Today, and especially in the current epidemic, more businesses are moving to telecommuting. Teleworkers can work anywhere without geographical restrictions and communicate with the organization by using the necessary communication tools for telecommuting. Sometimes external factors, such as the spread of the Corona virus around the world, make it difficult and impossible for employees to be in the office. In such situation, the best way for the organization to continue its activities and also to follow the restrictions of the Ministry of World Health, is turning to work remotely.
But the important thing is how important and beneficial telecommuting is for businesses and how the remote team should be managed.
First of all, it is necessary to check out the advantages and disadvantages of working remotely for businesses. We first look at the benefits of telecommuting.
Benefits of telecommuting
Reduce organizational costs
Organizational costs and saving on these costs is one of the most important benefits of telecommuting.
Using telecommuting employees, property costs, equipment, and needs such as water, electricity, etc. will significantly reduce and it allows them to spend these costs on investment and business growth.
Unlimited talented human resources
One of the most important benefits of remote working is the possibility of hiring talented people without geographical restriction around the world. Since the remote wordoesn’t need to be present in the office, businesses can hire employees from other cities and even countries and businesses in the small cities can compete with businesses in big cities with no limitation. On the other hand, based on statistics, almost 99% of people prefer to work remotely in situations like this epidemy.
Employees’ satisfaction
Based on statistics, the satisfaction of remote workers is about 22% higher comparing to other employees. Employees’ satisfaction directly affects on the efficiency and performance of them in the company. When employees have no worries in the current situation about transportation problem, risk of coronavirus, etc. they can focus even better on serving customers and fulfilling their daily tasks, and therefore, the customers’ satisfaction will also increase.
Flexibility
Working remotely has high flexibility and Employees can work in every circumstance even if one of their family members are sick they can easily work from home or other places. Unpredictable accidents such as Corona virus or natural disasters may force employees to work at home. In these situations, businesses can move to telecommuting in order to prevent any interruption in the business tasks. They allow their employees to continue working from everywhere and being present at the office is optional.
Disadvantages of telecommuting
As we’ve mentioned earlier, remote working has many advantages which help businesses growth and success. But at the same time, it may have some difficulties which we’ll discuss now.
Communication
The first challenge while managing remote teams is the communication and employees’ access to the communicational needs. There are many income and outgoing calls during a day and remote worker needs proper tools and protocols to access to all these calls and keep in touch with colleagues and customers.
Fortunately, cloud enterprise phones have solved this problem. Nexfon cloud phone allows employees to have access to enterprise calls, chats, online fax, documents, etc. through the Internet and will solve communicational problems during telecommunicating.
Team work
Another challenge of telecommuting is the sense of teamwork and coordination of team members. The management of the telecommuting team should be such that employees feel supported, accompanied and connected with their colleagues despite working in different places. As a result, monitoring and reviewing the concerns and needs of each telecommuter by the manager is essential to advance teamwork.
Technology
Each company needs some tools and technologies to be able working remotely. Huge investment may be needed to provide all these technologies and telecommuting tools, so that businesses being able to keep working remotely and stay connected to their customers and finish their tasks.
Management of the remote workforce has challenges but there are many companies already using remote teams. In order to manage a successful remote work, you need to follow some steps and strategies listed below:
- Equip your team with proper tools: First of all, you need to recognize your teams need and try to provide them with the necessary tools. It means give your employees the access to Email, receiving and forwarding calls, enterprise chat system, etc. from everywhere. Nexfon Pro provides all communicational needs through web panel and mobile application, so that remote workers won’t need any other tools or devices.
- Check team performance regularly: Examining the performance of team members on a regular basis, in addition to creating order and structure in work, also increases the responsibility of team members. Also, by monitoring the work, any mistakes and problems can be prevented, and as a result, people’s time and energy will not be wasted in the wrong direction.
- Identify the roles and responsibilities of team members: Teleworkers may not be aware of the role and responsibilities of others in the tea because they do not work together. To better manage the team, it is necessary to define the job description and responsibilities of each person and let people know about their main performance in the team.
- Specify the deadline and KP: Sometimes what is done at home may seem trivial to others. To avoid this view, it is necessary to determine the tasks and deadlines of each task based on the key performance indicators (KPI) and measure each person’s performance based on that.
- Measure the participation of telecommuters: The amount of each person’s participation can indicate his/her loyalty and enthusiasm toward the company. The greater the participation and presence of your telecommuters, the greater their performance and efficiency.
Having remote workforce has many advantages and is so effective in success and growth of the business. Employees will have more freedom and with the decreases in the costs, employers are able to hire talented people around the world. It should be mentioned that succeed and reaching to the goals needs much effort and remote workforces should be manages properly.
