The vast majority of businesses were not ready for the move to remote working last year, and it affected both productivity and the level of service that was offered to their customers. It was fortunate that all sections of society faced similar upheaval in the same period or such drastic changes could have had a more negative effect than they actually did.
Such a quick transition, in some cases overnight, meant that many choices were made in haste and some things were overlooked altogether. As remote working has been the norm for approaching a year, it may be time for businesses to reassess some of the choices they made or ensure they have taken care of everything they missed.
#1 Replacing the old office structure
Despite the massive upheaval suffered by businesses, the expectations of their customers will have changed very little. This means that even though many things have changed, productivity needs to be somewhere near the level it once was. This will need effective communication (more on that in a minute) and a structure that enables this to happen.
Tactics such as having meetings at the start and end of every day, to set out the daily tasks and then confirm their completion at ‘home’ time, can bring a structure that otherwise would not be there with all of the distractions faced by home working. However, over time customer expectations can be managed to allow staff time to cope with the different challenges of home working.
#2 Reassess SaaS choices
Amid the chaos created by the almost overnight switch to remote working, some hasty choices would have been made, especially regarding how a team would communicate. As this is the backbone of how most companies work, it was one of the first boxes that needed to be ticked and ticked quickly.
Because many companies already use Microsoft products, the choice to pick Microsoft Teams would have been the easiest one, or they will have opted for Slack as it the market leader. However, as both of these platforms are stored on their own servers, they might have greater control over the data. Switching to an open-source alternative like Mattermost, which can be hosted on your company’s own servers, gives a greater level of control.
#3 Employee resources
Staff will have gone from a well-equipped office environment to working in their own homes that will have few if any of the resources they had at the office. This can be as basic as not having a dedicated space and having to work from a table in a busy kitchen, sat on a rickety chair instead of the ergonomic office chair they happily sat in for eight hours.
Clearly, this is going to affect productivity and overall employee well-being, which can have a negative effect on their decision-making process. The temptation to take shortcuts they might not otherwise consider, may create quality issues or lead to a possible security breach when they don’t assess an email correctly and open a suspect attachment.
