With the whole COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy is topsy turvy. Jobs are at stake, businesses are wading through troubled waters and livelihoods are being affected.
With the onset of this current viral outbreak, the global workforce has been shoved into the realm of remote operations. Strict curfews and lockdowns have resulted in employees working from home (WFH), which is placing organisations in an unfamiliar dimension.
Corporates and Enterprises have never had to work with a completely remote workforce, as most employees were always on-site. Yet, the need for Remote Operations is mandatory, and now companies are looking at methodologies for business continuity amidst the crisis.
A major concern for organisations that function in diverse domains and industries is employee productivity. Or rather, ensuring their human resources remain productive whilst working off-site.
So, how are they coping?
Here are some simple tips on how a company can utilise certain techniques to make ‘Remote Work’ effective, without much hassle.
1) Constant Communication
Communication has always been a focal point for organisational excellence, yet its value on a peer-to-peer level has never truly been realised, until now. Verbal communication between teams, employees and resources has been instrumental in breaking down barriers within an organisation. However, with the current remote-model of working, verbal communication becomes a regular requirement for transparency and operational visibility.
Furthermore, many functions will also begin relying on written communication. Often seen as a soft-skill that was an added advantage, written communication will now become a strict mandate in the future of jobs.
Hence, it is now important for organisations to encourage employees to communicate often with colleagues, as well as train resources that need to sandpaper their communication skills.
2) Tools and Technology
In order to establish a functioning order of business (in the remote-working model), enterprises will now need to leverage the tools at their disposal to increase output.
Studies have often shown that organisations regularly abandon their Enterprise Tools within a year of purchase, due to a range of reasons (complexity, time etc). However, today, companies will need to start exploiting these Enterprise Software Tools for functionality. When operating a distributed and remote team, employees will need to utilise these tools for better productivity, communication and operations.
Employees need to be encouraged to operate these systems regularly, as the future of work in a remote-type model depends on an employee’s ability to adapt to arising challenges (such as the current Coronavirus outbreak).
3) Talent Transformation
With the future economy at stake, MNCs and large enterprises will look to reduce the hiring and acquisition of new talent, so as to reduce financial burdensome tasks. The acquisition, induction and training of new resources is expensive.
However, as the economy slowly recovers over time, incoming business demands will require diverse skills and experiences. And hiring new resources whilst adhering to a distributed-remote model will further become cumbersome for organisations. To tackle this, companies will need to begin transforming the human resources at hand, to ensure they are ready to tackle incoming enterprise demands.
With the help of Talent Transformation tools, existing employees can be up-skilled/re-skilled for the future. Skills gaps can be analysed and training can be imparted in accordance with demand.
4) Accountability and Ownership
Building an enviable corporate culture is what sets a company apart from its competition. Yet, what truly constitutes the idea of an ‘Ideal Corporate Culture’ has begun to shift, with the outbreak of COVID-19.
Organisations will have to rely on employees to become accountable, as critical business functions demand this. Resources will have to cultivate ownership, in order to execute tasks without micro-management. Hence, it is important for companies to rest its faith in their employees, so as to streamline a remote model of working.
The future of work has been a heated debate since the late 2000s. However, its relevance has come into the centre stage post the viral pandemic. Companies that move forward, will need to adapt quickly in order to survive. And time is of the essence.
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Credit- Nikhil Menon
