We are all experiencing the impact of the global pandemic. It affects every individual and organization differently. Personally, my situation went from working for a client on-site in Abu Dhabi, to repatriating back to The Netherlands. What soon became more apparent and urgent than ever, is the importance of having a Modern Workplace.

Rapidly responding

When it became apparent that the global pandemic was not going away and would keep spreading, Avanade, our parent company Accenture, and my client immediately acted. I have been part of an energizing and challenging rapid Microsoft Teams deployment for over 60.000 users in just two weeks to prepare our client for productive remote work. Without going into much detail, I will say this was a unique and challenging journey, both on a personal and professional level. Being surrounded by a focused and ambitious team however, we managed to pull this off.

Work from? Home!

In case you are wondering; yes, I am back home in The Netherlands, and am now working remotely for the same client without interrupting my work. At all. How is this possible? The answer is: Avanade. Having a great Modern Workplace in our own organization has helped me to continue my work for the client. Sure, it has been challenging to work full-time from home, especially in the beginning. But as colleagues, we have helped each other adapt and get used to this new flow of things. An important factor that contributed to being able to work from home this smoothly is that are our 38.000+ Avanadi were working together intensively across the globe using Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps to efficiently connect, communicate. Even before the pandemic.

Workplace experience

Working in this new normal has started me thinking about how I value my workplace. What does it consist of? Overnight my work environment changed from working at a client’s or Avanade office, to a purely digital one. How does that compare? You prefer an office building that looks appealing and inspiring, you want a comfortable desk and chair, preferably have dual monitors and, of course, have great coffee. Each of these attributes contribute to you having a positive office workplace experience.

For the digital workplace, the same applies, but the digital attributes are different. You would, for example, want to use one login to easily sign in, be able to access your files from any device and collaborate on files simultaneously with multiple colleagues. At Avanade we leverage the latest Microsoft solutions every day. Together they create a great workplace experience, regardless of whether I am in the office or elsewhere. This personally helps me feeling comfortable and efficient working remotely and it allows me to understand the value of a great workplace experience.

Time to rethink

We now know that the pandemic impacts a lot of organizations significantly, forcing organizations to adapt to the new situation and prepare for the future. I feel that at Avanade we practice what we preach. Sharing our personal experiences helps us have meaningful conversations with our clients. We can help our clients rethink their approach to their workplace and working from home so they can respond and renew in the new these exceptional times, that might end up being part of our new normal.

Journeying onwards

Though I can work from home efficiently at Avanade, I still feel that it’s more challenging than before at times. Remote working can be intense, and I sometimes miss the personal contact I used to have with my colleagues. Luckily Avanade was well prepared to work completely remote. All you need is your Avanade laptop, a connection the world wide web, and perhaps to not make your partner or neighbors go mental: headphones!