Remote Work is Here to Stay. Here’s How You Can Transition for the Long Haul.
It’ll be a long time before we can go back to working side-by-side in our offices. Many businesses have started implementing remote work setups for their teams in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nooks in our homes have been converted into makeshift workspaces. Team meetings have been moved to Zoom. Everyone has been installing and testing new apps, all claiming to be the last productivity tool you will ever need.
Now, it is necessary to exert all the extra effort to make remote work, work. But if remote work is here to stay, you have to make sure your setup is sustainable and enables productivity, collaboration, and security. Let’s dive into some guidelines.
Be flexible
You can try, but you don’t have to replicate every aspect of how you did things in the good ol’ days, also known as 2019. First and foremost, you have to accept this, and then inject flexibility in the way that you work.
It used to be that flexible work arrangements are but a perk for employees of a handful of progressive companies. Now, flexible work arrangements will keep the world economy going.
Standardize tools and platforms
Your Marketing team may be thriving in Google Drive, but the Sales team running Office 365 may find it inconvenient. Each employee may have their own preferred app for group chats — Messenger, Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp, WeChat, just to name a few. You have to install all of these to accommodate all incoming messages. Not to mention all the different teleconferencing apps that your users will download, upgrade, and hope to secure.
Review remote working tools for different aspects of remote working. Perhaps initiate a necessary user debate to arrive at a decision that everyone can get behind. Establish one app each for team collaboration, instant messaging, teleconferencing, documents, etc. Or get a single platform for everything. The important thing is to standardize so that you can minimize technical and security issues.
Now is also the time to try out innovative solutions to emerging problems. New chatbot applications are now available for you to inquire about the schedule and availability of remote colleagues or even automatically generate weekly timesheets — without having to pick up the phone or to lift a finger to encode work hours.
Communicate clearly and often
You are only distancing from each other physically, not socially. Do not be silent now. It’s time to be transparent about policies and strategies to keep the business going. Get into the habit of daily stand-up meetings. At Pez.AI, we don’t need to spend 10 to 20 minutes of our time for that since we have our bot to do it for us.
Check-in on your team members at the start and at the end of the business day. Have virtual sit-down lunches. Conduct live sessions with management so that communication about responding to the crisis is two-way.
As the world and local health authorities implement new regulations that affect work and life, multitudes of questions are to be expected from employees. Anticipate questions and publish responses to FAQs to help employees feel confident about the company’s readiness. Chatbots like Pez.ai’s Expert can integrate into platforms like Slack and Google Sheets to cater to your team’s inquiries about policies, health insurance, payslips, schedules, and more, all day, everyday.
Start preparing for the long-term today
Start right away. Pivoting to long-term remote work will not be perfect right away, maybe not ever. But in the face of extraordinary situations, those who are quick to adapt give themselves an advantage over the competition.
We’re a little ways down the road but we’d appreciate your feedback and comments. Let us know what you think or give us a clap. 👏
Pez.AI is a purveyor of data-driven transformation. Our chatbot solutions are built to combat inefficiencies and foster sustainable AI partnerships in the workplace. Automating knowledge-sharing and streamlining business processes eliminates transactional interactions giving time for more enriching activities that empower your workforce. Learn how our bots can increase your workplace productivity at www.pez.ai 🤖
