Convention dictates that employees should work for their companies at predetermined locations, like their offices. However, more recently, since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, there has been a radical shift from working in an office to working from home. This change has made a lot of employers realize the flexibility, versatility and comfort that employees can experience. More importantly, people are starting to realize that this model does not come at the expense of efficiency which is possibly the most important takeaway. Interestingly, companies like Quora and Basecamp have now gone fully remote.
Remote work revolves around the concept that employees do not have to commute to a central physical location, such as an office, to perform their job duties. Higher morale, a productive mindset and burgeoning creativity can ensue from the increase in flexibility and convenience that comes from working from home. Moreover, businesses are quick to realize there is a drastic drop in commute times for employees, a significant decrease in the usage of resources needed to accommodate large numbers of workers in an office, and an increased emphasis on time management.
Along with these positives, however, there are also a few negatives.
There are several challenges that employers could face when effectively implementing remote work. Despite the fact that companies like Slack and Discord have been a tremendous help in remote working, there might still exist a communication gap between employees. Similarly, it is much harder to keep track of tasks that employees are performing in a digital context. Besides these, there are a few other problems as well, such as security concerns and different time zones which might dissuade employees from working remotely, but we will not go into this at the moment.
These aforementioned challenges aren’t insurmountable and most of them can be alleviated by employing several practices. It is important to:
1. Choose the right tools
Get the right technical support. Using software like Microsoft Teams for communication and webinars can aid remote workers.
2. Define clear tasks
Be clear. Ambiguous tasks can result in confusion and an inability to complete said tasks.
3. Encourage flexible working
Flexibility results in comfort, which, in turn, results in a good mood. Working with a good mood results in productive and efficient output.
4. Trust your employees!
Resist micromanaging your employees. Trust them to do their job efficiently without you constantly breathing down their necks.
5. Stay in touch
On the other side, communicate regularly. Being in sync with employees is essential for cohesive teamwork and successful completion of tasks.
6. Track tasks
Using software like Jira or communicating directly with employees can help keep track of tasks. This is important to understand the direction in which a project is heading, and whether it needs any intervention.
7. Get feedback
Listen to your employees’ grievances. Solving their troubles and problems can eliminate unnecessary stress and bottlenecks.
8. Think ahead
Anticipate. Good organization and lucid planning are key when it comes to remote work.
The entire Victrix team works remotely from different locations. Every onboarded employee goes through compulsory short training on remote working to ensure seamless delivery to our customers.
Benefits our customers have derived
- By eliminating the limitations of geographies, it was possible to acquire resources with the required skills in a short duration.
- Flexible working hours, better time management and no travel time led to a noticeable increase in productivity.
- By being virtually connected with other team members via Microsoft Teams helped in rapid resolution of technical issues during development itself. By involving Subject Matter Experts in the initial stages reduced development time significantly.
- Enforcing resources to update all communication and status in Jira more diligently led to better task tracking.
At Victrix we believe that although there are some hiccups to remote working, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and the benefits that come with remote working cannot be denied.
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