As the bar is raised with new
technologies adopted across industries, deployment is uneven. In fact, 47% of
respondents feel that more can be done to bridge the digital skills gap among
workers.
Said Cian O’Neill,
Microsoft Philippines COO and CMO: “The rise of digital technologies, along
with a new generation of millennials entering the workforce, has brought about
a need to address changing workers’ expectations, knowledge and skills, as well
as the tools they use. And with more than half of the world’s millennials
residing in Asia, the workplace will need to transform to adapt to the
technology habits of these digital natives. In addition, due to deployment of
advanced and emerging technologies, organizations need to relook at reskilling
its workforce to develop creative and strategic skills for the future.”
Addressing
a new culture of work for digital transformation success
Even
as 86% of business leaders in the Philippines acknowledge the need to transform
into a digital business in order to
succeed, people are ultimately the main drivers of digital transformation.
“People
are at the heart of digital transformation. Their expectations, knowledge and
skills, as well as the tools they use for work, are determining factors in the
level of transformation that any organization can achieve. The challenge that
they face now is how to implement new ways to foster a modern culture of work
to better empower Asia’s workers, especially those at the frontline. By
estimates, there are two billion firstline workers globally, and make up
majority of our workforce today,” said Bertand Launay, Microsoft Philippines
Managing Director.
Today,
firstline workers serve as the first point
of contact between companies and the rest of the world - first to engage
customers, represent brand, and see products and services in action.
To
unlock the potential of employees, organizations need to address and elevate
their workforce, especially firstline workers, through addressing the core values of the new culture of work:
1.
Unlocking
employees’ creativity
Collaboration fuels
innovation through sharing of ideas and enables flexibility in how people work
through a connected experience, while working seamlessly across devices.
However, the Study found that majority of respondents feel restricted in the
way they work today, with 64% highlighting that they needed to be physically
present in office as equipment or tools used for their line of work is only
available in the workplace.
2.
Fuelling
teamwork
By equipping all workers
with a universal toolkit for collaboration, organizations offer its people
choice and ownership as to how they work together and collaborate in real-time.
In fact, the Study found that one in two workers highlighted that access to
technology for collaboration such that they can respond in a timely manner to
internal and external requests was important in their line of work.
3.
Strengthening
Security
Today, 74% of respondents
are working on employer-issued PCs, but 81% are also working on personal
smartphones, which underscores potential security risks. In fact, 76% of
respondents admitted to checking personal emails on company-issued devices, and
are doing so for convenience sake. Therefore, leaders need to strengthen their
security not to put organization’s confidential data at risk to address the
need for workers to work without barriers and without impeding productivity.
4.
Bringing
Simplicity
With the rise of apps,
devices, services and security risks in the workplace, there is a need to
streamline the IT management, break down service siloes so that disparate data
can be combined and reasoned in new ways and reduce complexity. In fact, a
Microsoft Asia Pacific IT leaders study[2] found that 61% of ITDMs from
the market agreed that there is a need to reduce complexity of managing their
existing IT security portfolio.
Technology
is key for firstline workers to become an integral part of digital
transformation success
“We believe that every worker – from the
factory floor to the front desk, to the executive boardroom – can contribute to
an organization’s collective endeavours. It is our view that involving
firstline workers in digital transformation will drive unprecedented
opportunity – for workers, the
organizations that they work for, and the industries and society at large,”
added O’Neill. “At Microsoft, we see
the opportunities that can be unlocked with technology by equipping firstline
workers with the right tools, such as Microsoft 365. Ultimately, digital
transformation projects can only succeed if the right tools are in place for
workers to leverage and maximize upon.”
Microsoft has announced the expansion of
Microsoft 365, including Microsoft 365 F1,
which provides purpose-built capabilities that help foster firstline culture
and community, train and upskill employees, digitize business process, deliver
real-time expertise, and minimize risk and cost. New intelligent search
capabilities, a vision for intelligent communications centring on Microsoft
Teams, and security and IT management enhancements to help customers stay
secure and compliant were also introduced at Ignite:
·
Microsoft
365 F1 brings together Office 365, Windows 10,
and Enterprise Mobility + Security to empower the more than two billion
firstline workers worldwide, who serve as the first point of contact between a
company and its customers, or who are directly involved in making products.
·
Introducing a new vision
for intelligent communications, including plans to bring Skype for Business Online capabilities into Microsoft Teams, along
with cognitive and data services, making Teams the true hub for teamwork in
Office 365, including persistent chat, voice and video.
·
Intelligent
search experiences use AI and machine
learning to deliver more relevant search results everywhere you search across
Microsoft 365
·
Microsoft 365 is
delivering improved Advanced Threat
Protection (ATP) features like enhanced anti-phishing capabilities,
expanded protection to SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft
Teams and integration between cloud and on premises identity threat detection
capabilities.
Modernizing firstline workforce with Microsoft Cloud
For organizations still on Office 2007, end
of support will happen on 11 October. Customers
who are still using Office 2007 products and services are encouraged to move to
Office 365 or Microsoft 365 to stay supported, and ensure uninterrupted support
from Microsoft.
O’Neill
said: “With cloud-based productivity tools being a key pick among Asia’s mobile
workers to drive greater collaboration among teams, we urge organizations to
take the opportunity to evaluate Microsoft 365 as an option to modernize their
workforce.”
###
About
Microsoft
Microsoft is the leading platform and
productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission
is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more
Microsoft
Philippines, the local subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation, has been constantly
bringing innovation and making its technology available to Filipino businesses
and individuals since 1995. As a committed and trusted partner in
nation-building, Microsoft Philippines has made it its mission to fuel growth and
healthy communities, as well as transform locally-based businesses and empower
them to compete in the global economy.
*This is Press Release
