Over the past several years, the adoption of hybrid work has accelerated at a rapid pace. Driven initially by the need for organizational resilience and the ability to continue government operations throughout a crisis, it is now seen as a "quality of life" and "recruitment differentiator" for employees.

For hybrid work scenarios to be effective, however, employees and constituents must be able to trust the systems as secure, protecting their personal information as well as sensitive government operations. Being able to turn your likeness into a cat for courtroom conversations is much less important than the end-to-end security provided by Cisco solutions.

For example, in cities in one of our larger US states on the east coast, we saw example after example of customers choosing WEBEX as the secure, reliable solution they could depend on. Large cities' mayors leverage WEBEX as the platform to securely orchestrate their daily operations. Employees not able to be on-site due to the pandemic lockdowns could stay productive and impactful over a network secured by Cisco VPN with DUO authentication and Umbrella DNS protections. From an educational institution perspective, large Universities rapidly migrated over 300,000 accounts to WEBEX so that students were able to complete their semesters remotely from locations around the globe.

The success of these crisis operations rapidly transitioned into the "normal" way of work....hybrid work. The increased flexibility of being able to work from almost anywhere not only provides the resilience a government needs but is also enabling a people-first experience for the employees. By reducing time lost to long commutes, individuals can reduce out-of-pocket expenses, spend more time with their families, and have the flexibility to get work done instead of spending lost time on the road/rail.

Hybrid work is here to stay. Cisco makes it secure, resilient, and provides the platform needed for effective and productive work. For more information on solutions for government, check out Cisco's Portfolio Explorer.