Employers today go far with the flexibility they give their employees. Not only the place and time in which they work may vary, but also the equipment used for it. The expectations of the IT department are sometimes unrealistically high.

“Employees expect a lot,” notes Andreas Van Puyenbroeck, Category Manager Northwest Europe at HP. “They want to work on a laptop of their choice, at a desk they have set up at home, with their preferred screen, their own mouse and keyboard, and possibly a webcam of their choice.” IT departments make all of that possible today, however Sometimes misunderstandings arise when support is a little more difficult in the event of a problem.”

Andreas sits at the table with Sven Den Uijl, Channel Manager Benelux Smart Collaboration at Lenovo, Willem Magerman, CTO at Dilaco and Stefaan Arryn, VP People at Silverfin. The gentlemen discuss the challenges and advantages of hybrid working after it has become the norm following the Corona pandemic.

Your own budget, your own choice

Magerman supports the idea that everyone can work on the equipment he or she prefers. The company provides a generous budget every three years. “This allows employees to design their home desk according to their wishes,” he says. “We don’t care what they buy and where. If they want something very special, they have to enforce it themselves, but conversely, they cannot spend the budget if they do not think it is necessary.”

We don’t care what they buy and where.

Willem Magerman, CTO Dilaco

Den Uijl and his HP colleagues are a little shocked by this freedom. “So there’s no curated list of acceptable hardware?” Magerman says there isn’t even a list of online stores: people can really buy whatever they want. This gives us a big example of the consumerization of business IT: Manufacturers like HP and Lenovo now have to convince not only IT buyers of their devices, but increasingly also the end users themselves.

Silverfin follows a similar strategy by not forcing hardware on its employees. “Even before the Covid pandemic, we tried to recruit people wherever they could find us,” explains Arryn, “as long as it was within one or three time zones from Belgium.” Although Silverfin treats employees as full employees they often have some kind of freelance contract. This in turn means, above all, that they themselves bear a large part of the responsibility for their hardware.

Take responsibility

How does support work then? Can the IT team ensure this? For Arryn, this is a problem that doesn’t come up too often. “We actually get by with one IT person,” he laughs. “That’s the advantage of a company that consists mainly of IT people. These people want to solve their problem themselves, be it in consultation or in consultation with colleagues.”

We actually get by with an IT expert.

Stefaan Arryn, VP People Silverfin

“Plus, in a modern environment, it’s hard to go wrong,” notes Magerman. We mainly use SaaS applications. There’s not much that really needs to be installed on a laptop anymore.” Even if a laptop breaks completely, an employee can easily log in with a new one later.

Dilaco also doesn’t place too much emphasis on internal support. “If something isn’t working, we expect employees to come to the office,” explains Magerman. “If they can connect their screen, mouse and keyboard there, we know there is no problem with the laptop. The rest is their responsibility.”

This approach seems to work well. “We’re finding that those who aren’t sure are taking a close look at the setup in the office and replicating it at home,” says Magerman. Anyone who decides to use a different, unique way to use their home office is on their own, but in his opinion that’s not a catastrophe either. “If you decide to do something special, you can usually solve a problem yourself.”

Complete support from a partner

Den Uijl notes that Silverfin and Dilaco’s rudimentary approach is somewhat at odds with another trend in the market: DaaS. With Device-as-a-Service, companies pay monthly costs per employee for comprehensive support. A partner provides equipment to employees and is involved in maintenance and support.

For large companies, the predictability of DaaS costs is a big advantage

Sven Den Uijl, Channel Manager Benelux Smart Collaboration Lenovo

“At the moment it is mainly large companies that rely on DaaS,” he admits. “The ability to plan costs is a big advantage for them. Software on the computer monitors all parameters and can sound an alarm if something is about to go wrong. This means an employee can make an appointment in the office within one to two weeks and everything will be clarified before a problem actually arises. And if there’s something wrong with the laptop, you’ll get a new one straight away.”

(Not) just for the big boys

Dilaco offers IT support to other companies as one of its core activities. “The smallest DaaS customer we have in Belgium has around 3,600 employees,” he says. “I don’t think DaaS is typically cheaper in the long run, but for companies this large, the additional costs outweigh the predictability they get.”

Van Puyenbroeck sees another category of companies using DaaS. “There are certainly small companies that choose DaaS,” he notes. “These are companies where productivity is critical. For some companies, it’s simply not possible for a piece of equipment to fail and someone to be unable to work for a day. Just think of researchers who might lose data from experiments, but also of other companies where the cost of one person being lost is very high. They want an immediate change with a new device.”

There are certainly small companies that choose DaaS

Andreas Van Puyenbroeck, Category Manager Northwest Europe HP

Always ready?

However, DaaS and other forms of support face new challenges, and not just when it comes to teleworking. “People not only work in different places, but also at different times,” notes Magerman. “They go to the bank or pick up the children from school during working hours and then continue working in the evening.”

Arryn sees this too. “We don’t look at hours, we look at performance.” This can be useful for your own support. “If someone goes to the media market to replace a device, this can be done during working hours.” But for large organizations with complex problems, IT support needs to be stretched.

“We are increasingly being asked to make our service desk available outside of office hours,” says Magerman. “Sometimes companies have their own IT department and want us to take over after five in the evening, or we are asked to provide support until ten in the evening. In some cases, customers even ask us to be on site to resolve an issue, regardless of time.”

New paradigm

What is striking is that the type of support has changed as a result of hybrid working. Employees are sometimes given more responsibility, but DaaS is also becoming more and more interesting. The role of external support is increasing, so that employees receive help anytime and anywhere.

At the same time, it is noticeable that hybrid working has not created a new consensus regarding support. Employee expectations remain high, and different companies are adopting different strategies to deal with them. The entire table agrees on one point: a clear policy with clear expectations between employer and employee is key.

This is the final editorial article in a three-part series on hybrid works. Click on our topic page to see all roundtable articles, the video and our partners.