There’s no doubt that remote working is the future. Research has found that, on the whole, people who work remotely are happier. Among millennials, 70% already spend their time working away from office, while 40% of 50 years or older are making the transition to a remote working lifestyle.
When executed in the right way it has huge cost saving potential for businesses, enables them to recruit from around the world, and can increase employee loyalty through providing benefits, such as flexible working.
The key to success is creating a business environment conducive to remote working. That means embedding a culture of trust, transparency and accountability. Then find out what the relevant supply markets have to offer. This will give you a sense of the art of the possible in terms of available technology that will support a “remote working culture”.
Then determine how your organisation wants to do remote working and collaboration. Assess the benefits, identify and mitigate the risks. Based on those insights, create a strategy for procuring the required technology infrastructure. This strategy is crucial: where you invest your money and how you invest it can make or break your business.
Here are some areas to consider when planning to create an effective remote working environment.
Procuring the right technology
Your employees may not be in the office, so their online presence needs to make up for their lack of physical presence. A lot of companies struggle with remote working because they’ve taken the step of changing how their business functions without investing in the infrastructure to support that new way of working. Here are a few points to consider when determining which technology solutions are right for your unique situation:
- Accessible data. Technology that is easy to access from anywhere in the world, in any time zone, is crucial to creating the right working environment. Cloud-based software is becoming more popular as a way to make this happen. Apps like Google Drive are an excellent way to keep your data secure but accessible to a global workforce.
- Clear communication. Clear communication is also key to a thriving remote working environment, and the right technology can help make that happen.
- Several companies have created company Wikis, which are pages of easily accessible information so their employees never feel lost.
- Others use instant messaging or chat apps that allow employees to chat with each other virtually, ensuring clear communication without having to put it in an email.
- Ensuring your remote employees can still join meetings is key to them feeling part of the team. Video is key here: it helps everyone feel like they are present in the room. Non-verbal communication is an essential part of how we do business and video makes that possible.
- Remote hardware. If you have a remote workforce, it’s important to set them up with the right hardware to do their jobs. Smartphones are often crucial, as well as laptops or tablets.
Training
Training plays a crucial role in how well a workforce functions. If employees feel out of their depth or inadequately trained to do their job, it can demotivate them. This, naturally, creates poor-quality work and means you never see the results you’re hoping for.
This issue gets slightly trickier with a remote workforce. A lot of the time, co-workers and leaders can notice when an employee seems hassled or stressed when working in an office. It gives them the opportunity to take that person aside and rectify the problem, simply because they observed the issue. But remote working doesn’t allow you that luxury. So how do you make sure your employees feel supported, trained and equipped to do their jobs?
Constant training
Make sure you hold online training sessions on a regular basis, updating all your employees on the skills necessary for the company to thrive. This includes training on any new processes that you’ve put in place, as well as refresher courses on programs they may already be familiar with.
Make sure the remote working technology solutions you chose are able to support this need for continuous online training
Project management tools
One of the biggest concerns with remote work is that the employees are not really working – after all, not being in the office means that there is no one to supervise them. This fear has been largely proven a myth and while remote working may not work for some companies, it does for most with the right culture and tools in place.
One of those tools should be project management software. This allows you to set clear goals, sync schedules, and track progress on a project. Some tools allow you to track the amount of time an employee puts in, so you can see how much they are actually working. This is not only useful for a remote workforce, but also for the workforce in your office. Just because you can see them doesn’t mean you can see what they’re doing – and it may not be work.
Keeping the team inspired
If your employees are not inspired and engaged in their jobs, it is unlikely they will be giving their best. Motivating your employees – making them feel part of a team that is sharing a common goal – is important, especially for those who work remotely.
But how do you recreate what is known as the ‘water-cooler moments’ in a remote workforce? Remote working makes it hard to casually ask about a person’s day, enquire after their families, and make them feel included.
Several companies have overcome this by echoing their employees’ online social lives in a company setting. They have company social media pages for their employees that allow them to post activities, share pictures and just include their colleagues a bit in their lives outside the office. Others hold remote meet-ups in several different locations, so their employees can attend. Others ensure they hold virtual meetings that reinforce company culture, goals and mission.
Remote working is important to stay competitive in today’s world. When Dell rolled out its ‘Connected Workplace Program’ in 2009, it aimed to give its employees flexibility to shape their work lives as they wished. Ten years on and the success shows: they’ve saved over $39.5 million since 2014, significantly reduced their carbon footprint in terms of the CO2 saved by eliminating commuting, and saved 25 million kWh of electricity since 2013.
With the right procurement strategy to create the perfect working environment, that success could be yours as well. Contact our Managing Director, Armand Brevig, to make this possible today.
