Remote work is here to stay. While it’s estimated that 26.7% of the American workforce will remain working from home through 2021, 36.2 million (22%) are expected to be working remotely by 2025, according to a recent Upwork report. That’s an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels!
“As businesses adapt and learn from this remote work experiment, many are altering their long-term plans to accommodate this way of working. On work marketplaces like Upwork, we can already see this shift underway with increased demand for remote professionals,” says Upwork Chief Economist, Adam Ozimek.
If you’re part of a company that wants to continue with some form of remote work post-pandemic, you’re not alone. According to a Gartner study, 80% of company leaders said their organizations plan to permit employees to work remotely at least part of the time upon reopening from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a highly competitive global economy, leveraging a remote workforce isn’t only a great cost-cutting strategy, it’s also a significant perk you can offer to employees. If you can attract those that enjoy working from cafes and kitchen tables, that gives you one more edge in the competition for top talent.
Being able to recruit and retain employees from any geographical region provides several crucial benefits for companies. Moreover, with easy-to-use, cost-effective technology solutions (like Breeze 360 time & attendance software), you can make working from home fairly easy for everyone involved.
If you’re one of those company leaders continuing with some form of remote work, you might be thinking of ways to help enable your workforce. In this post, we take a look at some of the ways you can help your remote workers thrive.
1. Training
While technology has enabled people to work from anywhere, it’s not as easy as giving employees laptops and hoping they adapt. To have a successful remote workforce, the importance of training and development cannot be underscored. Not only must employees know how to use devices they’ll be working on, but they also must be able to perform 100% of the job via that technology.
Another important factor is getting remote workers quickly up to speed with new and updated processes. It can be difficult to teach them the skills they need to become and remain productive if they aren’t in the office. This is why innovative training solutions are necessary for helping workers learn effectively by giving them step-by-step instructions on how to perform certain tasks.
2. Continual Communication
The advancement of communication technology and team collaboration software has enabled organizations to employ some of the most talented individuals in the world. Telecommuting allows for increased flexibility and has been known to save money while boosting morale and productivity. Despite this, certain issues arise when an employee works from home, most importantly, authentic communication.
Productivity suffers and engagement drops when communication breaks down within an organization. As such, it is essential to ensure continual, real-time communication between managers and remote workers is seamless and simple. It has been shown that regular communication in the workplace between managers and employees helps to develop efficient teams, build trust, and increase employee loyalty.
3. Regular Meetings
Meetings are important for any company to stay on the same page. They allow you to stay up-to-date on the status of projects and help foster a team environment. This offers both accountability and clarity on the big picture of the company.
However, scaling back the number of meetings may be helpful to your remote workforce. Between meetings, calls, emails, and other communications, they may already find it difficult to keep work moving forward. Not to mention family distractions and other obligations that could cause frustrations.
Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP, Syed Balkhi, writes that you should consider holding only 3 meetings: An initial meeting, a regular meeting, and an optional one-on-one meeting. “You may be tempted to hold more meetings and check in more frequently with remote workers, but you may be doing more harm than good,” he says.
4. Clear Goals
Setting clear goals for your remote workers will ensure they are motivated to work hard and have the opportunity to succeed. In The Holloway Guide to Remote Work, the authors write that “Without clear objectives and expectations for a role, it’s hard to give meaningful coaching on how to meet those goals, and even harder to be objective and helpful when an employee falls short.” Managers should help lead remote teams efficiently by setting crystal clear goals that involve specific parameters, set times for check-ins, and evaluations.
5. The Right Resources
Besides providing a laptop, cell phone, and maybe some hardware, having a remote workforce has never been more affordable. All the software that remote workers require is either cheap or inexpensive and really easy to use.
Dinah Wisenberg Brin writes in SHRM, “In addition to videoconferencing programs, file-sharing platforms, and project management and time-tracking tools, new adaptive analytics and secure data-access technologies are helping employees who work from home, coworking spaces, or other locations outside the office.”
The technology available today makes it easy to solve the challenges of managing a remote workforce. One of those challenges involves managing the time and attendance of remote workers. But with a high-performing time and attendance software like Breeze 360, companies of all sizes can ensure productive ways of working.
The Bottom Line
From Fortune 500 companies to businesses in their early stages, there’s a reason why so many organizations are migrating to a remote workforce—it’s a win-win for everyone. Businesses save money and employ top talent, and employees enjoy the freedom of working when and where they please. By enabling your workforce, you’ll create a stellar culture and stay productive!
Are you looking for a time and attendance software that is easy to use and automatically adheres to your company policies and procedures? Visit Breeze 360 today!
