Last Updated on November 2, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo
Remote work has been on the rise throughout the last decade. According to FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics, the number of telecommuters in the United States has grown by 91% between 2009 and 2019. In the meantime, more and more people show interest in the remote mode of working. As the results of Buffer’s international survey with 2,471 participants revealed, the staggering 99% would like to telecommute at least part-time of their regular workweek.
Therefore, we have all the reasons to expect the remote work trend to accelerate even further in the future, especially after the worldwide quarantine and the COVID pandemic have put this promising work arrangement to the test. Even those companies that were fearful and reluctant to adopt it at first are now more than comfortable with letting their employees work from home. Moreover, many companies have found a significant increase in productivity after the shift. Thus, they decided to permit their staff to telecommute after their offices reopened.
That is to say, remote work will continue to strike its roots in modern companies, changing the very way they approach business and team management. Here, we will explore the impacts of this trend on the future of business, the challenges it poses, and the opportunities it provides.
The Effects of Remote Work on Business
When working from home during the quarantine, many of us started to enjoy a greater deal of flexibility in terms of how to approach professional duties. Many remote employees also obtained a chance to choose when to start and end their workday. Plus, every remote team member got used to communicating with colleagues online.
Considering all this, we may speak of at least three apparent impacts remote work has on business. They are reflected in the way companies use office space, the level of workplace flexibility, and the extent of technology integration.
Cost-efficient office space
Not a single business person would rent out an expensive facility and equip it with high-tech workstations knowing that all of this will be left unattended and rarely used. Hence, when your team is shifting to the work-from-home model, even partially, you are bound to make some changes to the company’s internal environment to optimize resource management and save money.
Many options for office re-arrangement are available:
- You may rent out a smaller business facility and use it only for important meetings and team-building events.
- You can get rid of individually assigned workstations and implement hot-desking or create a co-working space for everyone who wants to drop by the office irregularly.
- If you don’t see a point in face-to-face interaction with your employees at all, feel free to embrace telework 100% and stop being constantly bothered with office rental and maintenance.
In short, office redesign is an inevitable consequence of the upward-moving remote work trend, but each company will experience it in its own way, depending on its unique collaboration needs and overall goals.
Increased workplace flexibility
When we hear about workplace flexibility, the first thing that usually comes to mind is telework, which is, however, merely one type of flexible work arrangement. Others include flextime, 4-day workweeks, the Results Only Work Environment, and job sharing. Besides, we’re witnessing the rise of flexible time-off policies that grant unlimited vacation and similar perks to staff members.
It means that remote work is just a small wave in a growing tide of workplace flexibility, and the latter is called forth by the changing needs and values of younger employees. So, letting your team choose where to work is good. But it’s even better to allow them to decide when to jump on professional tasks and when to enjoy some personal time.
It may seem that a high degree of workplace flexibility is counterproductive and is difficult to apply. Nevertheless, such an approach is feasible and is already practiced by many successful companies, such as Netflix with its pro-freedom philosophy. It’s also valid to say that without staying flexible, no business is capable of remaining competitive in the long term – the majority of talented individuals who will constitute the largest portion of the global workforce very soon will always prefer to work in companies that respect their autonomy and personal interests.
Widespread technology integrations
Obviously, to transfer all work-related processes online, to manage your team remotely, and to stay in the know of each employee’s progress, you need to implement some reliable hardware and software tools.
A personal computer, a laptop, or a mobile device with stable access to the Internet is the basic requirement, and for most of us, using them daily has turned into a trivial thing (to the extent that we may feel highly uncomfortable losing access to these technologies for a very short period). But the situation with remote work software tools is still very different. Even if you’ve already been applying some specialized management apps to boost operations, you have no choice but to adopt a wider range of software products when shifting to the remote work model:
- Video conferencing, chatting, and file-sharing software is a must-have if you want to communicate with colleagues online and exchange important information quickly and efficiently. Video conferencing tool is an excellent way to connect with your colleagues. They’re especially useful for managing meetings that span time zones or would be difficult because of location constraints; video chat has made it possible for you all to meet in person.
- To monitor your remote employees’ performance and stay aware of how productive they are, it’s pivotal to use a task management app or a time tracking tool.
- Since you can’t always tell whether your team members are present at their remote workstations throughout the day, it may also be helpful to apply an attendance management app or an online clock-in system with GPS tracking, screenshots, and similar functionality. In order to onboard and train your remote workforce, you may want to invest in a learning management system and introduce them to the rest of the team properly.
The above list of essential software is not exhaustive by any means. For instance, your employees might need a design tool pics.io which is an online Digital Asset Management tool for distributed teams.
A business may choose to apply more or fewer apps for remote work management, depending on its regular workflows, overall needs, and resources. Nevertheless, one thing is sure – no one will be able to stay away from permanent technology integrations once workplace flexibility is consolidated as a norm.
Challenges and Opportunities
We’ve already noted that managing employees’ performance can be troublesome during telework. Besides, the loss of physical interactions may worsen the quality of team relationships and decrease employee engagement. Thus, businesses with remote staff members must find ways to build trust with their workers and help them develop a sense of belonging, which is crucial for both individual productivity and positive business outcomes.
Alternatively, you can make use of professional outsourcing services such as Develux, if managing a remote team isn’t something you can do
Data security is a big problem too. Companies that work remotely should be super careful with their sensitive data and impose stricter control over who, where, and how accesses it. Luckily, it’s always possible to employ a quality piece of encryption software to minimize risks. Plus, a well-designed cybersecurity policy allows businesses to educate employees and bind them by organizational data protection rules.
Overall, these few challenges shouldn’t discourage you from shifting to telework because along with them come plenty of opportunities. By developing a good remote work culture and practicing other types of flexible work arrangements, you will increase your business’s attractiveness to job seekers. Staff turnover will cease to be a concern since it’s going to be easier to cultivate employee loyalty. Moreover, while operating remotely, you won’t have to look for new staff members from the local pool of candidates only and will have a chance to collaborate with professionals from all around the world.
Add higher cost-efficiency and productivity to all the mentioned benefits of remote working, and you’ll get an excellent method to promote business competitiveness. So, considering that telework and workplace flexibility have already shown the first signs of victory over more traditional work models, isn’t it better to benefit from adopting them early on than to replenish the numbers of those who will have fallen behind?
About the author of this article:
Elina Kukalo is a Content Writer at actiTIME – a multifunctional time tracking tool with useful productivity-boosting features. She shares quality practical tips on project management and team management on the actiTIME blog.