How to increase the efficiency of remote working?

The requirements of remote work, increasingly popular due to pandemonium, dictate the choice of appropriate tools. New technologies can streamline the activities performed in the home office – they allow to increase efficiency. What is worth paying attention to?

Remote working and efficiency

The introduction of lockdown in the spring of 2020 surprised some companies that had no experience in delegating remote work to employees or – because of its nature – could not do it. Some of them quickly caught up. It was the companies that were able to adapt to the new realities that lost the least. Why were they previously unwilling to allow employees to perform their tasks from home?

The most important reason was the fear of lowering their efficiency. Meanwhile, a regularly published study by Salesforce Research shows that employee productivity while working from home office decreased by only 1%. With such a solution, you can save on office rent and workplace equipment – so it’s very possible that a permanent change in the market awaits us. It’s important to create a technology ecosystem for employees that supports their efficiency.

Tools to support remote working

Equipping employees with modern technological tools is key to organizing remote work. Its effectiveness will be high when such programs respond to the various challenges encountered during remote work. These will include solutions that support teamwork:

• MS Planner – a tool included in the Office 365 package, which is a compromise between a simple to-do list and complicated programs for organizing project work. It allows you to assign tasks and monitor the status of their implementation,

• Asana – a project management application, comes in four subscription plans that give different usage possibilities. Projects can be done as a task list or task board,

• Trello – an easy-to-use tool that allows you to plan and organize remote work, organize and assign tasks.

Programs that facilitate collaboration between employees:

• Office 365 – a package described as “office in the cloud”. It has become the successor to the classic office suite, but is geared towards data collection and cloud-based work,

• G-Suite – a suite of intelligent applications offered by Google for businesses.

Tools designed to measure and manage work time:

• Toggl – is a type of platform that is used to record tasks and measure their completion time,

• Clickmeeting – a very intuitive platform for webinars.

Virtual drives designed to store data and use it together:

• Google Drive – allows you to upload large size files and view content directly in the cloud,

• One Drive – a service built into Windows that requires no additional software installation.

Tools for communication through video, audio or text channels:

• Slack – the ability to communicate through chats assigned to individuals. It can be integrated with other applications,

• Skype – popular video communicator, increasingly used for learning and working,

• MS Teams – facilitates not only communication but also file sharing. It can also be accessed via a browser, without installing the tool, e.g. by clients.

What mistakes are made during the implementation of these technologies?

The mere application of programs that support remote working in terms of its efficiency is not enough. It is necessary to carry it out in a way that is simple and easy for employees to understand. Thus, two applications should not be introduced at once. The team must be properly trained to be able to use all the possibilities of the new technology. Of course, it also has to be properly matched to the needs that are indicated by the employees in a given company. Only this will guarantee the use of their full potential