Remote Working: How the Tech Industry is Paving the Way
Every company has a unique way of operating, depending on what works. One aspect of labour that companies focus on is the efficiency of employees.
Company executives have the massive task of providing their teams with the best work environment and adequate resources to be efficient. This has made them become innovative and embrace the latest technological trends in their industries to ensure better productivity.
It is worth mentioning that technology is a crucial enabler of remote working. However, it can be tricky to tell the role technology plays in remote working without the requisite knowledge of how it works. This post will help you understand how vital technology is to freelance and remote work, so read on.
Understanding Freelance and Remote Work
About 16% of companies worldwide are fully remote today, while some practice a hybrid working model where you’d work remotely 50% of the time and on-site for the other half. The main reason for a hybrid work setup is that their business’s nature only allows them to be partially remote. That said, you can expect the number of companies shifting to remote workforces to increase even further.
Remote work entails working from a different location than your typical office. This location can be anywhere worldwide, as long as you have a decent internet connection. Working remotely is a concept that has existed for a long time. It dates back to 1972 when Jack Niles worked remotely for NASA. Since then, remote work has evolved in many ways, including freelancing.
Technology And Remote Work: How Is It Possible?
It will also help to understand the role technology plays in remote work. There are several ways you can use technology to help your freelance team be productive. The section below will investigate how technology has helped fuel remote working.
Some of the best contributions of technology to freelance and remote work include:
Technology Provides Efficient Communication Tools
Today, remote working has become widely adopted by different individuals and companies. It has even spread to industries that previously did not value freelancers. But how does it work? How can employees effectively communicate?
Communication is essential when running a business. Technology has enabled remote workers to communicate easily with other teams and customers.
With remote teams, all you need to do is provide the right technology tools to streamline communication. You need a website and a CRM to enable these teams to deliver the desired results. The tools will help facilitate communication and make the team more productive.
Great CRM software also ensures that you provide the right tools for your team to collaborate efficiently. You can invest in a CRM to help unify all the data from different departments.
Virtual Call Center Solutions for Enhanced Customer Experience
Anyone who runs a business knows that customers are the most critical part of it. Companies need them to thrive. Thus, giving them the best customer experience every time they come across your brand is essential. But how can you do that? The answer lies in excellent customer service.
Customer service has also significantly benefited from remote work. Establishing a virtual call centre solution has enabled companies to provide 24/7 customer support. If you run a business and have challenges responding to customer needs, setting up a virtual call centre software will help.
However, it would help if you were sure that the virtual call centre solution you adopt meets user needs. It will be vital for your team to approve the software before you settle on it. Besides call centre software, invest in alternative ways of providing support, like a live chat for your website.
Technology Produced Productivity and Task Allocation Trackers
One of the challenges of having a remote team is maintaining productivity. Many employers are reluctant to allow remote work because they fear productivity drops and that employees might only save time.
However, technology is here to ensure that productivity remains high even if teams move to remote offices. You can schedule work for each team member using technological tools. It will also help to ensure that they know their deadlines and can allocate their time well.
This is critical to ensuring that teams maintain the same level of productivity when working from their home offices. You can also use the tools you have to know how far along each team member is with their assignments. That will make it easy for your business to get good results and grow.
Availability of Freelance Time-Tracking Apps
Many companies pay by the hour. Your salary depends on how many hours you work for a business. However, counting the working hours can be tricky in a remote setup.
Thankfully, technology paved the way for freelance time-tracking apps to help businesses. These apps usually trace the activity of the computer they are installed on. For example, it counts the number of clicks on your mouse or keyboard. Some freelance time-tracking apps take screenshots or record your computer screen, depending on your settings.
Virtual Meetings are Easy and Accessible
Video calls were already there before the pandemic started. However, when COVID-19 altered how the world works, many video-calling software companies stepped up their game. Many software tools, like Google Meet and Zoom, improved their systems, allowing businesses to utilise them. Features such as conferencing, screen sharing, and more greatly help business meetings.
Bypass Geographic Restrictions
An organisation will face geographical restrictions significantly when expanding. Thankfully, technology can solve most of it, if not all. Here are some examples of how the process works:
Use of VPN and Proxies
VPNs and proxies allow access to data from any competitor’s website. Sometimes, businesses need competitor data to improve their services. They can easily scrape their competitors’ websites to access their required data.
Allows Team Members from Different Countries
It is vital to have a diversified team when running a business. The best way to diversify your team is by using technology to onboard members from different countries. As long as you have the right CRM tools to streamline communication and a freelance time-tracking app, acquiring worldwide talents is possible.
A virtual call centre with the right technology tools will make collaboration easy.
Logistics and Tracking
Travelling across borders to serve customers or attend meetings should be a thing of the past. It is now easy to do this from any location with the right technological tools. You can also virtually track what your remote team is doing using technology.
Market Research
Research is essential when introducing a new product or service to the market. Technology can assist you in conducting market research on time. It can also help you analyse the data you collect to enable you to use it for decision-making.
Wider Audience Reach
Your audience will grow once you start leveraging technology in your business. Technology tools make it simple to expand your reach beyond borders. You can use these tools to ensure your business and products enter new markets and meet customer needs.
Benefits of Freelance and Remote Work Set Up
There are various ways that remote working has changed how teams work. It will also be vital to explore some of these ways if you want to adopt them in your business. This will help you make an informed decision to embrace remote working or use company offices.
Here are some of the ways remote working is impacting lives:
Removes Office Capacity Limitations
A remote workforce won’t limit you in some ways, primarily if they work from their homes. You can have a huge team that relies on something other than your office’s resources. This means you will only invest in a small office space serving your business’s administrative area.
This can be a welcome idea, especially for startups. The money required to rent an office space for employees or a call centre solution can be too expensive. Technology and remote workplaces will help remove your office capacity limitations. You can rent out a small space and still boast a vast workforce.
It Makes Employees Autonomous
This is another significant benefit that technology has brought to remote working. The best way to foster employee engagement is by promoting autonomy. Your employees need to feel free from all the pressure and stress of the office environment by working from home.
However, you need to ensure that you build trust with your audience. This is the key to having autonomy in your business and providing the best results. Your team will have a better work-life balance if they have control over their time and where they want to work from.
Present Opportunities for Development
This is another significant benefit of leveraging technology for remote work. There are many e-learning courses and resources that you can use to grow your skills. It is vital to ensure that your employees can learn and improve their skills to provide more value.
Technology tools are making it possible to ensure that employees have time to develop themselves. They do not have to travel to work every day, meaning they have enough time to take online courses. They can also use resources like your business website to learn more.
Well, those are some of the reasons technology has been vital for remote workers. It is tricky to ensure that your team reaches maximum productivity if you don’t invest in the right tech solutions. You can empower your team to deliver the expected results using these tools.
It Is Promoting Workplace Flexibility
We have already mentioned that employees can work from their comfort zone with the right tools. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, employees had few choices to make. However, this has changed over time as remote working has become more popular.
Today, employees can work from company offices or at home. But then, the companies they work for need to have adopted remote working for this to happen. The work one does matters; for instance, you can work remotely if you are into designing campaigns.
Employees Are Becoming Less Stressed
There are various reasons why employees can be less stressed when working remotely. We have already mentioned that remote working allows them the flexibility they desire. It is easy to ensure that your employees feel less stressed by enabling them to work from home.
The fact that they do not need to wake up too early to beat traffic in some cities makes them less stressed. Also, they can dress however they want, but ensure that they deliver the results you expect. This is one of the reasons a remote team will feel less stressed or pressured.
The Best Tips For Thriving In A Remote Work World
The next step will understand how your company will benefit from remote work. This section will provide insights into how your business will thrive if it adopts a remote workforce. Read to the end to get the best results with remote teams.
Here are some tips to know:
Invest in the Right Technology
The first step to ensuring your business thrives in a remote work environment has the right technology solutions. However, you might need to learn the tools to adopt if you start building your team. A good background on what to invest in will help you immensely.
Your employees can play a critical role in helping you choose the right tools. They know what they do and the tools that will enable them to work efficiently. One thing to look at is what they do. If they do graphic design or luxury branding, get them tools that fit their work needs. Software tools that streamline communication could also help in a remote setup.
One of the business aspects in which remote working has delivered outstanding results in customer service and call centre solutions. Most companies that adopt remote working start by implementing it in their customer service departments. To make their businesses thrive, they must invest in quality virtual call centre software to provide the best customer experience.
Ensuring Data Accuracy
The next thing to do is ensure you provide your teams with accurate data. It is worth mentioning that remote teams heavily rely on the data available in your organisation. It is vital to ensure that you supply them with data that will help them avoid making mistakes.
The best way to do this is by leveraging data collection and analysis technology. With a CRM, it will be easy to gather customer data, which you can then make available to your teams. That way, you can ensure that the data don’t mislead remote teams.
Properly Allocating Responsibilities and Work Scheduling
Your team must know the roles they have to play, even as they work remotely. One challenge you might face if you don’t state the part everyone will play is accountability. It’ll be tricky to tell who made a mistake or didn’t achieve the targets you set for them.
It would help if you also worked correctly with a remote team. It will be easier for your team to meet deadlines if you schedule work accurately. A proper schedule will help ensure that they strive to deliver the best results within your allocated time.
Thriving in the remote working world requires much effort. It would be best if you looked into the quality of the data you provide your team. Also, the work schedules and their responsibilities must be well-listed to ensure you compete well in your industry.
What Does the Future of Remote Work Look Like?
We have explored remote working and how it impacts businesses today. But you might wonder how this will change how we do business in the future. Well, there are many things to mention about the future of remote workforces and the companies that use them.
Here are some of the things to note:
What percentage of people will work remotely five years from today?
We have already mentioned that remote workers have been soaring over the years. There’s no doubt that this trend will continue even as we move into the future. You can expect more companies to adopt remote working as an alternative to offices.
Also, employee expectations are changing significantly as remote working is getting adopted more. Most employees make workplace flexibility a significant factor when looking for job opportunities. It will be vital for businesses to adjust if they want to get the best employees.
How will more people be able to work remotely?
Companies will need to put structures in place to enable remote working. One way they can do this is by coming up with performance metrics. They can use these metrics to evaluate their teams. Employees can use the same metrics to measure their performance.
If you run a business, you will also need to develop new ways of onboarding your employees. Building a company culture, they must get accustomed to when joining your team will help. It’ll ensure remote working brings better results to your firm in the future.
Who’ll advance better between remote workers and in-person teams?
Many fear that remote workers might find it challenging to move from one job to another. The reality is that most company executives think of remote workers last. However, this does not imply that you should abandon remote working because it is quickly forgotten.
The needs of companies keep changing, and sometimes they are forced to think beyond their premises. If a company wants to go global, it won’t have any other option but to have a remote workforce. Thus, remote workers will also be in demand in the future.
How will offices change in the future?
You might wonder if offices will cease to exist once remote working becomes mainstream. Well, the truth is that offices are here to stay, and they will only be fully phased out. They will continue to operate but evolve in various ways to meet changing needs.
Remote workplaces will only make organisations and their employees better. They will provide the flexibility required to ensure teams remain productive. Offices will be there to accommodate employees who feel like working from them.
Well, there is no doubt that remote working is a transformative way of providing customer service. If you run a business, it is one thing you should consider adopting. We have explored how its future looks, and the reality is that the earlier you embrace it, the better.
Conclusion
The tech industry has significantly impacted freelance and remote work. You need technology to grow your business and manage remote work better. But then, you must ensure that you choose the right tools and solutions to enable remote working.
There is so much that you need to do when implementing remote work. As previously stated, some streamline communication through reliable communication software and manage their hours through freelance time-tracking apps. However, one of the most important aspects of a remote setup in business is ensuring that your customers are well taken care of through an excellent virtual call centre solution.
With all of these considered, working remotely is made as easy as possible.
