IT workers have been our crutch and our saviour throughout the past two years. If it wasn’t for those that transitioned our businesses from the office to remote working, how many industries would still be operational today? How many companies would still be providing critical services? It has been a tough ride for our IT leaders, but it isn’t over just yet. While COVID brought about immense pressures, the ongoing burden of keeping the world ticking over is enough to overwhelm even our strongest team members.

As COVID-19 restrictions ease in the UK, businesses up and down the country are taking part in a great experiment of our times: hybrid working. The pandemic has changed the way we work for good, with some companies like Facebook and Twitter having announced plans to embrace remote working permanently.

More people than ever are enjoying the benefits of connected working – where the latest technology tools are used to allow employees to do their jobs smoothly and productively, no matter where they are located.

But as individuals, connected working means different things to different people, depending on the specifics of the task at hand. For employees performing creative or admin roles based primarily at home, it might mean flexible access to office systems, using multiple devices, wherever they are in their house. For a field engineer, meanwhile, it might be more about having a single point of contact to log their completed jobs while out on the road. The common thread, whatever the circumstances, is giving people the right tools to do their job - anytime, anywhere.

For organisations looking to empower connected working, it is important to remember that there is no standardised approach to deployment. IT departments can be guilty of attempting to impose blanket technology solutions on workers, even if they are not suited to the needs of the end-user. It is far better to take a more dynamic approach to connected working, supported by flexible device ownership and evergreen management techniques, to ensure that employees are fully equipped for the task at hand with intrinsic intuitive security embedded.

It is clear today that you no longer need to be sat at a desk in an office to your job. A seismic shift to remote working has demonstrated that employees can be as, if not more, productive while based at home – or anywhere else for that matter.

With an increasingly mobile workforce, employees today expect to be able to work from anywhere – so that means providing then with the right technology to do their job.

Financial and legal services are facing business threats from numerous angles.

Firms in these industries are a prime target for hackers, with large banks of sensitive data that can be stolen and sold on.

The frontline workers interacting directly with customers have too often been left at the back of the line when it comes to digital transformation.

Empowering senior business executives to exploit new ways of working is creating enterprise propositions that are better aligned with modern expectations. But without simultaneously empowering frontline workers to bring boardroom initiatives to life, customers may be unmoved.

Emergencies don’t conform to any timetable. The ability to respond to almost any incident at any time is what matters most to the emergency services. Are you ready?

In the case of a category one emergency – involving life-threating and time-critical illness or injuries – professionals are expected to be on the scene within a maximum of 15 minutes.

For IT decision-makers in enterprise environments, ROI projections are one of the most vital elements of a successful request for technology investment. However, the production of accurate ROI predictions can be extremely challenging.

To assist in this process and establish a robust business case for its Surface devices and associated software, Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI).