Most workplaces around the world have been embracing the remote work life since at least March. What have the first two months of virtual office productivity taught us?
For most businesses, remote working options have been effective in tackling the first and most important challenge: How to get staff safe and healthy during a pandemic crisis. However, as remote work has become the new routine, it’s time for companies to address new issues and improve their processes. Working from home could become the new normal for most teams, even after the coronavirus quarantine. Face-to-face office interactions are generally detrimental to career progression, team culture, and collective project success. When you make home offices the new workplace, you need to evaluate the best solution to tackle the same needs when everybody sits in a different place. Can we work together intelligently when we are not physically together? It’s the question that smart tech is ready to answer.
Digital solutions to create professional involvement
Encouraging your employees to develop new skills and grow their careers inside the company is a delicate balancing act. Managers and HR experts combine forces to spot potential trends in their teams. Can today’s assistant become a successful and inspiring team leader? The idea is that promoting people who know and understand the business to further positions can be a win-win strategy. From a business’s perspective, you can rely on their specialist niche expertise. From an employee’s perspective, it’s a touching recognition of their skills and dedication. However, when everyone works from home, it can be tricky to assess employees’ ambitions, training programs, and interests. Collaborative tools, such as Slack, can highlight positive qualities in people. Additionally, HR management can also repurpose existing marketing campaigns, such as survey funnels, to monitor performance, satisfaction, and opinions effectively. At the end of the survey, each employee can be segmented toward a dedicated training program that will profit both the individual and the company.
Technology to make them see what isn’t there
With plenty of collaborative solutions to work together on the same project, it’s fair to say that companies have no excuse to fail on shared team works. Google Drive, for instance, lets people work together on the same documents. For technical projects, sharing notes may not be enough to bring everyone on the same page. However, using VR sets to visualize new data can ensure your team has access to the latest simulation and concepts in real-time.
Togetherness through remote tech
Social connections disappear when people can’t spend time together. Co-workers remain strangers to each other, which can make it hard for a business to maintain its energy and productivity. The truth is that everyone needs a friend in the office, even if you don’t sit in the same place. Virtual coffee breaks create a space where casual meetings and conversations can flow as naturally as it would in the break room or the office kitchen. Why does this matter? Because you can’t afford not to build a team-bonding experience. People who work together, regardless of their locations, need to understand and trust each other.
Digital technology is not only keeping us safe from COVID-19. It’s also encouraging businesses to explore new ways of building stable and reliable remote teams. Making remote work the new reality for the 21st century begins with the creation of an intelligent, engaging, and people-focused virtual environment for all. The only thing that keeps us apart is our use of technology, so let’s make the best of it.