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Welcome to an era of remote operations! In this tech-driven competitive domain of work, remote working has become the new customary of progressive organizations. It's a great way to decrease your carbon footprint and eliminate the full parking lot. This is an effective way for large and small businesses to act against climate change. A considerate remote working strategy is now an obligation for many organizations.
The development of captivating technologies has an immense contribution towards remote working culture. Laptops, Smart devices, prompt messaging interfaces, and Wi-Fi accessibility improved the possibility of virtually working from any place. The new culture also has significantly helped remote workers to offer productivity even while traveling to foreign countries.
Furthermore, as you can recall, what really made popular the current work from home culture was the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic. Isolation and lockdown imposed mandatory work from home for many organizations. For safeguarding remote employees, remote working culture emerged as a new working standard at a global stage.
As a result of this flexible approach to work, many organizations witnessed a surge in the productivity of employees. Employees, with an absence of long commute times, found more time to reinvent their purposes in a job role. Plus, remote work offers cost savings that cannot be denied. Focused working was also an evident perk with the nonexistence of workplace interruptions.
In a survey about work from home productivity in March 2021, six of ten employees stated they were more productive in the new work from home culture. On average, the employee’s output was 7% higher than was anticipated. These pieces of data accumulated clearly depict that work from home is beneficial for organizations. However, employers should also know that entering into this new work culture also has some drawbacks.
The physical office space will still be the domicile where employees can come in to work. So if you adopt the work from home culture as a test run to improve productivity, you should offer a similar work experience to these employees at home. This blog will offer you tips on providing a similar work experience to employees while working at home.
Allowing the employees to work from remote areas is no doubt a modern approach. The good thing about this is it offers benefits to both companies and employees. The biggest benefit is that employees can be safety if any health crises arise, while companies achieve more productivity to meet client demands. During the pandemic, we noticed some indispensable benefits achieved by organizations. Here is how remote working has helped companies.
During the preliminary days of remote working, one of the advantages that strongly moved employees was the absence of commuting. As the employees worked from home, they discovered that they didn’t need time to get ready for office and travel. Studies show that the average time for traveling to offices in the United States every day is 52 minutes. Cutting out this long-distance traveling lets you dedicate more time to completing actual tasks.
The absence of this traveling time offers more time to employees to focus on their remote jobs and important projects. It has significantly resulted in improvement of productivity. Further, more time spent doing hobbies and with families also empowered employees to rediscover themselves. This has been reflected in the efficiency of employees.
Previously, working from home served as a working option for employees that were sick. Even if employees came back after a short while of remote working, there was still a risk of disease spreading among other employees. This gradually led to absenteeism. However, work from home culture has certainly eliminated absenteeism. Employees working at home experience health benefits. And this is true for both physical health as well as mental health. Furthermore, employees avoid unnecessary absenteeism as they can achieve a better work-life balance working on a remote team.
While the workplace was once highly regarded as the ultimate place to get things done, it also indulged distractions. Workplace distractions can be employee-generated and management-generated.
Employee-generated distractions are usually gossip, debating about social issues, and snack times. Management-generated distractions included things like immediate managerial meetings, team meetings, and many more.
However, working from home allows employees to stay away from all these distractions. Usually, employees in remote working cultures have a dedicated work area or even a home office. This way they are exposed to fewer social distractions. They get to achieve that focused working atmosphere to deliver efficiency.
Trust is another element of the working relationship that can be quite fragile. And every employer should know that establishing trust in employees boosts self-confidence. It creates an unbreakable bond between employer and employee. And eventually offers better productivity. Allowing employees to work from home, at their own liberty, signifies trust that will make the bond even more robust.
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While remote working has significant outcomes, it can also have shortcomings. Entering this new culture may tempt you initially. But eventually, you might discover a few obstacles. Work from home culture, like anythings else, also has its drawbacks. Here are the cons that you should consider.
Although remote work is flexible, it sets boundaries between teams, employees, management, and administration. Communication in remote working is heavily dependent on email to reach clients.
Plus, webinars and video conferences have replaced traditional board meetings. In this new work environment, it can be difficult for some employees to stay on the same page. This is especially evident in companies that were mostly offline before the pandemic.
There’s no denying that work from home is safe for employees in many ways. It saves time, cost, and offers the ability to spend more time with family. Plus it also results in lower costs for the business.
But sometimes, working from home feels like isolation. Especially for those who may not get opportunities for interaction with others outside of work. The human body releases oxytocin and serotonin (feel-good chemicals) while interacting with colleagues and this helps boost energy levels. For example, if someone cracks a joke in the lunchroom, it immediately lightens the mood.
On the flip side, some people might be better able to tend to their emotional needs outside of the physical workspace. And that's simply because they are surrounded by fewer people. So how do you, as the employer, strike that balance with work from home? The fact is, work from home lacks colleague interactions. And that makes many employees feel isolated.
Usually, companies install high-quality systems in the workplace to deliver work without any obstacles and challenges. Systems come powered with robust processors, while internet connectivity is super-fast. Besides, workplaces have other essential equipment like printers, office furniture, projectors, and wireless phones. A lot of these help with seamless connectivity within teams. But in remote working, most of these technologies get compromised by employees. And this gradually impacts the efficiency of employees.
Companies who identify these obstacles and empower employees with appropriate alternatives can achieve a win-win situation.
Now that you know the cons, you should also recognize the befitting alternatives for these obstacles.
Here are a few tips to empower employees and achieve more productivity.
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Remote working, as you know, sets boundaries in the interaction between team members and management. You will have people working in different cities or even different time zones that may need to be part of video chats or conferences.
Lack of communication channels can affect your operations with errors and hassles. If you want to succeed in the remote working culture, you need to focus on internal communications with robust, real-time communication platforms.
Here are a few considerations for your work from home routine:
The rule of thumb for a successful remote working culture is always trusting employees. While working from home, managers and supervisors must convey trust to their teams. Offer employees greater flexibility and facilitate their different working styles. However, be clear about deadlines and expectations.
Working from home doesn’t mean that employees will work even at midnight for you. You need to establish a strong work-life balance. Even your best talent has a breaking point. So you want to avoid setting long hours.
Set up a consistent work schedule with necessary breaks that are easy to follow. Where extra time is required to complete tasks, employees should be notified ahead of time.
While time at work is important, it’s also necessary to strike that work-life balance. This will help employees to maintain at least some semblance of regular home life. A normal working day identical to the workplace also offers employees time with friends and family members, which is vital.
Additionally, the communication times with the core team or others must also be scheduled. Give people a heads-up. Random communication must be avoided (unless it is essential). Employers must be ready to listen to employees rather than always commanding employees while remote working. Commanding builds pressure that can affect productivity even for your best people.
Many times employees working at home find themselves with unexpected duties. In such cases, flexibility is key. When needed, allow employees to work outside normal hours, full-time or part-time. That is unless it will impact daily operations.
Many employees may not fit into work from a home culture based on the nature of the job. For example, office workers like receptionists, greeters, and call center employees don’t fit into the mainstream remote working culture. However, employers can still make arrangements for such employees.
These employees must have devices that can still redirect calls to another part of the office to maintain the workflow. Companies must equip employees with the right tools so they can perform duties with full efficiency.
As stated above, lack of tools, technology, and robust IT support is an obstacle in remote working. The best way to address such a challenge is by offering precise IT support and software solutions through the help of digital tools. This helps employees to better communicate and report incidents. Companies can offer advanced systems to employees, keeping a record of what system is allotted to which employee.
Offering the company’s system also gives you better control. You can track employee activity with remote connections and servers. Your security layers will also protect your data. Apart from IT support, companies should also empower employees to get super-fast internet connectivity and reimburse for internet with salary.
Digital security is an important concern, especially for tech companies, telecommunication, and the IT workforce. Usually, employees working from home are doing actual work in an unprotected environment with the absence of the usual security layers.
Employees using their own systems run the risk of computer viruses that can affect your operations. Viruses can compromise client data or internal data integrity. Even in company-provided systems, there are chances of getting viruses through downloading files with viruses.
In such cases, your IT administrative team must ensure the proper installation of security layers in every system. Companies can also conduct online sessions to educate employees about security concerns and phishing emails. One strategy used by top companies is to conduct tests to remind employees of your security policies.
Recognition for good work is among employees' basic needs. And it's vital in boosting productivity. Despite life and health crises, an employee tries their best to offer work efficiency. When this good work doesn’t get recognized, it demotivates them. And this can affect the quality of work that they produce.
Happy employees produce good work. Appreciation is an effective moral boost. It inspires employees to work harder. This kind of gratitude and appreciation can be in the form of a virtual meeting celebrating the good work of employees or a bonus around the holidays. You can also offer certificates of recognition and other incentives for staff motivation. This is a great way to boost employee retention of top talent and ensure job satisfaction.
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Remote working culture can become tiresome with loads of work in your personal space. It affects the personal lives of a lot of your employees. In such scenarios, employers must encourage a balance between work and personal life.
Employers should set limits on hours that full-time employees can work. For example, letting someone work half time if they need to take care of personal needs. It’s also important to check in regularly to know if employees are having any challenges. Establish healthy boundaries between work and personal life to help employees achieve balance.
Improvement of productivity also demands acknowledging the feedback of employees. To achieve efficiency, you should address all feedback and experiences of employees. The important thing is to make sure you are attending to all suggestions and challenges mentioned in the feedback. Plus giving feedback to employees can result in better work performance.
Work from home is a part of the new future of work. So, why not stay prepared by adopting all these tips in your work-from-home culture. And as we have gradually moved out of the pandemic, we are seeing more of a hybrid work environment. This is where you can do some work at home and still get some time in the office.
As business owners, you must be available to employees at all times. This will help your business to continue to grow and reap the benefits of remote work in this time.
Need help maintaining the productivity of your team while working remotely? Let gardenpatch help. Talk to an expert, today!
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