Over 4.7 million people in the US work at least half of the time remotely. Remote working has become increasingly popular since the pandemic began. The pandemic pushed businesses to explore their remote working options and use technologies that support a remote working model.
To enjoy the increased work-life balance of a remote working model in your business, keep reading. This guide will show you the top five essential technologies that help companies transition to a remote working model while maintaining productivity and cooperation.
Benefits Of A Remote Work Model
There are many benefits to implementing a remote work model. There is a high demand for hybrid and remote work models for many reasons.
When working in the office, employees may face a lengthy commute that eats up their free time and costs them money using public transport or petrol. These factors can have a tremendous impact on your employees’ finances, quality of life, and environmental impact.
By implementing a remote work model, you can ensure your employees have more free time and a better work-life balance to focus on their families, spend more time with their pets, and pursue personal interests. Employees will not have to worry about dressing up for the office and will work in comfortable clothes from their own homes.
Without the distractions caused by coworkers and office politics, your employees will be more inclined to focus on their work and productivity. Without their commute, your employees will have more energy and time to focus on pleasurable activities, improving their mental well-being and thus their productivity.
Business leaders can downsize their office space with a remote working model or eliminate the need for office space, significantly reducing their monthly overheads and allowing for more growth within the business. 71% of employees prefer remote work over promotions, and business leaders would do well to respond to the call for remote working.
Challenges Of A Remote Work Model
With a remote work model also comes a few challenges. Some of these challenges include:
- Effective means of communication.
- Management of workflows and employee progress.
- Securing office spaces from a remote location.
- Automating HR processes to allow your HR more time to promote employee wellness.
Overcoming these challenges is essential to implementing a successful remote working model. This guide is designed to explain the best tools for overcoming the challenges presented by a remote working model, ensuring a successful transition.
5 Technologies For A Remote Working Model
These 5 technologies for a remote working model will ensure your business transitions smoothly to a fully or partly remote working model while maintaining effective communication and productivity among your employees.
Project Management Tools
Project management software is one of the primary cloud-based tools that allow businesses to keep track of employees’ progress and assign tasks in a structured and organized way. Wrike and Monday.com are two of the most popular project management tools that remote and hybrid businesses use.
These project management tools allow businesses to create workflows on attractive, clean, and user-friendly interfaces to set tasks for their employees. You can integrate project management software with other tools used in your remote work strategies, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, and more.
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Having a clear view of employees’ tasks and progress allows business leaders to manage their teams more efficiently and effectively in a remote working model. Project management software comes with onboarding tutorials, making it easy to implement in companies where some employees do not have a high level of computer literacy.
The software usually comes with 24/7 customer support, which allows you to quickly troubleshoot and resolve any issues with the software and avoid lapses in productivity. CRM (client relationship management) can also be achieved using project management software, following the helpful tutorials and blogs provided by your project management software provider.
A good project management system is the foundation for building an effective remote working strategy.
Communication Tools
With a remote working strategy comes the need to facilitate communication since your employees will not have their usual in-person communications and collaborations.
To improve communications in your remote working business, you might consider adopting communication tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Chatwork, and Google Hangouts.
Having instant messaging capabilities across your business will allow employees to quickly resolve queries without drafting a long email or arranging a video conference, which may take up more time. Fast and instant communication is the best way to ensure your employees feel supported and connected within a remote working strategy.
Remote Management Of Office Spaces
Remote working models may still require office spaces to facilitate a hybrid work model or allow for in-person business operations upon occasion. When your management team is working remotely, they may need to operate in-office systems such as security features to enable others to access the building. You need to select the right door access control system for a remote business.
With a cloud-based access control system, you will be able to keep your office space secure while working remotely and receive alerts on your mobile device notifying you of a security event. Cloud-based access control allows authorized users to operate door locks remotely to allow employees and visitors to enter the building without visiting the location in person.
This proves particularly useful when contractors and other service providers need access to the building. It allows your team to work remotely rather than wasting time visiting the office, affecting productivity.
Video Conferencing Tools
Without the opportunity for frequent in-person meetings, you may struggle to maintain a united workforce with a remote working model. To keep the lines of communication open, you might consider investing in video conferencing tools.
Lengthy discussions may be even more time-consuming over email or an instant messaging platform, and some more complex issues are better discussed verbally. Video conferencing tools work well to facilitate these discussions in a remote working model.
You may also wish to implement appointment scheduling software alongside video conferencing tools. This will allow you to host open office hours in which your employees can reserve meetings to discuss their performance and progress.
HR And Payroll Management Tools
Your employees expect to be compensated for the services they provide for your business and their assistance with maintaining clients and customers. With a remote working model, you can implement HR and payroll management solutions to ensure your employees are paid on time.
Payroll can be complex, but HR and payroll management tools can help you simplify and automate payroll procedure elements to allow your HR team to focus on more critical tasks. The software supports your HR team in navigating diverse tax codes and establishing your payroll models to make managing your payroll simpler and more manageable.
Providing your HR teams with tools to make the remote management of payroll more straightforward will allow them more time to focus on more critical tasks, like checking in with employees. HR teams must ensure employees maintain productivity and avoid burnout or mental health issues when working from home, so it is essential to free up their time to address employee wellness.
Summary
If you use these tools designed to support a remote working model, your business will be on its way to facilitating productive and effective remote working. You will save time managing office spaces, payroll, and HR functions, and managing workflows.
You will also encourage swift and responsive communication between team members for a united workforce. Technology is aiding the remote work revolution, boosting employee satisfaction, and improving productivity in the workforce.
