The pandemic isn’t the inventor of the remote working concept. However, it did help in accelerating the adoption of remote working by Businesses across the globe. Many have publicly announced their intent to continue the remote working policy even after the pandemic ends.
So what are these so-called benefits of remote working? And are there any obstacles to implementing a remote working policy? We have answers to many such questions in this post.
5 Benefits of Remote Work
Reduced Commute Time
Without an office to travel to on a daily basis, employees can find themselves saving commute time. And without the commute, employees have more time to catch up on their hobbies and spend time with their families. This leads to safer and healthier employees, which results in to lesser downtime and an increase in productivity.
Flexible Schedules
One benefit of remote work is that companies are learning that quality of work is more important than sitting in front of a desk for 8 hours doing a fraction of the work. Companies are beginning to adopt the mindset –
“As long as the work is done well, we don’t mind when you work to do it.”
Remote work lets you plan your daily activities throughout your workday. Employees can do their laundry in the time between two client meetings or pick up their child from daycare, and so on.
Effective Team Meetings
In the office, it’s quite natural to set up a meeting to discuss even the smallest of updates and changes. These meetings can take up a lot of time for team members, often leaving them with little productive time that they can use for their work. Working remotely helps you set proper agendas for each meeting beforehand or only take calls that really have a clearly defined purpose.
Fewer Distractions
While this is hotly contested by naysayers, it is actually true. Creating an office space at home with minimal distractions can help you focus on the task at hand. For many people, working out of an office can be quite distracting with colleagues coming up to ask for clarifications and breaking your focus.
Save Money
Remote work does wonders when it comes to saving money. Aside from the obvious savings on fuel and vehicle maintenance, workers can also cut down on the expenses related to lunch with colleagues, coffee, traveling for client meetings, buying professional outfits, and more. All of that money spent can be saved for your family, retirement, or even for hobbies.
Although there are clear benefits when it comes to remote work, it’s not really a bed of roses. Working remotely produces quite a number of challenges that were previously unheard of when working in an office space.
5 Challenges of Remote Work
Lack of Boundaries
When working in an office, it’s easy to set boundaries. The moment you leave for home, most people aren’t expected to fire up their laptops and respond to a client email or attend a meeting. But the same doesn’t hold true for remote work. Employees who are unprepared can often find their extra hours being used for working just because they haven’t set their boundaries clearly.
Have a fixed schedule for your professional work. Insist on not accepting any calls or responding to emails after this time.
Fragmented Team Communication
One of the biggest changes that an employee encounters while working remotely is the lack of team communication. In the office, it’s fairly easy and straightforward to walk up to a teammate and ask them to clarify a doubt or ask questions. But that spontaneity goes missing when working remotely.
The solution that has been adopted by everyone is to use digital channels like Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, and other software tools built to connect people from all over the world. Although they might not replicate the feeling of talking to a person in-office, tools like these enable better communication. They can also provide records of communications to go back to in case you forgot something that was discussed a while back.
For instance, if you are conducting a meeting via Zoom or Google Meet, you can always record the conversation. However, with a tool like Rafiki, you can not only record your meetings but also transcribes, captures key topics and moments of your meetings, and even generates automatic notes by topic to get you started.
Unplugging After Work
Although it’s not really rare for employees when working at the office, remote workers are finding it difficult to unplug after work hours. There is a very thin and faded line between their personal and professional lives. Most remote workers are unable to discern between the two and often end up at the wrong side of the line. Here is a study that shows unplugging after work is the biggest challenge for them while working remotely.
Image Source: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/remote-work-has-become-the-new-normal.aspx
Unclear Professional Metrics
In the office, it’s much easier to track goals and metrics for employees; You can see them working and gauge their performance. Things get a little difficult when it comes to remote working as you miss out on watching them converse at work. But tools like Rafiki make your life easier. It helps you measure and monitor several metrics using robust AI conversation technology. Here are three popular metrics it helps to track –
- Rafiki’s interactivity score helps you identify how good a sales rep or any employee for that matter, is in striking a conversation with a prospect that converts them into a paying customer.
- Rafiki also lets you see how a rep deals with objection handling by tracking the ‘Objection’ or conflict topics.
- Rafiki can identify and display negative-sounding comments or anxious responses in the call using the ‘patience’ factor. Using this, you can find out how good your sales rep is when it comes to handling a customer.
Increasingly Sedentary Lifestyle
It’s well known that office jobs can be quite sedentary in nature, leading to a number of health issues related to a physically slow lifestyle. But that problem becomes compounded when working from home. Since there’s no need to go out and commute to work, that reduces the amount of physical exertion that people have to do. Resolving this challenge will require the employees to schedule time for themselves to work out, have a jog, and keep themselves in shape.
Conclusion
While there are numerous challenges to overcome when it comes to remote work, there are irrefutable benefits that cannot be ignored. If you want to enable your team to do the best work they can, then it will require you to facilitate seamless conversations between all your team members and see what works for them. Tools like Rafiki can make your remote working life better and solve most of the challenges that you encounter instantly.
To know more and book a demo with us, contact us now.
