Now, who would not like to work from the comfort of one’s home, sitting on that comfy couch, sipping some freshly brewed coffee, and enjoying a bowl of munchies…all while being in a full-time job! The convenience of remote work is redefining employees’ perceptions and expectations about and from work. The convenience and flexibility associated with remote work incredibly heighten the scope of employee productivity, but this concept hardly existed 10 years back.
With the influx of mobile technologies and smart devices, companies can now confidently allow their employees to work from remote locations, on the go, or even from home. The pace and prospects of remote work as an emerging culture will only grow with time.
The role of technologies in reshaping the possibilities of remote work
Employee expectations are changing and the emergence of Generation Z in the workplace has brought in a completely modified work environment, wherein offices are no more defined by perimeters and brick- and mortar boundaries. The technological advancements along with the presence of smart and intelligent handheld devices have changed the rules of the game! Let’s look at these top technological innovations that have disrupted the world of remote work only to make it a breeze both for employees as well as business leaders.
1. Team collaboration tools
A team with members working from different remote locations can deliver successful projects and complete their tasks on time only when they can seamlessly collaborate with each other in real time. An effective collaboration process is imperative to drive overall team performance, informed decision-making, faster time-to-market, and resolution of complicated queries and field challenges.
Remote workers derive the necessary benefits to get their work done on time by using team collaboration tools like Facebook Workplace, which acts like a private Facebook for businesses used to make enterprise-wide announcements, introductions, and casual team conversations, and Slack – an online platform that allows the users to have team-wide conversations, create groups and channels for different projects for real-time team interaction and updates.
This leverages remote working and employee productivity. Apart from that, options like videoconferencing and screen-sharing technologies such as Zoom.us, Appear.in, Join.me, etc. also play a big role in accelerating team collaboration efforts.
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2. Effective meeting schedulers
When remote team members work from different locations and time zones, your company would need more than just effective team collaboration tools. Often it becomes a tough task to get all the meeting attendees on the same page at the same time to agree on a specific meeting time – mostly because they all have different work priorities and delivery timelines.
This leads to an endless loop of rescheduling important team meetings resulting in a waste of time and process delays. Here, tools like Every Time Zone helps the team members in getting a quick overview of all the times across the globe. Apart from that, there are some interesting and intelligent scheduling tools that smartly sync up with the team members’ calendars and suggest suitable meeting times within a blink of an eye, keeping the participants’ time schedules in mind.
These tools are ideally powered by AI software and come as a part of extended project management platforms. One such example is the tool called X. AI.
3. Unified Enterprise Communication Suites
The effectiveness of remote work and its positive outcomes depend heavily on a flawless and transparent unified enterprise communication system that allows the remotely located team members to communicate with each other through secure and managed communication platforms and channels in a controlled environment.
Eva Communication Suite from Scalefusion MDM is one such example of a perfect and context-driven unified enterprise communications suite that is powered with multiple functionalities like call and contact list management, two-way chat, conference call facility, VoIP call, Online Phone System, cellular call, real-time alerts and notifications about devices, and many other relevant enterprise-oriented features that aim to facilitate remote work and employee productivity irrespective of any geographical locations and time zones.
One of the effective way to maintain a strong connection is by establishing a system of regular communication that caters to their ongoing needs. Integrating a landline phone service can be particularly beneficial in achieving this, as it offers greater security and quicker responses.
Using a full-fledged unified enterprise communication suite doesn’t only ensure secure storage, collection, and usage of company-sensitive data and information but also acts as a secure and reliable source using which employees can access useful details, facts, and knowledge regarding teams, processes, and projects.
Also Read: Biggest Remote Work Challenges and How to Mitigate Them
4. File and document management tools
For team members working out from remote and distant locations, it is imperative to have a highly functional file and document management platform that will help them organize and manage documents, excerpts, files, and archives for future reference and record-keeping. A unified file and document sharing platform helps to effectively collaborate with the team to discuss crucial business through a secure web interface. This helps remote workers work in a synchronized, dependable and productive manner.
Employees working from the fields, on the go, or from home should never struggle to get the right information from the right source at the right time and the success of remote work is defined by this convenience. A powerful document-sharing and management platform that enables easy and effective access to important information ensures a smooth, simple, and steady interaction process with vendors, stakeholders, customers, and partners. And this surely maximizes the benefits of remote work. Some examples of these platforms include names like DropBox, Huddle, Google Drive, One Hub, and so on.
5. Project and performance management tools
Multiple team members working from separate remote locations on a single project often find it difficult to keep constant track of task completion, work priorities, division of roles, development, and updates. Project management tools prove to be a big help for the team members to accomplish their tasks in a timely and organized manner while being in sync with the other participants.
In-built features like reporting, commenting, calendars, to-do-list, time management, and activity tracking, which come with free project management software, help executives stay updated and productive 24/7, with just a click of a button. ProofHub, Asana, Trello, Workamajig, Teemweek, Apploye, Basecamp, Podio, whiteboard calendar, and so on.
Similarly, feedback and performance management of a remote team also become a challenging job wherein the manager needs to quantity, objectify and supervise team members’ performance and project delivery status, on a timely basis. This is where employee evaluation software like BambooHR, Zoho People, Appreiz, Assessteam, BizMerlin, etc. work wonders for managers.
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While dealing with a team working from remote locations using multiple mobile devices, companies are advised to work with a dependable Mobile Device Management solution, which doesn’t only manage, secure, and monitor the company endpoints, apps, and content from a remote dashboard in real-time but also support and drive secure team communication, remote troubleshooting, corporate data security measures, device analytics to enhance overall IT operations. One name to reckon with is Scalefusion MDM!
