Thanks to technology, many workers are no longer required to make the commute into the office anymore. Past trends reveal that there has been a  159% growth in remote workers in the last 12 years. One of the biggest considerations for companies to allow remote work is whether their employees will still  be as productive as before. They’ll miss out on the daily commute and there will be some obvious benefits to working from home, but time management, distractions, and procrastination are obvious obstacles to overcome. Thankfully, technology comes to the rescue with some ingenious apps and software to make it worth the employer’s while. 

Conferencing And Communication Tools To Keep Your Finger On The Pulse

No one likes hundreds of emails from their bosses to catch up on the daily figures and find out progress on specific tasks. This is especially true for those messages that can easily be sent through other channels.  Employees spend around 13 hours a week just on their emails, and for those who get backlogged, even more so. This could easily snowball into missed instructions and deadlines, or important updates on ongoing tasks. Instead, by using apps such as Slack for communication, Asana or Monday to prioritize and schedule tasks, Trello for list-like instructions, communication will be streamlined and the number of messages in the inbox will trickle down to just a few. 

Spend The Right Amount Of Time On Certain Tasks

There are a number of reasons remote workers should consider time-tracking tools as part of their daily grind. The most obvious reason is that business owners will have direct access to the length of time it takes to finish a task and whether their employees are putting in enough hours to finish these tasks. This will also reveal to employers whether their remuneration should be based on number of hours worked, or tasks completed, or a combination of both. According to  Dynamics 365 Time Tracking, time tracking is an essential component to accurate payroll and billing requests.  Time trackers are also great for productivity for staff who can work in the fringe hours of the day and not necessarily during ordinary business hours. This will also allow staff to determine what their most productive time of the day is. 

Invest In Responsive CMS And CRM Platforms 

Lack of access to information is a common hurdle for remote workers. While solid Content Management System (CMS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms will be a gamechanger for your business overall, investing in these platforms will provide remote staff with access to all they need while servicing clients. With the systems at their fingertips, things such as product and training libraries can easily be added to  generate a more effective workflow. It also helps to minimize errors, as all the information will be available on hand. If the business doesn’t require something quite so intricate, placing process flows, training manuals, and important documents in a cloud-based, secured folder will also go a long way. 

While there are times where remote work is unavoidable, it’s important that those employers who can facilitate the change to a work-from-home environment, have the right tools in place to manage it. Thanks to technology, productivity can remain at optimal levels even when employees aren’t under face-to-face supervision.