Work from Anywhere: The Secret to Unlocking Once-Hidden Productivity and Creativity Gems

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Work from Anywhere: The Secret to
Unlocking Once-Hidden Productivity and
Creativity Gems
Transcript of a discussion on how a bellwether UK accounting services firm has shown how consistent,
secure, and efficient digital work experiences lead to heightened team collaboration and creative new
workflows.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Citrix.
Dana Gardner: Hi, this is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and you’re
listening to BriefingsDirect.
Now that hybrid work models have been the norm for a year, what’s the long-term impact on
worker productivity? Will the pandemic-induced shift to work from anywhere agility translate into
increased employee benefits -- and better business outcomes -- over time?
Stay with us now as we explore how a bellwether UK accounting services firm has shown how
consistent, secure, and efficient digital work experiences lead to heightened team collaboration
and creative new workflows.
To learn more about the ways that distributed work models fuel
innovation, we’re now joined by our guests, Chris Madden,
Director of IT and Operations for Kreston Reeves, LLP in the
UK. Welcome, Chris.
Chris Madden: Thank you.
Gardner: We’re also here with Tim Minahan, Executive Vice
President of Business Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer at
Citrix. Welcome back, Tim.
Tim Minahan: Hey, Dana, thanks for having me.
Gardner: Tim, we’ve been in a work-from-anywhere mode for a
year. Is this panning out as so productive and creative that people are considering making it a
permanent feature of their businesses?
Workers, businesses welcome work from anywhere
Minahan: Dana, if there’s one small iota of a silver lining in this global crisis we’ve all been
going through together it’s that it has shone a light on the importance of flexible and remote
work models.
Madden

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Companies are now rethinking their workforce strategies and work models -- as well as the role
the office will play in this new world of work. And employees are, too. They’re voting with their
feet, moving out of high-cost, high-rent districts like San Francisco and New York because they
realize they can not only do their work effectively remotely, but they can also be more
productive and have a better work life.
A few data points that are important: This isn’t a temporary shift. The pandemic has opened
folks’ eyes to what’s possible with remote work. In fact, in a recent Gartner study, 82 percent of
executives surveyed plan to make remote work and flexible work a more permanent part of their
workforce and cost-management strategies -- and it’s for very good business reasons.
As the pandemic has proven, this distributed work model can significantly lower real estate and
IT costs. But more importantly, the companies that we talk to, the most forward-looking ones,
are realizing that flexible work models make them more attractive as an employer. And that
prompts them to rethink their staffing strategies because they have access to new pools of
talent and in-demand skills of workers that live well beyond commuting distance to one of their
work hubs.
Such flexible work models can also advance other key corporate initiatives like sustainability
and diversity, which are increasingly becoming board-level priorities at most companies. Those
companies that remain laggards -- that are still somewhat reluctant to embrace remote work or
flexible work as a more permanent part of their strategies -- may soon be forced to change as
their employees look for more flexible work approaches.
We’ve heard about the mass exodus from some
of those large metropolitan areas to more
suburban – and even rural locales. At Citrix, our
own research of thousands of workers and IT and
business executives finds that more than three-
quarters of workers now prefer to shift to a more
remote and flexible work model -- even if it means taking a pay cut. And 80 percent of workers
say that flexible work arrangements will be a top selection criterion when evaluating employers
in the future.
Gardner: Chris, based on your experience at Kreston Reeves, do you agree that these changes
to a more flexible and hybrid work location model are here to stay?
Madden: I would. At Kreston Reeves, we are expecting to move permanently to a three- or two-
days a week in an office with the remaining time working from home and away from the office.
That’s for many of the reasons already covered, such as reduced commuter time, reduced
commuting cost, more time at home with family, best work-life balance, and a lot better for the
environment as well because of people travelling less and all those greenhouse gases not going
up into the atmosphere.
Gardner: We certainly hear how there are benefits to the organization. But how about the end
users, the customers? Have your experiences at Kreston Reeves led you to believe that you
can maintain the quality of service to your customers and consumers?
Madden: It’s probably ultimately going to be a balance. I don’t think it will shift totally one way or
go back to how it was. I think for our customers and clients, there are distinct advantages,
80 percent of workers say that
flexible work arrangements will be a
top selection criterion when
evaluating employers in the future.

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depending on the type of work. There isn’t always a need to go and have a face-to-face meeting
that can take a lot of time for people, time that they could spend elsewhere in their business.
Depending on the nature of the interactions, quite a lot will shift to video calling, which has
become the norm over the last year even as in the past people may have thought it impersonal.
So I think that will become a lot more accepted, and face-to-face meetings will be then kept for
those meetings that really require everybody to sit down together.
Gardner: It sounds like we’re into a more fit-for-purpose approach. If it’s really necessary, that’s
fine, we can do it. But if it’s not necessary, there are benefits to alleviating the pressure on
people.
Tell us, Chris, about how your organization operates and how you reacted to the pandemic.
To Gain Business Advantage,
Companies Must Support Hybrid Work Models.
Learn More How Digital Workspaces Can Help.
Madden: Yes, we began best part of 10 years ago, when we moved on to Citrix as the
platform to distribute computer services to our users. Over the years, we have upgraded that
and added on the remote-access solutions. And so, when it came to early 2020 and the
pandemic, we were ready to take off. We could see where we were heading in terms of
lockdowns and the pandemic, so we closed two or three of our offices -- just to see how the
system coped.
It was designed to do that, but would it really work when we actually closed the offices and
everybody worked from home? Well, it worked brilliantly, and was very easy to deal with. And
then a few days after that, the UK government announced the first national lockdown and
everybody had to work from home within a day.
From our point of view, it worked really well. The only wrinkles in the whole process were to get
everybody the appropriate apps on their phones to make sure they could have remote access
using multifactor authentication. But otherwise, it was very seamless; the system was designed
to cope with everybody working from anywhere -- and it did.
Gardner: Chris, we often hear that there is a three-legged stool when it comes to supporting
business process -- as in people, technology, and process. Did you find that any of those three
was primary? What led you to succeed in making such as rapid transition when it comes to the
three pillars?
A whole new world of flexible, hybrid, dynamic work
Madden: I think it’s all three of those things. The
technology is the enabler, but the people need to be
taken with you, and the processes have to adapt for
new ways of working. I don’t think any one of those
three would lead. You have to do all three together.
Technology is the enabler, but
the people need to be taken with
you, and the processes have to
adapt for new ways of working.

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Gardner: Tim, how does Citrix enable organizations to keep all three of those plates in the air
spinning, if you will, especially on that point about the right applications on the right device at the
right time?
Minahan: What’s clear in our research -- and what we’re
seeing from our customers -- is that we’re accelerating to a
new world of work. And it’s a more hybrid and flexible world
where that employee experience become a key differentiator.
To the point Chris was making, success is going to go to those
organizations that can deliver a consistent and secure work
experience across any and all work channels -- all the Slacks,
all of the apps, all the Teams, and in any work location.
Whether work needs to be done in the office, on the road, or at
home, delivering that consistent and secure work experience --
so employees have secure and reliable access to all their work
resources – needs to come together to service end customers
regardless of where they’re at.
Kreston Reeves is not alone in what they have
experienced. We’re seeing this across every
industry. In addition to the change in work models,
we are also seeing a rapid acceleration of their
digitization efforts, whether it is in the financial
services sector, or other areas such as retail and
healthcare. They may have had plans to digitize
their business, but over the past year they’ve out of
necessity had to digitize their business.
For example, there’s the healthcare provider in your neck of the woods, up in the Boston area,
Dana, that has seen a 27-times increase in monthly telemedicine visits. During the COVID
crisis, they went from 9,000 virtual visits per month to over 250,000 per month -- and they
don’t think they’re ever going to go back.
In the financial services sector, we hear consistently customers hiring thousands of new
advisors and loan officers in order to handle the demand – all in a remote and digital
environment. What’s so exciting, as I said earlier, is as companies begin to use these
approaches as key enablers, it becomes a liberator for them to rethink their workforce strategies
and reach for new skills and new talent that’s well beyond commuting distance to one of their
work hubs.
It’s not just about, “Should Sam or Suzy come back and work in the office full time?” That’s a
component of the equation. It’s not even about, “Do Sam and Suzy perform at their best even
when they’re working at home?” It’s about, “Hey, what should our workforce look like? Can we
now reach skills and talent that were previously inaccessible to us because we can empower
them with a consistent work experience through a digital workspace strategy?”
Gardner: How about that, Chris? Have you been simply repaving work-in-the-office paths with a
different type of work from home? Or are you reinventing and exploring new business processes
and workflows as a result of the flexibility?
Minahan
In addition to the change in work
models, we are also seeing a rapid
acceleration of their digitization
efforts, whether it is in the financial
services sector, or other areas such
as retail and healthcare.

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Remote work can still retain trust, security
Madden: There is much more willingness amongst businesses and the people working in
businesses to move quickly with technology. We’re past being cautious. With the pandemic, and
the pressure that that brings, people are more willing to move faster -- and be less concerned
about understanding everything that they may want to know before embracing technology.
The other thing is with relationships with clients. There is a balance, to not go as far as some
industries. Some never see their clients any longer because everything is done remotely, and
everything is automated through apps and technology.
And the correct balance that we will be
mindful of as we embrace remote working
-- and as we have more virtual meetings
with clients -- is that we still need to
maintain the relationship of being a
trusted advisor to the client -- rather than
commoditizing our product.
Gardner: I suppose one of the benefits to the way the technology is designed is that you can
turn the knobs. You can experiment with those relationships. Perhaps one client will require a
certain value toward in-person and face-to-face engagements. Another might not. But the fact is
the technology can accommodate that dynamic shift. It gives us, I think, some powerful tools.
Research Shows a Superior Employee Experience
Leads to Better Business Results.
Learn More About Delivering the Best Employee Work Environments.
Madden: Absolutely. The key is that for those clients who really want to embrace the modern
world and do everything digitally, there is a solution. If a client would still like to be very
traditional and have lots of invoices and things on paper and send those into their accountant,
that, too, can be accommodated.
But it is about moving the industry forward over time. And so, gradually I can see that
technology will become a bigger contributor to the overall service that we provide and will
probably do the basic accountancy work, producing an end result that a human then looks at
provides the answer back to the client.
Gardner: Now, of course, the materials that you’re dealing with are often quite sensitive and
there are business regulations. How did the reaction of your workforce and your customer base
come down on the issues of privacy, control, and security?
Madden: The clients trust that we will get it right and therefore look to us to provide the secure
solution for them. So, for example, there are clients who have an awful lot of information to send
us and cannot come into an office to hand over whatever that is.
As we have more virtual meetings with clients,
we still need to maintain the relationship of
being a trusted advisor to the client – rather
than commoditizing our product.

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We can get them new technologies that they haven’t used in the past such as Citrix ShareFile to
share those documents with us securely and efficiently, but in a way that allow us to bring those
documents into our systems and into the software we need to use to produce the accounts and
the audits for the clients.
Gardner: Tim, you mentioned earlier that sometimes when people are forced into a shift in
behavior, it’s liberating. Has that been the case with people’s perceptions around privacy and
security as well?
Minahan: If you’re going to provide a consistent and secure work experience, the other thing
folks are beginning to see as they embrace hybrid and more distributed work models is that their
security posture needs to evolve too. People aren’t all coming into the office every day to sit at
their desk on the corporate network, which had much better-defined parameters and arguably
was easier to secure.
Now, in a truly distributed work environment, you need to not only provide a digital workspace
that gives employees access to all the work resources they need -- and that is not just their
virtual desktops, but all of their software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps or web apps or mobile apps
– it needs to be all in one unified experience that’s accessible across any location.
It also needs to be secure. It needs to be wrapped in a holistic and contextual security model
that fosters not just zero trust access into that workspace, but ongoing monitoring and app
protection to detect and proactively remediate any access anomalies, whether initiated by a
user, a bot, or another app.
And so, that is another dynamic we’re
seeing. Companies are accelerating their
embrace of new more contextual zero
trust access security models as they look
forward to preparing themselves for how
they’re going to operate in a post-
pandemic world.
Gardner: Chris, I suppose another challenge has been the heterogeneity of the various apps
and data across the platforms and sources that you’re managing. How has working with a digital
Workspace environment helped you provide a singular view for your employees and end
customers? How do workspace environments help mitigate what had been a long-term
integration issue for IT consumption?
Madden: For us, whether we are working from home remotely or are in an office, we are
consuming the same desktop with the same software and apps as if we were sitting in an office.
It’s really exactly the same. From a colleague’s point of view, whether they are working from
home in a pandemic or sitting in their office in Central London, they are getting exactly the same
experience with exactly the same tools.
And so for them, it’s been a very easy transition. They’re not having to learn the technology and
different ways to access things. They can focus instead on doing the client work and making
sure that their home arrangement is sorted out.
Gardner: Tim, regardless of whether it’s a SaaS app, cloud app, on-premises data -- as long as
that workspace is mobile and flexible -- the complexity is hidden?
Companies are accelerating their embrace
of new more contextual zero trust access
security models as they look forward to
preparing themselves for how they’re going
to operate in a post-pandemic world.

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Unified, digital workspace simplifies, enhances work
Minahan: Well, there is another challenge that the pandemic has shone a light on, which is
this dirty little secret of the business world. And that is our work environment is too complex. For
the past 30 years, we’ve been giving employees access to new applications and devices. And
more recently, chat and collaboration tools -- all with the intent to help get work done.
While on an independent basis, each of these tools adds value and efficiency, collectively
they’ve created a highly fragmented and complex work environment that oftentimes interrupts,
distracts, and stresses out employees. It keeps them possibly from getting their actual work
done.
Just to give you a sense, with some real statistics: On any given workday, the typical employee
uses more than 30 critical apps to get their work done, oftentimes needing to navigate four or
more just to complete a single business process. They spend more than 20 percent of their time
searching across all of these apps and all of these collaboration channels to find the information
they need to make decisions to do their jobs.
To Gain Business Advantage,
Companies Must Support Hybrid Work Models.
Learn More How Digital Workspaces Can Help.
To make matters worse, now we’ve empowered these apps and these communication and
collaboration channels. They’re all vying for our attention throughout the day, shouting at us
about things we need to get done, and oftentimes distracting us from our core work. By some
estimates, all of these notifications, chats, texts, and other disruptions interrupt us from our core
work about every two minutes. That means the typical employee gets interrupted and forced to
switch context between apps, emails, and other chat channels more than 350 times each day.
Not surprisingly, what we are seeing is a huge productivity gap -- and it is turning our top talent
into task rabbits.
As companies think through this
next phase of work, how do they
provide a consistent and secure
work experience and a digital
workspace environment for
employees no matter where
they’re working? It not only be
needs to be unified -- giving them access to everything they need and security, ensuring that
corporate information, applications, and networks remain secure no matter where employees
are doing the work -- but it also needs to be intelligent.
Leveraging intelligent capabilities such as machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI)
assistance, bots, and micro apps personalize and simplify work execution. It’s what I call adding
an experience layer between an employee and their work resources. This simplifies their
interactions and work execution across all of the enterprise apps, content, and other resources
It not only needs to be unified – giving them access
to everything they need and security, ensuring that
corporate information, applications, and networks
remain secure no matter where employees are
doing the work – but it also needs to be intelligent.

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so employees are not overwhelmed and can perform at their best no matter where work needs
to get done.
Gardner: Chris, are you interested in elevating people from task rabbits to a higher order of
value to the business and their end users and customers? And is the digital environment and
workplace a part of that?
Madden: Absolutely. There are lots of processes, many firms, and across multiple campuses.
They have grown up over the years and they’ve always been done that way. This is a perfect
time to reappraise how we do those things smarter digitally using some robotic process
automation (RPA) tools and AI to take a lot of the rework and data from one system into another
to produce the end result for the client.
There is a lot of that on our radar for the coming year or two. We want to free our people up to
do more value-added work -- and it would be more interesting work for those people. It will give
a better quality of role for people, which will help us to attract better talent. And given the fact
that people now have a taste of a different work-life balance, there will be a lot of pressure on
new recruits to our business to continue with that.
Gardner: Chris, now that your organization has been at this for a year -- really thrust into much
more remote flexible work habits -- were there any unexpected and positive spins? Things that
you didn’t anticipate, but you could only find out with 20-20 hindsight?
Speed of switch to virtual increases overall efficiency
Madden: Yes. One is the speed at which our clients were happy to switch to video meetings
and virtual audits. Previously, on audits, we would send a team of people to a client’s premises
and they would look through the paperwork, look at the stock in a warehouse, et cetera, and
perform the audit physically. We were able to move quickly to doing that virtually.
For example, if we’re looking in a warehouse to check that a certain amount of stock is actually
present, we can now do that by a video call and walk around the warehouse and explain what
we’re looking for and see that on the screen and say, “Yes, okay, we know that that stock is
actually available.” It was a really big shift in mindset for our regulators, for ourselves, and for
our clients, which is a great positive because it means that we can become much more efficient
going forward.
The other one that sticks out in my
mind is the efficiency of our people.
When you’re at home, focusing on
the work and without the distractions
of an office, the noise, and the
conversations, people are generally
more efficient. There is still the need for a balance because we don’t want everybody just sitting
at home in silence staring at a screen. We miss out on some of the richness of business
relationships and conversations with colleagues, but it was interesting how productivity
generally increased during the lockdown.
We miss out on some of the richness of business
relationships and conversations with colleagues,
but it was interesting how productivity generally
increased during the lockdown.

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Gardner: Tim, is that what you’re finding more generally around the globe among the Citrix
installed base, that productivity has been on the uptick even after a 20- or 30-year period where,
in many respects and measurements, productivity has been flat?
Minahan: Yes, that is a trend we have been seeing for decades. Despite the introduction of
more technology, employee productivity continued to trend down, ironically, until the pandemic.
We talked with employees, executives, and through our own research and it shows that more
than 80 percent of employees feel that they’re as, if not more, productive when working from
home -- for a lot of the reasons that Chris mentions. What they’ve seen at Kreston Reeves has
continued to be sustained.
It’s introduced the need for more collaborative work management tools in the work environment
in order to foster and facilitate that higher level of engagement and that more efficient execution
that we mentioned earlier. But overall, whether it’s the capability to avoid the lengthy commute
or the ability to avoid distractions, employees are indeed seeing themselves as more productive.
In fact, we’re seeing a lot of customers now talk about how they need to rethink the very role of
the office. Where it’s not just a place where people come to punch their virtual time cards, but is
a place that’s more purpose-built for when you need to get together with a client or with other
teammates to foster collaboration. You still keep the flexibility to work remotely to focus on
innovation, creativity, and work execution that oftentimes, as Chris indicated, can be distracting
or difficult to achieve strictly in an office environment.
Research Shows a Superior Employee Experience
Leads to Better Business Results.
Learn More About Delivering the Best Employee Work Environments.
Gardner: Chris, what’s interesting to me about your business is you’re in a relationship with so
many client companies. And you were forced to go digital very rapidly -- but so were they. Is
there a digital transformation accelerant at work here? Because they all had to go digital at the
same is there a network effect?
Because your customers have gone digital, Chris, could you then be better digital providers in
your relationships together?
Collaborative communication to be continued
Madden: To an extent. It depends on the type of client industry that they’re in. In the UK,
certain industries have been shut for a long time and therefore, they are not moving digitally.
They are just stuck waiting until they are able to reopen. In the meantime, there’s probably very
little going on in those businesses.
Those businesses that are open and working are very much embracing modern technology. So,
one of the things that we’ve done for our audit clients, particularly, is providing different ways in
which they can communicate with us. Previously, we probably had a straightforward, one-way
approach. Now, we are giving clients three or four different ways they can communicate and
collaborate with us, which helps everybody and moves things along a lot more quickly.

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It is going to be interesting post-
pandemic. Will people intrinsically go
back to what they were always doing?
Will what drove us forward keep us
creating and becoming more digital or
will the instinct be to go back to how it
was because that’s how people are
more comfortable?
Gardner: Yes, it will be interesting to see if there’s an advantage for those who embrace digital
methods more and whether that causes a competitive advantage that the other organizations
will have to react to. So we’re in for an interesting ride for a few more years yet.
I’m afraid well we have to leave it there. You’ve been listening to a sponsored BriefingsDirect
discussion on how work from anywhere agility translates into often increased employee benefits
as well as better business outcomes.
And we’ve learned how a bellwether UK accounting services firm delivers consistent, secure,
and efficient digital work experiences for heightened team collaboration and improved work.
Please join me in thanking our guests, Chris Madden, Director of IT and Operations for Kreston
Reeves, LLP. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, Chris.
Madden: Thank you. It was my pleasure.
Gardner: And we’ve been here as well with Tim Minahan, Executive Vice President of Business
Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer at Citrix. Thank you so much, Tim.
Minahan: Thanks, Dana, a great conversation.
Gardner: And a big thank you as well to our audience for joining this special BriefingsDirect
remote work innovation discussion. I’m Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions,
your host throughout this series of Citrix-sponsored BriefingsDirect discussions.
Thanks again for listening, please pass this along to your business associates, and do come
back next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Citrix.
Transcript of a discussion on how a bellwether UK accounting services firm has shown how consistent,
secure, and efficient digital work experiences lead to heightened team collaboration and creative new
workflows. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2021. All rights reserved.
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Will what drove us forward keep us creating
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of 11
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