When it comes to making a conscious effort to improve the world of work, we need people that will keep us honest. For me, it’s my children. They are the next generation of the workforce and offer insights and opinions that make me stop and think.
One example was at a panel conversation I participated in for the women’s charity Smart Works Reading¹. When the time came for Q&A, my son Josh asked why there was still such a long way to go in achieving gender parity. My daughter Darcey is not far behind him in age and I know we still have ground to cover if the workplaces they join are to be as inclusive as we aspire them to be. So, what can we do in our capacity as business leaders and professionals?
1. Create a truly inclusive environment
I believe in people first – the better we understand one another, the better we can work together. Given the events of this year, it has become more important than ever to understand and respect everyone’s individual circumstances.
I’ve experienced firsthand VMware’s commitment to making sure everyone is individually cared for
VMware is an organisation that places inclusion at the heart of how it does business. As the co-lead for VMinclusion in the UK² I’m responsible for ensuring that our Power of Difference communities (PODs) are fully supported in representing the true diversity of our workforce by facilitating conversations that help us learn and grow.
What has been interesting is how the pandemic has advanced our efforts – causing us to check in with members of the team much more on how they really are and supporting them in making changes necessary to allow them to work effectively within a new context. Having started a new role and hired team members in the past few months, I’ve experienced firsthand VMware’s commitment to making sure everyone is individually cared for.
2. Using technology to improve lives
Alongside the organisational commitment to using tech for good³, VMware WorkspaceOne technology makes the process of work easier, more secure and less location-dependent. In doing so, user experience and employee satisfaction is vastly improved with the knock-on effect that stress is reduced and flexibility is increased. With our work and personal lives now often blended into a single location, there is a lot to be said for being able to walk your children to school or take time out to exercise to enhance the quality of your day.
VMware is offering you the chance to try out Workspace ONE for free
If you’d like to know what this looks like from a technology standpoint, VMware is currently offering customers a free trial of WorkspaceOne – you’ll find a link at the end of this article.
3. Continuously questioning
Given that we can access everything we need, from any location or device, we have an incredible opportunity to ask important questions about what work is, how we want to do it and how we can best work together. Now is the time to liberate our thinking on how we can be more culturally inclusive and empower people to invest their time wisely instead of constantly being ‘at work’.
A great example is how VMware transitioned 30,000 colleagues to working from home and how we’ve used that as a platform to explore what the workplace of the future will look like from a cultural and technological perspective⁴.
Try something new
If you want the opportunity to think differently about what work is and how your organisation does it (or if your children are also asking you what you’re going to do about making the workplace fit for their generation) VMware is offering you the chance to try out Workspace ONE for free.
As our Digital Workspace Platform, WorkspaceOne provides incredible employee experiences via unified endpoint management, modern Windows management and simplified access management. Want to build a better future workplace? Sign up now to access WorkspaceOne’s capabilities across 100 devices for up to 90 days at no charge.
¹ Reading - Smart Works
² https://www.vmware.com/company/diversity.html
³ https://blogs.vmware.com/emea/en/2020/01/stand-for-more-than-profits-using-tech-for-good-in-2020
⁴ What VMware IT Learned While Enabling its Workforce for Remote Productivity - VMware on VMware Blogs
Read more of our latest news stories
