The positives of, and effective top tips for effective remote working

Synium Remote 1

The positives of, and effective top tips for effective remote working

Covid-19 has forced a change in business procedures worldwide, pressuring owners to adopt new workflow methods to achieve satisfactory productivity to ensure their continued survival and success. Some were able to make their workplace safe to continue as best as possible with a limited workforce, but others did not have this option and made a change to remote working.

The transition to a remote work setting was the only choice for many firms, with this being the only way of functioning at or near the capacity they had done pre-lockdown. They have found that it can, in ways, actually be more efficient and productive than the normal work setting. Remote working tools, when used correctly can significantly contribute to reductions in expenditure, with 46% of businesses citing office cost reduction as the main benefit of remote working¹.

It is not only COVID-19 forcing us to adopt remote working, the practice has been growing exponentially in the last 10 years. 60% of office-based employees are expected to work remotely regularly by 2022, according to a recent survey of UK business owners².

In this blog series, we will explore the positives of remote working and teach you how to get the most from the tools available ensuring you are working as efficiently as possible.

 

The positives of remote working

Save money

As mentioned previously, businesses cite cost savings as the main benefit of remote working. It can be a significant advantage for smaller growing organisations in particular, it allows them to enlarge their workforce without the need to expand their workspace.

 

Employee recruitment and retainment

Another positive is the ability to recruit and retain the best staff; with a remote working infrastructure in place you can advertise job opportunities to anybody, even internationally if necessary. Your organisation could be anywhere, but you can feel safe knowing that you are still advertising to the best in the field.

Sometimes the existing staff in-house is essential to things running as efficiently as they do, even if they decide to move residence, remote working can allow them to work from their new home. This saves you money and time retraining someone else that does not understand the way your workplace does business.

 

Continuation of workflow regardless of unforeseen circumstances

Running a business is not easy at the best of times, there are a lot of factors out of business owners’ control. National events, weather conditions, rail strikes to name just a few, all of which affect the staff’s ability to get into the office. To use weather conditions as an example, we as a nation get an average of 23 days of snowfall a year according to the met office website³, this can severely affect the output your company is capable of if staff cannot make it in – whereas remote working removes this as a problem.

 

The effect on climate change

Businesses are under constant pressure to lower their carbon footprint, which of course any opportunity to reduce it is positive. Global warming is an issue worldwide, increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks are all linked to climate change; not to mention the health aspects of city living with the sheer amount of carbon emissions in the air in highly populated areas.

By allowing staff to work from home you eradicate the volume of greenhouse gases they are emitting by their various means of travel. Also, with staff working from home you will require fewer devices, significantly reducing your organisation’s electricity consumption and costs to the business, both helping you do your bit for the environment.

 

Work-life balance

Allowing staff to work in a mutually beneficial way to both the organisation and the employees themselves, can increase job satisfaction, motivation, and engagement. Sometimes a change of scenery can be good for a person’s mental health, giving staff the choice to change location as and when they want to can help them get a better grip on their work-life balance. This makes for an altogether happier workforce, which inadvertently leads to increased productivity.

These are just some of the positives of remote working. Let us take a brief look at how to ensure an effective remote working culture fit to weather Covid-19 and in the future of remote working.

 

An effective remote working culture

Once the transition has been made it can be hard to enforce an effective remote working culture, here are some brief tips on how to achieve this goal.

  • Invest in tech – You can maximise your team’s performance by ensuring teams have the tools they need when working remotely to be efficiently productive.
  • A good level of security – Be sure to provide secure access to all data and IT systems.
  • Avoid social isolation – Communicate regularly with your staff to avoid staff feeling isolated and disconnected from others in the organisation.

We will cover how to achieve these in more detail later in the blog series.

Remote working is the future of international business productivity, it is providing the world with interconnected, collaborative, effective, online workspace for all employees no matter their geographical location. Getting the most from your remote working is of the utmost importance, be effective with how you use it and what tools you use to maximise its potential and it can place you heads and shoulders above your competitors.

 

We’re Synium IT, how can we help?

Our aim is to become a seamless and invaluable part of your team – so you can be sure of exceptional service and a proactive, friendly and jargon-free approach to IT.

Synium IT provides the full range of IT support services to organisations throughout the West Midlands.  Our approach is to deliver the very best IT Support services to our clients for great value for money, with no contract tie-in. Allowing you to experience the benefits of your own IT support partner without any risk.

Contact us today on 0121 663 0203 to find out more about how we can help.

 

Simon Tonks
simon@synium.co.uk

Owner and MD of Synium who loves his job, his life and the wondrous outdoors - especially when on a golf course, or a bike of any kind (but preferably on a mountain bike going downhill fast).Please get in touch if there is anything IT related I can help you with (or if you want to talk golf or bikes :-)