Paulo Bonucci, SVP and General Manager, Red Hat Latin America, explains what cultural and strategic changes companies need to empower people.
The vision of the future is not always about flying cars, teleportation or Smart Cities. It is about the people who make all possible – something we have witnessed in recent years.
We are at the beginning of the year. The past year has flown by and in 12 months, we have witnessed innovation, change and the famous ‘new normal’.
2022 was a year marked by the return to a routine that has evolved with the pandemic. Yes, once again, I am talking about that small white elephant in the middle of the room that forced communities, countries and the entire world to stop and take a second to reflect and, once confident, move forward.
At the center of all that, while teleworking became the norm and telecommunications the star players, the human factor shone under the stadium lights in a masterful play where the victory was collaborative. Companies began to appreciate a different and open way of working that meant making profound changes rooted in culture.
Those changes were both external and internal. Working from home – a novelty for many companies at the beginning of 2020 – has become the standard, in a way that many companies have decided to adopt as a working methodology for the future.
But just as it allowed us to take ownership of our time and find ways to be more productive, it also deprived us of sharing common spaces, being connected and maintaining contact.
That is when the open culture model was tested, in which fluid communication was key and the trust in the team had to be equal.
Companies forced to adopt this way of working also had to adapt their technological infrastructure and find ways to create closeness despite being far away.
At Red Hat, remote work, and today, a hybrid approach, was not a surprise since it has always supported this way of relating based on open-source codes.
A hybrid normalcy
Today we enter a new normalcy that has become hybrid. We face obstacles and build experiences by merging in-person, virtual and on-demand elements. To continue in the game, we must prioritize flexibility – which is the main factor of our culture.
Open-source software thrived under a community of developers who worked remotely and asynchronously but with shared goals. Before the pandemic, more than 30% of Red Hatters already worked in that format.
Over the years, we have built teams and achieved goals, regardless of where we physically were. It was thanks to flexibility and willingness that we managed to overcome the uncertainty of the pandemic.
And like everything, it required great work of leaders and teams to get to where we are now. And this is how we will continue to do it in the future: Always learning from mistakes and prioritizing our communities to navigate the right course, but remaining true to our culture, being flexible and listening to what people have to say.
We also had internal changes, such as the new position of Matt Hicks as Red Hat’s global leader. Paul Cormier, Chairman, Red Hat, said: “Matt is the archetype of the authentic Red Hatter, and there is no doubt that he is the right person for this position.”
We should not fear change because it represents that we can still learn and innovate.
Red Hat Brazil’s new offices are examples of that evolution, with innovative and intelligent spaces that seek to enhance connections and encourage collaboration under the concept of the future of work.
Red Hatters and collaborators can choose when to go to the offices and how to work, whether at desks, shared tables or comfortably in our armchairs. This space is a renewal of Red Hat’s commitment to its employees, but it is also a testimony to a future vision in which work does not dominate people’s lives but adapts to them.
The office used to be where we used to work, but that concept is now in the past. By providing the choice of when to attend, we have transformed it into a place where it is possible to reconnect and reunite.
The future of work can have moments where we can forget about tensions and pressures and celebrate the culture that united us in the first place. In short, it is about regaining the true sense of being together in the same space: Being a community.
What will the workspace of the future look like?
The arrival of the hybrid cloud, for example, caught some companies off guard while others were able to adapt to it. The future of work seems to function similarly. But, sooner or later, all companies will have to adopt it. Only in this way will the future become the present, and we will dream of what will later become an innovation.
The future of work is also to create new opportunities democratically and openly. The search for knowledge is the goal, trying to satiate the infinite source of curiosity. But preparing for the future can mean many things in this new normal.
For some, it will be traditional education, following a set plan with just enough flexibility to adapt to changes.
For others, it will be an unorthodox form of training, taking advantage of opportunities that some companies are providing and learning on the job.
