Three Productivity Strategies For The Remote Workplace Environment

With the rise in the phenomenon of Remote Workplace over the last two years many companies have struggled with maintaining both productivity and creativity within their workforce. As a result, companies, even productivity experts, can focus more on the measurements of productivity within a company and ignore a company’s ability to either foster or impede the creativity of their employees.?There are three heroes of productivity that encourages creativity within the workplace, increases employee engagement and enables the company to both monitor and assess the productivity of individuals within their company.?These are all different aspects of the Work-from-Home movement that has been gaining momentum across the globe.

A Video Based Communication Strategy

On April 21, 2020, a cataclysmic change occurred across the globe that has forever changed the world, and business.?Much like the development of the radio (1930s), TV (1950s), Computers (1980s) and the Internet (1990s), a technology had been adopted in the home in every nation.?That technology Is ZOOM, which in that day grew by 300 million daily users in one day because of the current pandemic.?Now let’s be honest, video conferencing has been in the business world for a while now, but email is still king in communications within the workplace with 269 Million emails were sent daily worldwide in 2017[1], increasing to 333 million in 2019.?There are many other platforms like?Zoom[2], including software such as?Adobe Connect[3]?and?AirClass[4]?that allows you to seamlessly switch between screen sharing and video, collaborate on digital whiteboards, and even get analytics on who’s participating.?Teleconferencing?has six main benefits for businesses today that encourage the development of creativity and ultimately lead to greater productivity.?These?benefits include…

1.???Reduced Costs – As virtual teams can meet regardless of the location of each of the people attending in the world.?This only adds the minimal cost of the cost of the service subscription, whilst eliminating many other expensive costs occurred with a traditional meeting

2.???Higher Flexibility – With the advent of remote working being adopted by companies in every nation,?a study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research titled The potential economic impacts of a flexible working culture[5], found that the “ability to work from home, then, could help workers be more focused and boost productivity, essentially doing the same amount (or more) work in less time.”[6] ?Even a 2014 PGi survey[7] found that 82% of people who worked from home were less stressed when they work from the office.?

3.???Collaboration - Teleconferencing?is also bringing people together, as never before, resulting in greater collaboration within teams. Steve Jobs described this phenomenon when he wrote?“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”?When you get creative people to collaborate, you will create innovative ideas, products and services, and increase the productivity of your team.?Both individuals and teams tend to become more efficient in their task, able to finish them sooner and developed better relationships with others in their team.

4.???Breakdown of Geographical Barriers – by using virtual teams, that are physically spread throughout a city region, country and even nations, you can now hire the right people for your key tasks, no matter where they live or what time zone they are in.

5.???Video Conferencing is Eco Friendly – in an environment, where the environment itself has become critical for businesses to consider.?Teleconferencing is a great alternative to traditional meetings, which carries with it a large carbon footprint, in the fuel used to travel between location, as well as the electricity to maintain meeting rooms.?In this way, those who are conscious of their impact on the environment, can limit the impact of the company for future generations.

6.????Increased Focus – As most business meetings are unproductive, teleconferencing enables each of the team members to maintain their focus, if the meetings are created using rules for productive meetings.?By eliminating all of the unproductive chatter that often occurs in meeting, and working though a specified agenda, to a specific start and stop time.?Individuals are then able to get back to work, and immediately action anything that was requested of them.?This also allows critical information to be communicated to those that need it.

Flexible Work Times

Another trend that has had a positive impact on productivity is flexible work times, where remote working has eliminated the need to commute, whilst improving employee engagement, inclusivity, performance, and productivity of your workforce.?This is possible as more companies are employing a work from home model for their workforce.?In 2020, 5 million employees; that is up 3.6% of the entire U.S. workforce, work from home for at least half the time, which is a 173% increase since 2005[8].?By 2028, it is estimated that 73% of all business and departments will have remote workers.?The reason for this is studies like the Collaborative Worker Survey[9] by CoSo, found that 77% of those working from home experienced greater productivity.?This was echoed by another study that showed that 64% of business leaders around the world, found that flexible working had a positive impact on the company’s productivity. One important aspect of the move to work from home is that companies offering at least part-time telecommuting flexibility, was that they collectively save $44 billion each year[10], which went straight to their Net Profit.

Cloud Based Remote-Access Software

From a company’s perspective the Work-from Home movement has many benefits. Although this book is not focusing on this per say. In order for a company to establish a workforce that is able to work from home, they need to generally set up a cloud based Remote-Access system, that uses cloud computing to enhance their accessibility and create a mobile-friendly environment for its employees.?By storing data is a central, fundamental function of computers and computing environments that can be shared across the globe.? As productivity is measured by a company’s revenue, expenditure and employee engagement, this approach has benefits for all three measures.?Firstly, the technology required to facilitate this requires little space, has a reduced capital investment and saves money on the need to back up data, this reducing the expenditure of your company. Secondly, it helps to increase the revenue of a company by increasing the accessibility to information, so there are no delays in trying to gather key information from specific people.?It also allows that data to be securely stored?whilst not making it inaccessible, providing the company both flexibility and scalability in its operations, as people across the network work together collaboratively.?Thirdly, it enhances employee interactions, as processes become automated, and employees experience greater productivity, as they interact collaboratively with the team members on each project.?

Remember to live the 3 P's of Success: Purpose, Priority and Productivity.

[1] You can find this at https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/.

[2] See https://zoom.us/ to download

[3] See https://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect/meetings.html to download

[4] See https://airclass.com/ to download

[5] Download the pdf from https://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/white-paper/economic-impacts-flexible-working-us-2019.pdf.

[6] See https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/31/cebr-study-finds-remote-workers-get-105-hours-more-leisure-time-a-year.html.

[7] See https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/telecommuting-reduces-stress-and-increases-productivity-according-to-pgi-survey-248244671.html.

[8] See https://www.fundera.com/resources/working-from-home-statistics

[9] See https://www.cosocloud.com/press-releases/coso-survey-shows-working-remotely-benefits-employers-and-employees.

[10] See https://www.fundera.com/resources/working-from-home-statistics