The Future of Remote Work

Any person from Planet Earth will confirm that the way we work has changed dramatically from a few years ago. 'Remote work,' as a new paradigm of professional life, had already gone mainstream at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued growing ever since due to a new set of technologies and virtual collaboration tools – effectively changing the world, and arguably blurring the lines between work and home.

What's driving this is the commercialization of a new suite of technologies known as unified communication as a service (UCaaS) – a combined, single service for video and voice calls, instant messaging, and email. Working in a digital space becomes easier because global colleagues and other stakeholders can be found in the same digital space, working and collaborating more efficiently. Other AI-powered technologies, such as smart meeting summaries and real-time translation, can enhance those technologies.

Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) are also advancing to create immersive and engaging meeting environments that build presence – one of the most important elements of good remote interactions. VR/AR can profoundly transform training and onboarding, placing new hires in a corporate culture and work processes simulation.

Cloud-based collaboration and productivity tools (such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365) enable teams to work on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations simultaneously, wherever they are. It can also help to consolidate all the tasks related to a project in one place using a project-management tool, such as Trello, Asana, or Monday.com.

But the future of work, too, demands a high degree of security. Remote working inevitably leads to sheer numbers of zero-trust security models, where access to the network is checked at the deepest level of identity, and to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions, where you can access any resource securely and quickly from anywhere in the world with one unified solution of network security.

How we work has now changed. Working from home has become an important part of our professional lives. This trend, which was thought to have gained extraordinary momentum with the COVID-19 pandemic, has continued. New technologies and work tools in the virtual space are changing our lives, combining work and home environments.

Even automated workflow tools can help out here to some extent; products such as the apps Zapier and IFTTT, which integrate various apps and services that do common tasks without human intervention, can remove a lot of mindless, repetitive work. Since time-tracking and goal-setting apps seem to be a dime a dozen, remote workers can use them to track time spent working (and the elusive work-life balance can be kept in check with a simple look at where that time is spent).

The flexibility of remote work allows us to design work schedules that fit our lives (better work-life balance, greater satisfaction in where we work, and lower burnout). With no commute, it often provides more time for doing whatever else we want and less time and stress from commuting.

As well as these benefits, there are drawbacks to working from home. It can be harder to restrict work versus non-work time, leading to longer working hours and overwork and increasing difficulty with 'switching off' from work and 'relaxing.' Developing habits that psychologically create a boundary between work and non-work time and between work and non-workplace to limit the risk associated with getting sucked into more work can help here. The third challenge for flexible workers is social isolation from others: remote workers can be lonely and left out of the 'loop' at work. Virtual socializing and 'watercooler' activities can recreate some feelings of togetherness and belonging with a team.

Mental health and happiness are also front and center, with many organizations offering mental health days, virtual wellness programs, access to counselors, and more. There are myriad ergonomic office design recommendations, guidance, and tools to set up a healthy home office.

Considering these trends and with new technologies on the horizon, managers and leaders must become skilled at helping organizations utilize new and emerging technologies to boost productivity and facilitate their teams' mental health and well-being.

Where do you go from there? How can you maintain a reasonable work-life balance (for those who want one) at your organization and keep everyone not in the office feeling connected and engaged? How can you leverage these technologies to make work from home more productive and less stressful?

The battle for the future of remote work has been won, and the so-called 'new normal' is already shaping our future and lives forever. So, how can we best adapt to remote working, personally and professionally?