As the pandemic public health emergency declaration comes to an end, agencies continue to grapple with the question of whether employees should be in the office.

A 2022 Partnership for Public Service survey found that 54 percent of government workers do some form of hybrid work, 14 percent are fully remote and just 31 percent are in the office full time. Meanwhile, in the private sector, 42 percent of employees don’t have remote work options, according to a McKinsey report.

One key to supporting a hybrid workforce is virtual desktop infrastructure, which hosts the desktop on a centralized server and deploys it to end users on demand.

“The federal government has deeply embraced VDI for decades,” says Jeff McGrath, senior director of product marketing for end-user computing at VMware.

VDI lets end users access virtual desktops from any device or location, and it helps IT departments better protect data and devices. This infrastructure helped agencies support fully remote workers at the height of the pandemic, and it should suit them well as more workers return to the office — though some IT policies will need another look.

DISCOVER: How VMware can help your agency transition to a multicloud platform.