Odds are, you are most probably reading this from home, and not from the building you used to visit every day, called your office. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a forced worldwide experiment in remote working as people across the world are encouraged to limit person-to-person interactions as far as possible. Although nobody has a confirmed end-date for the whole situation, many are left wondering if employees will return to the office and resume their daily lives just like before, once the global disruption that we are all going through right now ends? Or will remote working become the new normal?
It seems logical to predict that the habit of remote working that has been picked up by almost every industry will become the new norm - one that is here to stay. Remote working (both part-time and full-time) is set to rise across all industries. This sudden and significant behavioral change has forced leaders to think fast and smart about how to adapt and has also made it necessary for employees to quickly learn and excel at using remote working technologies.
Broadly speaking, there are 3 main aspects that an organization that is considering remote working as the new normal should consider - communication, discipline, and learning.
The first and most glaring difference that employees will have to deal with is the ability to communicate effectively with their co-workers. Replacing the familiarity of the human touch with a face on the screen will take some getting used to. We’ve also gotten accustomed to the extensive use of hand gestures and other body language aspects of person-to-person interactions that we will miss when we go online. The key is to communicate as much as possible, but with mutually agreed-upon guidelines in place to ensure that you are not disturbing someone. Being able to only communicate virtually may seem like a handicap initially, but that’s only because it is new to most of us. It also becomes extremely important to properly document all your work as you don’t have the luxury of walking up to a colleague for any sort of clarification or query. It helps to choose a robust, reliable and feature-packed communication and videoconferencing platform for your organization, like Microsoft Teams - which automatically fully integrates with all Microsoft Office 365 applications, is accessible from any device, and gives you the ability to securely collaborate, both internally and externally. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we at Web Synergies are thoroughly experienced and fully adept at understanding the needs of an organization and providing businesses with the best Microsoft solutions on offer, while helping them seamlessly integrate these solutions into their current systems.
Working remotely is not something that suits everyone’s working style, it is a skill that needs to be honed. Self-motivation is the key in remote working scenarios. An employee will need to possess a strong personal work ethic to become a successful remote worker. Even at the organizational level, it is important to make self-discipline a habit and a core part of company culture. Remember that this is a new change for everyone involved, and you may feel that you are prepared for it, but unexpected situations will always arise.
Organizational learning and upskilling is something that almost totally depended on physical human interaction. Organized training/learning activities took place in conference rooms or lobbies, attended by a huge number of people (at least in the current context of social distancing). Apart from these, learning would happen throughout the day, whether we realized it or not. When you learn a new keyboard shortcut from a colleague, or you figure out something new while you casually discuss the business model of a new client over a cup of coffee, you are making invaluable additions to your arsenal of knowledge.
Organizational learning is an effective and necessary tool that can yield amazing, tangible results in a short time span if it is planned, executed, and monitored in a seamless & streamlined process. This becomes even more important for an organization when employees start working remotely.
This is where Enterprise Learning Management Systems come in. Cutting-edge Learning Management System (LMS) tools like iLearnAhead, is a 100% SCORM and Tin Can compliant product, with 200,000+ users across 10 leading global companies, such as ST Kinetics Engineering, BASF, The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), and EM Services. It is designed to streamline and achieve any and all of your organization’s remote training and remote learning goals.
At Web Synergies, we are committed to providing tailor-made software solutions to help businesses work better, smarter and happier. If your organization is considering the move towards a more remote-working-friendly environment, get in touch with us to see how we can use technology to make that transition as easy and frictionless as possible.
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