Fuze: innovation comes from the younger generation, and it's up to you to recruit them

82 per cent of IT leaders think that employing young people is beneficial to the workplace

What is the future of the workplace? Will it continue to become more decentralised, as modern technology simplifies and enhances remote working; or will there always be a need for an office presence? Unified communication vendor Fuze has recently released a report examining the topic, and we sat down with Kris Wood (VP EMEA), Bradlee Allen (product marketing manager) and Tom Pressley (marketing director for Europe) of the company (our meeting co-ordinated and performed through Fuze, naturally!) to discuss it.

As remote working continues to become more popular, the use of BYOD is also on the rise: 43 per cent of employees now use their own laptops, phones, tablets or other devices for work purposes. That definitely has implications for security, and Wood says that there are two elements to the trend: workplace data, and ensuring that it is safe); and employees' own personal data, and ensuring that businesses don't have the right to wipe it from a device.

BYOD is infiltrating the workplace - Kris Wood, Fuze

Firms have vastly different ways of handling the BYOD trend, from embracing it to banning it. The former is certainly the more common approach, and in some ways, it can be more secure: a user with their own phone will be more careful with its security than something that they have been leant by their place of work. Tightly-controlled business devices are inherently more secure, but there are solutions to handle this aspect as well, such as software partitions or separate user accounts.

The iPhone, launched in 2007, was a key enabler of remote working and redefined the way that mobility was used in the workforce. "We realised that the smartphone was going to become the primary device of the future," said Wood. Prior to this, remote workers required a supplied physical endpoint, like a Cisco phone, to stay in touch with their place of work.

Face-to-face interaction remains important, even for a UC business like Fuze - like executives at other firms, the company think it is best to begin interactions with a physical meeting, and move towards remote collaboration later on. Certain roles will always be performed more efficiently in an office, and 86 per cent of employees agree.

82 per cent of worldwide respondents thought that young people bring a benefit to the workplace. This 'app generation,' who have never known a world without a smartphone, are much more keen on the concept of remote working than their older counterparts: the study shows that 79 per cent of teens would like to work from home. 70 per cent of 16-24 year-olds would like to be more mobile at work, but only 49 per cent of those aged 55+.

The age gap in UC adoption is pronounced, but no matter their age, study respondents worldwide agreed that they had high confidence in being able to work from home with the right technology. Fuze focuses on usability, and ensuring that it provides a consumer-type experience, which is important: "If it's difficult or clunky to use, you can alienate both ends of the workforce spectrum," said Wood. "The older generation will continue to use their traditional tools…and the younger workforce will just go and download something else from the App Store." Easy consumption directly correlates to use.

Business leaders need to change their way of thinking

91 per cent of IT leaders in the study said that they were under pressure from executives to reduce costs, rather than innovation and revenue generation: almost half (44 per cent) are being judged by their ability to save money.

"Business leaders need to change their way of thinking to allow [IT leaders] to drive that innovation - that seems to be one of the main challenges," Wood told us.

As well as cutting costs, IT leaders are under pressure to introduce and deploy the newest technologies, which is crucial for attracting new, young employees. 75 per cent of the app generation want to be able to use the latest technology at work, and almost half (48 per cent) of employees worldwide said that their employer did not provide adequate technology. Much like software, if the app generation believes that the tools that they are supplied with are not up to par, they will turn to their own devices - which, as mentioned above, can be a security risk.

Anecdotally, as a precursor to this report Fuze brought a group of teenagers into a workplace to see how they would interact with different devices. Desk phones and computers were no problem, but fax machines were a whole different story: "They couldn't understand why you'd insert a piece of paper in the top a box just to get it out of the other end!"

Fuze's session on this topic at the recent UC Expo in London is embedded below.