Six Steps to A Vibrant Remote Workforce [Part 2]

When employees were first sent to work from home, organizations scrambled to provide work-from-home software, devices, and infrastructure. As we transition to a new normal, it’s now important to reevaluate the initial infrastructure laid to support remote workers against a lasting, best-practice architecture. In the last entry, I shared the first three pillars for a thriving remote workforce. Let’s now explore the final three pillars.

Remote Workforce Pillars 

Video Collaboration

Substituting the office workplace with an at-home workspace is no easy feat. However, organizations can maximize the benefits of interpersonal communication virtually with a rich, seamless video experience. One of the most interesting dichotomies of the pandemic was the emergence of the virtual happy hour. As texting and social media have seemingly replaced phone calls and gatherings over the last decade, especially for younger people, it would be fair to think that workers would adapt well to a reduction in human contact. However, the opposite quickly emerged, as virtual happy hours and “quarantinis” became all the rage, showcasing an intrinsic craving for camaraderie.

Implementing a unified visual and video collaboration solution with a top-down culture of camera-on is a great way to maximize workforce productivity—and sanity. If you’ve been reading along so far, it’s no surprise that security should be a top-of-mind requirement when standardizing on a collaboration solution.

Distributed Communications

Communication patterns that have been established over the last decade are difficult to break, and when broken, miscommunication is a common occurrence. A prime example is a corporate telephony system that scales to office use, but is unavailable in a work-from-home setting.  Furthermore, when that corporate telephony system lacks modern features—such as voicemail to the inbox or simultaneous dialing of a desk phone and cell phone—miscues are bound to happen between employees trying to reach each other. Fortunately, there are many avenues to extend telephony capabilities into a distributed remote workforce, whether it’s a mobile app, computer application, desk phone, or home video unit.

Operational Management

One of the major identified risks that came out of the early days of COVID-19 was the potential for critical loss of talent and knowledge. Gartner estimated up to 40% absenteeism in the workforce due to the coronavirus, whether related to personal health or an overall reduced ability to work. Organizations that have fully encapsulated their IT operations to an internal team in an on-premises-only setting are at greater risk of disruption compared to organizations with a distributed support structure across a hybrid infrastructure. Building an operational IT structure that leverages trusted partners whose in-crisis capabilities have been vetted along with cloud technologies is an important element to sustaining operations, both during a crisis and in a lasting remote-workforce environment.

REGISTER FOR A SECURE REMOTE FOUNDATIONS ENGAGEMENT

Holistically assess the current state of your remote workforce against six proven pillars in a sixty-minute structured workshop. A complimentary, comprehensive engagement report will be provided to you upon completion. Get started on a more secure and vibrant remote workforce culture today.