With remote work the new norm, businesses have struggled coming up with new ways to manage employees. As a return to office looks more uncertain, employers are looking at ways they can amp up productivity, efficiency and overall work quality. Remote work itself has seen massive increases in productivity and motivation for employees, allowing better work-life balance and improving morale. These efforts have been significantly supplemented by the use of tech in creating ideal remote work environments. In the following article, we put together the top 5 tips for using tech to sharpen your remote work environment.
Role of tech in remote work
Technological advancements have reshaped the business world in unanticipated ways. This technology allowed the relatively easy transition to remote work when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit. Since then, it has begun to cater to the new business model companies have had to adapt. These technological tools have made the transition as smooth as possible, with many companies looking at a permanent shift to remote work in the wake of a resurgence of the virus.
The use of tech has significantly improved the quality of remote work. Employers and managers are able to keep track of employee schedules and use cloud storage and data management to make infrastructure and data readily available. Many software tools enable easy teamwork, allowing video and text-based collaborations. The entire work structure has been moved online for many companies, with faster and simpler remote operations a real possibility.
The improved technological condition of remote work has shown significant increases in productivity. A survey found that at least 86% of employees report similar or increased productivity levels compared to on-site work.
How tech sharpens remote work
The role of tech in remote work is an absolute necessity. There are, however, many ways the use of tech can be harnessed to improve remote working further.
1. Utilize remote training software to improve productivity
Training new employees in the middle of a pandemic became something of a challenge. The primary concern was the individuals who were completely unfamiliar with the industry would be unable to learn and keep up without in-person supervision. Mobile learning apps have made this process much easier, especially for remote training.
These apps make it much easier to offer training, which is accessible from anywhere. Employees can always revisit their training to go over what they might forget, and in conjunction with LMS, or Learning Management Software, it can provide all essential training for remote work.
2. Use tech to measure remote productivity
While productivity has been seen to have generally gone up with remote work, employees have occasionally felt the pressures of working in isolation. Being distanced, managing employees effectively can also become problematic. To help alleviate these issues, companies like the tech startup Uplevel released features that allow managers to assess engineer productivity in real-time.
The software helps determine whether engineers are engaged in too many tasks, involved in too many meetings, or inundated with more work than is conducive to productivity. The tool allows assessing engineers’ happiness and engagement levels, which lets managers balance their workloads to avoid burnouts and maintain peak performance.
3. Implement effective task management software
Without direct engagement with employees, it can be hard to keep track of who is working on what. Employees may also feel overwhelmed with multiple tasks and find it hard to manage them. Task management apps like Trello® and Asana® make it easier to manage tasks and track progress.
These apps allow managers to assign projects to individuals and teams, communicate with employees, set deadlines and track progress. The apps make work management more efficient, with less time and effort wasted in trying to organize pending tasks. They also make it easier to prioritize tasks based on their importance or deadlines.
4. Find the best tech for collaborative work
Teamwork with remote work has faced challenges, as many prefer face-to-face collaborations. It is easier to communicate and discuss with a group of people in the same room than people who are all situated at different locations miles away. Collaborative software like Google Workspace® allows efficient inter-person collaborations.
Such programs allow coordinating tasks between people many miles away, and across a variety of functions. Task management, communication, schedules and storage can all be maintained through a single access point. With Google Workspace®, you can use a pooled storage system that allows only members of the organization to access information.
5. Ensure you have secure cloud storage
Cloud storage is not a new feature by any means, yet it has taken on a new meaning in the era of remote work. Cloud storage completely eliminates the need to personally share every document or piece of data with each person and makes access a lot faster and easier.
Many cloud services are now available that make data storage and access extremely simple. Employees can rely on safe data storage, access whenever and wherever they need, and significantly cut down on unnecessary and time-consuming communication. It also makes business operations much more straightforward. These services also make it easier to share data and information with clients and out-of-company workers.
As we know, tech and remote work go hand-in-hand and are essential for remote and hybrid work environments. The necessity of remote work in recent years has only made tech that much more valuable. It keeps businesses connected and makes remote work possible, but its usefulness does not end there. Creative tech solutions make businesses smarter and more efficient and make remote work much simpler to manage. It will be important for organizations to continue monitoring new tech trends and adjusting their tech stack as the landscape continues to evolve.
