With most of the global workforce still working remote because of the ongoing pandemic, business leaders are now forced to evaluate their remote work processes to suit today’s need. While the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic gave a boost to the remote work trend, the benefits of remote work have not gone unnoticed over the years. Companies in the B2B Technology niche have always been open to the idea of a remote work model and have long since identified closely with the many benefits this process allows, from providing more flexibility to reducing talent management costs.
HR Technology News: ClaimVantage Shares Research Findings On COVID-19’S Impact On The Workplace
But while the perks of remote work are many, it is still important to stay attentive to the several challenges an extended remote work model may produce if not implemented with the right basics.
Insufficient team communication or lack of proper communication between hierarchies, connectivity issues and data breaches and increased inter team dependencies can sometimes create obstacles to a good work experience. With the Covid-19 pandemic showing signs of making businesses rethink and reassess their need to foster a long-term remote work model, it’s time to set in place the right fundamentals to enable better productivity for virtual teams.
Build Better Workflows; Reduce Ad-hoc Situations
With globally distributed teams often required to coordinate multiple tasks online while adjusting to different schedules and time zones, special focus needs to be given to building strong workflows. Proper, centralized documentation of tasks and task updates, using matrix models to outline stakeholder feedback or roles in those processes are some ways to help improve team functionality while ensuring everyone knows what needs to get done and when.
Proper project documentation is critical to ensure a better flow of information between distributed teams and hierarchies, this also helps prevent communication gaps and speeds up delivery timelines because of better work clarity.
Employee Development for Business Growth
In a remote work model, professional employee development can suffer because employees cannot observe and learn and are limited to self-learning or online learning modules. This can impede long term business productivity, when employees don’t develop in their roles, it will lead to stagnation and limit the potential growth of the business as well.
This is why it becomes more crucial for business leaders and team managers to create a strong professional development plan for each employee while also ensuring a strict work assessment and skills assessment process through while employees can understand how they are performing and where there is still need for improvement.
HR Technology News: TecHRseries Interview with Cherie Curtis, CEO & Executive Director at Revelian
Tracking the progress of tasks and evaluating areas where skills need to be developed is integral to continued team productivity and growth and business leaders have to take that added step when most of their workforce is working remote.
Creating a Secure Remote Work Environment
There are several risks associated with having teams work remote and if the right security protocols are not in place, companies can face severe setbacks due to an innocent mistake.
Threats can arise from poor protection of employee devices in use, weak passwords, phishing, DDoS attacks and so much more. It is the onus of the company to ensure that these risks are mitigated and to that it is important for team leaders to train their employees on the fundamentals surrounding corporate data protection. Businesses can ensure they conduct regular audits to restrict data sharing and file permissions based on roles to reduce data exposure.
There can never be a set blueprint for long when it comes to remote work. It is important for organizations to stay attentive to current business challenges and ensure they adapt accordingly. With remote work becoming a necessity in many cases and locations around the globe today, the typical office culture is bound to undergo a drastic shift. With more companies choosing to move to a complete shift to remote work it is important to acknowledge the basics required to create a sustainable remote model.
HR Technology News: TecHRseries Interview with Benjamin Granger, Ph.D., Sr. Principal at Qualtrics XM Institute
Catch how these experts from leading tech companies like TeamViewer, JotForm, Xactly and more are boosting their B2B sales and marketing experience while focusing on a balanced employee culture: