Future ways of work – hybrid working
It’s become clear now that many businesses are planning on keeping the home office open for their employees in what we expect to be a ‘hybrid’ model with time being split between the office and home. Companies are looking for their employees to be “hyper-productive at home” and “hyper collaborative in the office”. With this in mind, businesses need to seek new, permanent solutions to define their ’future ways of work’ strategies.
Emerging Technology – IT self-service portals
Emerging technologies have been developed and brought to the market during the pandemic to support businesses on their digital transformation journeys. One such technology is the emergence of IT self-service portals. Self-service technology in itself is not a new concept. After all, vending machines, pay at pump, and ATMs are all ‘self-service’ in some way shape or form. An IT self-service portal however, is a piece of online software that allows your employees to order their own pre-defined, security-approved devices, report incidents, order replacement hardware, and much more.
A self-service portal is there to boost your employee’s user experience regarding ordering their IT equipment. By providing a similar e-commerce experience to what you might expect from online retailers, a self-service portal can automate the ordering process, allowing your employees to have their choice of equipment delivered to either their home or office address.
How can a self-service portal benefit your business?
- Every employee can order their own IT equipment, choosing from a pre-defined list of security-approved devices.
- Devices can be delivered to an office address or home address.
- The portal can be customised to your company's branding.
- Employees can upgrade their IT devices via a salary sacrifice that is automatically paid for through payroll.
- Email flows can be automated to notify employees when they need to order a new device and provide delivery updates once the subsequent devices have been ordered.
- The ordering, approval, and replacement processes can be fully automated and run without manual intervention.
- Integration into your active directory.
- Employees can report incidents and raise service requests directly to your IT team or straight to CHG-MERIDIAN to reduce user downtime.
- Real-time access to all device data – number and location of devices, device specifications, term of lease agreements and overall costs, order status and service requests can be viewed by IT teams within the software.
As the working environment continues to evolve, having the ability to choose the tools they work with is becoming increasingly important for employees. In the past, it might have been enough to provide your staff with a laptop and smartphone, but as the war for talent heats up and the home office takes off, employers may seek to offer additional accessories such as keyboards, monitors, docking stations and headphones. By putting the power into the hands of your employees, you can improve their user experience alongside significantly relieving the burden on the IT department and colleagues in procurement and HR with seamless automation. This is the future of digital transformation today.
If you’re interested to see what a self-service portal could look like, what IT assets and services are available and how the ordering process works, please click here: https://www.chg-meridian.co.uk/technology-lifecycle/tesma/tesma-portal.html
CHG-MERIDIAN is a global IT procurement and lifecycle management company that works with over 12,000 customers in 28 countries for digital workplace solutions. TESMA® Portal is our own in-house IT-self-service portal that we have developed and released in 2020. We ourselves use our self-service portal for our 1,100 employees, allowing them to order their IT equipment and raise their own ticket requests.