While years ago nobody could have imagined that there would be these many companies working from distance, today almost every company tends to develop strategies to go remote and still continue effective work. Although some it may be a little bit risky for the performance of some firms, in general people started to consider remote work as vital for fighting against coronavirus.
As the pandemic continues to spread, companies that returned to normal regimes are still going remote because the virus doesn’t seem to stop for now. However, many businesses didn’t turn out to perform effectively during the lockdown whale they were remote and this is why they are worried about whether this strategy will work or not. As a result, some companies try to avoid going fully remote and plan to work only half remotely, but actually, many of them may be already ready to go fully remote without even acknowledging it. This is why it’s important to understand when it is time to completely start working from a distance. There are a few factors that can make you believe that the company is ready to go fully remote. And whether you like it or not and whether you want to believe it or not, despite some problems, today remote work is considered as future of companies.
Signs of remote working potential
If you noticed that the productivity of your employees working remotely is higher than those you continue to go to the office, then you should probably start thinking about going remote. In fact, the benefits of remote working could be the main reason for increased productivity. At home, people are less stressed, they don’t worry about arriving at work lately because of the traffic jam or other inconveniences and also, they can be more productive because they don’t spend time talking to colleagues and discussing new trends.
Although company owners have been worried that at home people would start to entertain themselves with some activities simultaneously with working, it turns out that most of the remote employees are actually more focused on their work. Probably it’s because their attention can be fully concentrated on what they do and it’s not distracted with things like how they look, what a new employee wears, or whether their boss has already shown up in the office. At home, they have nothing to worry about other than how they do their job because they know that all that their supervisors care about from distance is whether they performed well or not.
Working remotely seems to be especially effective for some websites. They have been reporting that overall work performance has improved after they completely went remote. Even some forex broker platforms noted the improvement in the productivity of their employees. For example, as a popular forex broker Axiory suggests, the threats of coronavirus made them shut down some offices, while some people still continue to show up to the office. At first, working from a distance was a big challenge for them, and thought that they couldn’t supervise employees effectively enough, but as time passed by, it turned out that remote workers actually performed better than those who stayed at home. In order to find out if this assumption is right, they developed some surveys for the workers. The results showed that the productivity of remote workers was far higher and also, they were more motivated to work effectively than ever. This was the time when the company decided to go fully remote, as it realized that the overall performance of the company would increase if every employee would work under the same condition.
Healthy work habits
However, increased motivation and improved performance is not everything. Your employees could be performing better from home but it doesn’t mean that the company should go fully remote immediately. In fact, there are other important things as well that you need to make sure of at first.
First of all, while working remotely, communication is everything. Employees may be working effectively, but you need to know that they are always available to collaborate, because if something happens supervisors need to ensure that employees are ready to adapt to new challenges and new environments. Therefore, you should encourage healthy work habits which means training the employees to focus on their job but also, they should be available for personal appointments when it’s necessary.
For example, as Axiory says, some of their remote workers find it hard at first to find out some new topics that they have to write about. It was especially the case with scalping, which is a trading strategy that actually requires guidelines for understanding. But they quickly arranged a training about how scalping of currencies works and as a result, the stress level of employees decreased and they performed better. This is why you should take time and arrange some online training sessions for remote workers in order to help them develop healthy work habits. It will definitely help them to maintain a good mood and stay not only physically, but also mentally healthy which is very important especially at times of isolation.
Work-Life balance
Another thing that you need to make sure of before you go fully remote, is to ensure that your employees can maintain a work-life balance. Just because they work from home, it doesn’t mean that you should give them more work than usual. Everybody needs to have their personal time and actually, it’s the only way to avoid burnout of your employees which won’t do good for anyone. Therefore, you should encourage them to take time off and not stress themselves to perform better than necessary.
Bottom Line
So, if you notice that your employees have already developed healthy work habits, they can maintain a good balance between their personal lives and their job and if they perform better than usual from home, then you should definitely think about going fully remote. Although this is not everything and there are many other things that you need to keep in mind, having satisfied employees who feel their job is rewarding, actually takes a great part in boosting the business. So, take time to arrange everything we discussed, and start thinking about going fully remote only afterward.