2022: The Year of Total Experience, Mass Reinvention, and Workforce Upskilling

The times are a-changing, and video has certainly shifted how we communicate. “Video is the new voice” is a phrase intrinsically understood by both early technology adopters and laggards, and those of us somewhere in between. Remote work is now just working for some. Distance education has opened up opportunities to learn, and is more accessible to students around the world.

Zoom birthday invites outweigh the physical ones most of us have received in the last two years. An even more remarkable change is how video and cloud services have worked in tandem to push communication and collaboration standards higher across industries.

So, what’s next?

The short answer to this is video will continue to be a big player in reshaping how the workforce communicates and how it gets things done in every sector. This includes retail, financial services, healthcare, education, insurance, emergency services – you’d be hard-pressed to find an industry that won’t be impacted by video technology.

We’re looking at the biggest ideas and trends in enterprise and technology for 2022. The factors that will change how we work in the months to come and the ones you need to know to transform your business.

The ‘total experience’ imperative

How customers experience your brand has always been important, but amid ‘The Great Resignation,’ how your staff experience work internally is more critical. Organizations must take a good hard look at combined customer and employee experiences and their business’s satisfaction metrics.

We expect to see organizations working to provide this total experience through a strategic blend of in-person sessions and virtual connections.

Elevating the customer experience

Today’s hyper-competitive landscape means consumers have more choices than ever and thus demand more engaging and superior experiences. Their elevated expectations for proactive services, personalized interactions, and connected experiences — across physical and virtual channels — put pressure on companies to meet those expectations.

How do you provide a better customer experience virtually than your competitors? Much like on a shop floor, it’s by meeting your customers where they are and engaging them in the ways they want.

Start by layering video into your engagement and outreach methods, creating a new “v” version of everything:

• V-commerce will explode as retailers invest in video to augment the digital shopping experience, offer new services to customers, and elevate brand loyalty.
• V-contact centers will help enterprises consolidate customer interactions and offer expert support in a more empathetic way.
• V-messaging to support your customers through video, voice, text, chat — whatever mode they prefer.

Elevating the employee experience

The fallout from “The Great Resignation” shows no signs of abating as employees continue to recognize what they enjoy about their work, role or company, and start evaluating both their professional and personal fulfillment.

Business leaders must reimagine in-office working environments, focusing on employee happiness, inclusivity, equality, collaboration, productivity, and defining a common purpose.

Designing purposeful workspaces: Employees going into the office must have a reason to commute in. They need access to suitable space, and they need the latest tools when they get there.

Level the hybrid playing field: When communicating between on-site colleagues and remote staff via video, technology like Smart Gallery creates more equitable — and more inclusive — meetings. Remote participants can see everyone’s facial expressions and body language. They’re able to follow the overall conversation better and pick up on the nuanced cues often missed without in-person contact.

Application interoperability: Colleagues are more efficient when using their preferred tools whenever they need them. Even better? When these tools seamlessly work together.

Here are a few examples of flexible solutions you can deploy:

• Zoom Apps empower workers before, during, and after a meeting.
• Zoom Chat integrates with several popular file-sharing services.
• Mio integration (coming soon!) rationalizes business messaging, no matter which services your external partners use.

Mass reinvention across industries

Businesses will reinvent themselves because 1) they must and 2) they can do it quickly. Entire industries are rethinking how they interact with customers because there are new expectations to see and experience interactions.

The ‘Great Upskilling’

The future of work is not limited to what work looks like, but how work is done and — more importantly — how we collaborate.

Whether through new solutions or new application of existing tools, technology can help keep this dynamic and rapidly evolving world of work as collaborative and inclusive as possible. The entire workforce will require training on how to incorporate these tools to increase collaboration and keep teams efficient — regardless of employees’ location.

The continued CIO evolution

Technology literacy in the workforce has been on the rise over the past few years, with the pandemic accelerating this trend as people learned how to navigate software and hardware solutions without the help of on-site IT.

CIOs can benefit from corporate-wide technology adoption as it becomes more accessible and employees become more productive. The challenge is that employees have set the bar higher. Any new CIO initiative will be met with more scrutiny, with higher expectations set, and employees’ satisfaction a priority.

Bonus perspectives

A few other things we’re keeping an eye on in the new year:

Look for a sea of new personal technology: The rapid acceleration of personal technology extends to the corporate world. The smartphone and tablet are certifiable collaboration tools already but think about the quick rise (and occasional fall) of wearables (Google Glass, anyone?) — technology will continue to be embedded into more devices.

Real-time meeting translation: Transcription and translation will take a firm hold on modern-day collaboration, with geographical boundaries taking a backseat only to time zone differences. Real-time meeting translation will be critical to equality, inclusivity, and enhanced collaboration as the world globalizes.

The scramble to reach customers: With devices like Amazon Fire TV, you can watch TV, stream movies, shop online, and Zoom with family, friends, and colleagues while you do so. Even B2B organizations will be competing to deliver new ways to reach audiences in their homes, with smart, multi-purpose devices playing a pivotal role in customer engagement.

Interoperability and the “VBX”: With video services continuing toward interoperability, video will become more like email, where recipients won’t know which service is in use. This expanded network of ubiquitous video communication will transform the standard private branch exchange (PBX) into the more modern video branch exchange (VBX).

Visit Zoom’s hybrid workforce web page to learn more about the company’s approach to enabling flexible work, no matter where the work happens.