The future of work

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

There were a few times I was in the office and dispatch asked whatever tech was available to pickup the phone. They needed someone to walk a customer through something.

Could that will go from a rare thing to being included as part of a service contract? I doubt it would ever get to the point that phone support calls outnumbered onsite calls. But I could see phone support call being a weekly or daily thing.

Imagine getting a few calls a week having to walk customers through adding ink to an inkjet, or configuring a wireless home printer? Just because they had some office copiers under contract.

[MunsterTech]

Re: The future of work

Same here, we are now encouraged by service control to Triage the call before deciding to attend the customers premises nd try to do anything remotely to save money on travel, fuel etc. Only trouble is, if we dont travel to the customer, we loose our subsidy of lunch allowance. Over 200 down alone just on lunch money this month, the company says its a revenue thing, so most techs are now trying to get to a customer once a day just to get the subsidy. Seems techs are being hit twice, wages cut due to covid and now lunch money gone too. Cant really voice our opinion either as everyone worried about staying in a job.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Elevator queues, mandatory masks and staggered start times may await Toronto’s office workers when they start venturing back to North America’s second-largest financial centre.

Rules for Toronto’s bankers: Wear a mask, book elevator rides - BNN Bloomberg

Office workers should brace for dramatic changes, with numerous precautions to protect them and the public.

Elevators will have limits of four people with plans to add thin anti-microbial film over the buttons. It’s looking to introduce digital apps so people can schedule their elevator rides instead of waiting in line so that you know with certainty that you’re not going to have to wait a long time in order to be able to access your floors.
The company is also working with tenants on ways to stagger start and end times for employees to avoid crowding in lobbies and common areas.
“In order to be able to allow the maximum number of people to come into those office buildings, we’re going to have to change our behaviors for a period of time,”
Building occupants will be required to wear non-medical face masks or coverings in elevators and they’ll be “strongly encouraged” to wear them in common areas


Even with restrictions easing do not anticipate a rush back to the office.With schools and daycares closed it will be a slow return for many workers.
In markets that have reopened, expect between 15% -30% of office workers returning at first, with that percentage increasing over time.
“I try to dispel the notion that on the first day that the government lifts restrictions in the market that everybody shows up back at the office all at the same time like any normal day pre-COVID,” he said. “That’s not going to be the case.”

[mikadonovan]

Re: The future of work

I believe that in the not too distant future, it will print less and less and printers will be able to manage problems better independently. We will be able to solve problems remotely.


The role of the technician with the screwdriver will change, probably will have more of a computer role. Maybe this is already reality.

I think as long as man creates machines that will break, hardware techs will still be required. Good for us.

[Bix]

Re: The future of work

I think as long as man creates machines that will break, hardware techs will still be required. Good for us.

true, but if they break less, fewer technicians and more IT people will be needed. For example, Konica Minolta has launched the Workplace Hub, a solution that includes a server to manage the customer's network and services.

[tsbservice]

Re: The future of work

true, but if they break less, fewer technicians and more IT people will be needed. For example, Konica Minolta has launched the Workplace Hub, a solution that includes a server to manage the customer's network and services.

Re: Workplace Hub

I was interested in digging into this subject but my friend very knowledgeable local KM rep told me - just don't waste your time!

[mikadonovan]

Re: The future of work

This may be a little wishful thinking, but HEY, it gets me through the day

[tsbservice]

Re: The future of work

This may be a little wishful thinking, but HEY, it gets me through the day

I like your attitude!

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Two dozen major Toronto employers — including Canada’s key banks and insurers — agreed to keep most of their downtown staff at home until at least September to help contain the spread of COVID-19, said the city’s mayor, John Tory.

Major Toronto businesses to keep staff home until September - BNN Bloomberg


The agreement, which also includes telecom companies, accounting firms, lifecos and universities, comes at the request of the city and Tory, who is concerned about a potential flare-up in the pandemic if too many people flood the downtown core as restrictions are lifted.

“We do not want the sacrifices that all of you have made out there to be in vain,” said Tory at a press conference on Friday. “We do not want to have to go back to a more stringent lockdown. We want to do whatever we can to minimize any second or third wave of this virus.”

At least 24 companies will tell their employees to work remotely including all of Canada’s six biggest banks, Manulife Financial Corp., Sun Life Financial Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Ryerson University.

“Telecommuting, phasing in employees return to work, and staggering start times where possible, will help businesses to maintain physical distancing,”

Ridership on the Toronto Transit Commission has plunged 80% since the lockdown began dramatically reducing the risk of crowding on busy city transit systems. Prior to this, the system saw 1.8 million trips per weekday. Downtown Toronto has become a ghost town since shutdowns to stem the spread of the virus were put in place in early March.

Across North America and around the world, for the print industry this means that many millions of pages will not be printed and many thousands of print devices will not need service as the world rapidly accelerates to a digital work from home workforce.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Box, the Cloud Storage & Collaboration announced the company will “remain a digital-first organization” moving forward.

Box isn’t planning to ditch the office outright. In a blog post about the shift, Levie notes that plenty of people prefer working from an office, and that the company is aware of the “power of having office hubs where in-person communities, mentorship, networking, and creativity can happen.” Instead, they’ll be focusing on finding ways to make a hybrid setup — some remote, some in office — work. Meanwhile, they’re shifting all future all-hands meetings to virtual, adjusting their interview/onboarding process for remote hiring and offering stipends to employees looking to build out their home office setups.

More and more companies are promising to making work-from-home/work-from-anywhere setups work, albeit with varying levels of commitment. Box joins companies like Google and Spotify in making it officially okay until at least 2021; Square and Twitter, meanwhile, both went ahead and just made it permanent policy.


While the pandemic has thrust many businesses into operating remotely out of necessity, many organizations, including Box, are seeing the benefits of working digitally even when it's safe and healthy to go back to the office. When we moved to being fully distributed, the first question we asked was, "How do we replicate the in-office experience while working virtually?" Soon, we realized that was the wrong question to ask, and instead, we should be answering, "How does being in the cloud enable us to work differently?"

All of a sudden, new potential for work emerges. Now, teams are not limited by the people that they sit by to get the best ideas flowing; we can engage our entire workforce in our company-wide interactions virtually; we can easily reach and connect with more customers over video; and more voices, at all levels of the organization, can be heard in every meeting.

By leveraging a modern tech stack with tools like Box, Zoom, Slack, Webex, O365, G Suite, and more, every team and every Boxer is enabled with best-of-breed technologies that let them do incredible work from anywhere. This, combined with a workplace culture focused on collaboration, speed, and innovation, made it smooth to adapt to being fully virtual. Going forward, as we enter a "new normal" -- whatever that may look like -- we will remain a digital-first organization.

And this has caused us to consider new approaches in the way we work over time. First, it will inevitably mean more flexible work, and allow more Boxers to be able to work from anywhere. Before the pandemic hit, ~15% of Box's workforce already worked remotely, and this number will surely increase over time. At the same time, we know the power of having office hubs where in-person communities, mentorship, networking, and creativity can happen. We know different employees have a preference for different approaches. That is why our future is a hybrid one, capturing the best of both worlds, with a digital workplace stitching the physical office and virtual office all together.

There are still plenty of questions about what the future will look like, but we do know that having a digital-first workplace is the future. And this isn't just the future for Silicon Valley tech companies. As businesses of all sizes move to working more digitally, every industry is going to be transformed. Healthcare professionals will be able to deliver telemedicine experiences and reach more patients efficiently. Retailers can serve more customers globally. Professional services firms can interact with more clients. Life sciences firms can collaborate with more partners and researchers, no longer limited by geographical separation. Financial institutions can securely transact without requiring in person contact.

Everything changes.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Customers who have embraced the digital workspace are seeking fluidity among their different investments in IT technologies. Those personal user experiences cannot be jarring as they move from one cloud product to another cloud product from a different vendor.

Customers are looking for choice amongst the cloud vendor community with seamless integration.

The beauty of a successful cloud integration is that you are not stuck with one client/ server technology "stack" and should be able to move easily between different vendors.

[D_L_P]

Re: The future of work

Sounds like techs will see a lot more people interested in Google Cloud printing and scanning. It's free with any gmail account, so once you login to your gmail account you can play around in the control panel. Google Cloud Print
Google seems to have all kinds of free stuff(search console, analytics, ad sense).

We'll be seeing a lot of those could apps in the future. I'm sure techs will get calls for printing issues from Google docs or O365.

[spanky]

Re: The future of work

Google cloud print will be discontinued at the end of this year.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

Sounds like techs will see a lot more people interested in Google Cloud printing and scanning. It's free with any gmail account, so once you login to your gmail account you can play around in the control panel. Google Cloud Print
Google seems to have all kinds of free stuff(search console, analytics, ad sense).

We'll be seeing a lot of those could apps in the future. I'm sure techs will get calls for printing issues from Google docs or O365.

Google Cloud print support is scheduled to end on Jan 01 2021. A lot of very large educational facilities use Google Cloud print so no one really knows if Google will truly close down this service at that time.

You need to focus on Microsoft 365 apps that allow your copier brand to scan directly to OneDrive for Business, Exchange and SharePoint. Microrsoft has over 600,000 installs in North America and growing rapidly.

G-Suite is the 2nd most popular office suite which includes Gmail, Google Docs and Google Suite.

Customers now want scan to emails coming from their MFP to arrive with their personal email address and not a Device email from the copier. They want these sent emails to be recorded in their personal email sent files folder.

Customers are tired of having to send a scan to email to themselves from the copier and then send it again to their customers with their personal email address.

This can only happen via Authentication and PIN Codes or Card Swipes so you need to pick up your skills there. The only way you can do it is to have a copier equipped in your demo room and practise it. Otherwise you will look unprofessional in front of the customer.

This means that at a minimum your company needs to pay for a monthly MS365 subscription at around $15.00 month per PC.

Your company also needs to partner right away with an IT provider who can handle MS365 subscription requests.

Because of COVID-19 the print industry was automatically advanced five years into the future. That future does not look good for traditional copier dealers as Managed IT services begin to dominate and print will only be one part of what is known as the IT stack.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The future of work

When Shopify Inc. CEO Tobi Lutke declared the age of office centricity over, investors were left wrestling with a monumental question: Will the work-from-home movement change business forever and, if so, what is the case for investing in office space?

Lutke’s statement via Twitter on May 21 read more like a manifesto of sector-wide change than one company’s plan for the future.

“As of today, Shopify is a digital by default company. We will keep our offices closed until 2021 so that we can rework them for this new reality,” Lutke tweeted.

“We cannot go back to the way things were - this isn’t a choice, this is the future.”

Shopify’s declaration was not made in isolation. Several large technology firms including Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and OpenText Corp. have promised to make remote work a standard practice for many of their employees. And some three million Canadians have shifted to working from home since the lockdowns took hold in mid-March, according to Statistics Canada.

While companies will need a physical hub, the ability to connect with less physical space than before will be a headwind that may take several years to right-size. Technology and the ability to connect virtually will also likely improve, enabling the trend further.

“In the near-term, there are leases in place that are legal obligations. However, as leases expire, there may be less need for space, resulting in higher vacancy rates, lower pricing and eventually lower construction activity.

Traditional work offices will still exist given the need for face-to-face meetings, social interaction, collaborative working environments and maintaining a flagship head office presence.

Undoubtedly more knowledge-industry workers will choose to work remotely some or all of the time post-pandemic. Their offices will not be eradicated altogether though, as meeting spaces will still be needed.

Many industries are not entirely based on knowledge workers such as factories and distribution centers where work from home is not possible.

... this is not a good trend for the print industry as the demand for A3 Dept size copiers and print volumes is likely to permanently diminish over the next 3-5 years as is the need for people to service these devices. A4 product placements are likely to increase as copier sales people begin to lead with these in their quotes.

A second tier of layoffs is beginning to effect the industry as print industry decision makers begin to deal with this slow down is not going to go away any time soon.