As people return to their office environments, it’s paramount to instill a sense that you’ve got their backs. A safe and positive return experience is key to gaining their confidence and maintaining their trust.

There are three immediate priorities for a safe transition back to on-premises work: Plan, profile, and protect. Most large banks have developed a plan and are confident in their ability to protect and enable people at work. But deciding the profile of who should return, and when, is more complex—this requires the right blend of what’s possible under regulations, what’s needed regarding operational efficacy, and what’s feasible and preferable in terms of employees’ wellbeing.

COVID-19 reminded everyone that a crisis can occur at any time, with little or no warning. Banks and other businesses view working from home as a way to quickly respond and maintain productivity if they are hit by another major disruption.

Thanks to complete visibility and integration, banking leaders can continually improve workforce operations to suit how employees work. With AI, workflows can be automated, with integrated processes across a single platform making getting work done even easier.

In the future, it’s likely automation will be embedded in the enterprise for repeatable, cognitive tasks, freeing staff to focus on moments of value to enhance customer experiences. More and more, the tasks they perform will be evaluated as to how they impact customer services. Moving forward, banks will work with more than one service provider to spread risk, bring more activity back onshore through managed service arrangements, and take automation and digitization to the next level.

COVID-19 has shown that banks can work in different ways while remaining productive and delivering customers the experiences they want most. Now they need to focus on sustainable hybrid working models. This means challenging their own culture. There’s a huge opportunity to decisively accelerate digitization, increased automation, and reshape workforces. Work needs to be designed for how people work, throughout their careers. Avaya is galvanizing change in digital communications, opening a whole ecosystem of tools and technologies so people can work together in real time with maximum productivity and comfort.