For many organizations, telecommuting became popular when the coronavirus pandemic hit the world in early 2020. Tech experts had to quickly develop applications and software to enable smooth and efficient remote working. On the other hand, companies that hadn’t embraced remote working were forced to do so rapidly, lest they go out of business. Thankfully, amidst the numerous difficulties, most global organizations did just fine. However, remote working continues to evolve as digital technologies continue to evolve. Remote working processes don’t end at the point of adoption. Organizations keep learning best practices to ensure that they succeed in remote working and realizing organizational goals. In this post, we perform a cross-section of the remote worker and professional services. What do organizations need to know about remote workers? What are the major technology trends in remote working? And, how are remote IT employees complying to meet next-generation IT challenges?
The History of Remote Working
Let’s go back to the roots to understand the remote worker better. Remote work can be traced to two centuries ago, and the first Industrial Revolution triggered it. Before the coming of commercial real estate and storefronts, craftsmen in trades such as pottery, carpentry, smiths, and whole-grain foods marketed and sold their products from the comfort of their homes. The increasing demand occasioned the resulting move to the town hall markets and the leasing of storefronts. From there, factories burgeoned, creating a need for hiring manual labor. The sprouting of factories gave birth to the hours of duty concept, then employees reporting to managers followed soon after.
A good number of people have worked remotely in the past and continue to do so. However, not everyone finds the office-to-remote working transition easy – especially professionals working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The very nature of work was remote long ago when skilled workers such as blacksmiths, carpenters, potters, and leather workers set up shops in their homes where they fully operated. Therefore, it is right to say that the evolution of remote work started hundreds of years before. However, the industrial revolution changed everything. When industries cropped up, employees were required to be onsite to oversee and assist in the large-scale production lines. Around this period, the concept of commuting to work came around.
Even though the formulation and adoption of remote work policies came after 1999, it even precedes the personal computer. IBM experimented in 1979 where they allowed their employees to work from home, and the count grew to 2000 by 1983, and JC Penny gave its call center employees the option of working from home.
We cannot talk about remote working without mentioning telecommuting – a term coined in 1973 by a NASA engineer, Jack Nilles, in his book, ‘The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff.’ Then we had garage startups beginning to emerge in 1999. In most of the startups, most entrepreneurs were former corporate employees or struggling college students who desired to make it on their own. Therefore, they were operating on a tight budget and couldn’t afford office rent, hire more people or set up an administration. The predecessors of the entrepreneurs we see today worked from the comfort of their homes, garages, and lofts until their cash flow stabilized by acquiring investors. The support the remote workers received at the time was incredible. For instance, the green movement supported the remote working concept since with fewer vehicles on the road, noise and air pollution were reduced considerably. Things progressed so fast so that by 2000, players acknowledged the importance of having remote work guidelines for both employees and employers. This led to the enactment of the DOT appropriations, which legitimized work and required companies to come up with telecommuting policies – such a big step toward the evolution of remote work. A decade later, and we had over 59% of remote working professionals working for private firms. Based on all this information, we can confidently say that remote work is here to stay. Organizations that had earlier expressed concerns over diminished employee performance are reconsidering their stance on this issue.
In a poll conducted by Gartner, more than 74% of business leaders confirmed their plan to move their workers to remote positions post covid19. Telecommuting has grown by 115% over the last decade. These statistics clearly indicate that organizations need to know who they are dealing with – that is, the remote worker – to ensure successful remote working and, most importantly, to facilitate the efficient and effective accomplishment of organizational goals. Let us look at the modern remote worker. What are their characteristics, what are their goals and aspirations, and how should the employer approach or treat them to ensure the highest level of collaboration, productivity, and performance?
The Modern Remote Worker
Working from home is considered different from remote working. WFH is a fairly small lifestyle change where the members of staff who usually commute to the office are allowed to work from home temporarily. On the other hand, remote work entails allowing workers to work from anywhere besides the company’s office. It could be their home, a coffee shop, or a different country from where the organization is based. Therefore, remote working is different from working from home. WFH implies that you are doing it temporarily or for a specified period, e.g, two weeks.
On the other hand, remote working means that the staff members can perform their roles from anywhere, permanently, which is mostly always from a home office. Your employers can be fully remote or adopt a hybrid remote work model where they must be available at the company office at least a couple of times every month to attend in-person meetings. The downside of the hybrid remote work model is its limiting nature because the employer is required to source workers strictly within their local areas, which is usually the case with in-person roles. On the other hand, fully remote positions broaden the employer’s reach to the global platform. It allows you access to the diverse global pool where you have more chances of interacting and selecting top talent to work in your company.
One of the benefits of remote work options for employees is flexibility. It allows them to organize their schedule around the most productive times. However, the flexibility and other remote benefits do not mean all is well. Remote workers are battling a couple of problems that managers need to be aware of to handle the situation appropriately. They include:
Work-Related Stress
We can all agree that modern remote work is still a relatively new concept. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough data to determine if remote working increases or decreases workplace stress. However, what is in the public domain is that workplace stress can manifest itself in different forms for remote employees, which can be difficult to recognize. Employees and managers alike face different sets of problems when operating remotely. Managers need new ways of communicating with their team members while ensuring to be sufficiently open for the remote workers to feel comfortable yet confident enough to say no, or give further explanations if they are battling stress.
There are several common issues that remote workers face, which can be blamed for work-related stress and mental health problems. They include the following:
a) The absence of social interaction
Managers need to understand that remote employees can feel a sense of loneliness. Unlike an office environment, a remote employee doesn’t have anyone to go to lunch with. They have no one to hang out with at the end of the week, even to grab a drink. Most importantly, if all remote communication happens via the phone or internet, it translates to fewer casual conversations, such as how people are. Conversations will mostly concentrate on business and work. While striking up a conversation to talk informally and socially isn’t commonplace, it should be. Doing so helps in the inclusion of social interactions in remote working like it happens in a traditional office environment, and it goes a long way in reducing stress among remote workers.
Research has revealed that social interactions and support can significantly assist in minimizing worry and stress and make remote workers feel supported and connected. There are several ways that social interactions and workplace culture contribute to the well-being of workers. They include meaningful work relationships, approachable management, increased cooperation between individuals and teams, and a sense of belonging (especially where colleagues appear caring towards each other). When social interactions are encouraged in a remote workplace, promotions, birthdays, and other special events are celebrated, it creates a sense of fun and an environment where employees have each other’s back.
Can we create this level of social interaction without meeting in person? Indeed it is! Below are creative ways of achieving the desired level of social interactions in remote working:
- Establishing daily check-ins – managers should consider instituting a daily call with their remote workers. They could even try working with a weekly one-on-one. Daily check-ins promote a feeling of inclusion and show that the management cares and is concerned with how its remote employees are doing while working remotely. Making daily check-ins regular and predictable encourages inclusion and collaboration between remote employees and groups.
- Engage creativity when celebrating accomplishments – with remote working, managers must make it a habit to celebrate their teams’ accomplishments. Some companies have robust recognition programs, but that isn’t enough. The majority of workers prefer a straightforward personal recognition award. You may borrow ideas from other organizations, such as requiring a senior leader to organize a team video call purposely to brag about the team’s accomplishments. A manager could even ship SWAG to their employees. It could be anything from party hats or DIY cocktail kits, chocolate, and so on, and then set up a video chat to celebrate or make a toast and so on. The objective is to socialize without bringing work to the meeting. Another way of celebrating accomplishments is mailing hand-written thank you notes or other congratulatory messages. You don’t know how important such a personal touch is to a remote worker.
- Organize virtual coffee or lunch get-togethers – the absence of a commute doesn’t mean that team members cannot engage socially. The manager, or delegated personnel can set up virtual coffee chats or luncheons to know how everyone is doing. Take such opportunities to ask if anything special is happening in their personal lives. Whatever it is, ensure to keep talks about work out of the social get-together.
- A chat program – most organizations with remote employees, have a chat program in place. If you haven’t set up one yet, you could explore Jabber, Yammer, or Slack to create a conversational outlet where team members can communicate throughout the day. Such a platform promotes intimate communication between employees, leading to more collaboration than you would normally get with email communication. It also fosters a sense of belonging. If you are looking for a way to create a sense of fun where team members can joke with each other, support each other and celebrate achievements, chat programs are the best.
b)Working for longer hours
When all a person’s work is performed on a laptop from the comfort of their homes, it increases the chances of a professional working longer hours – especially since there is no one to monitor them. In contrast, a retail manager cannot legally keep their store open longer, meaning that employees must go home and accomplish their tasks at the set working hours. On the other hand, remote working means that the employee might work late to ensure they’ve successfully accomplished the work. Unfortunately, if remote employees disregard the importance of taking care of their logged hours, and the employers don’t see the need to warn their remote employees against presenteeism, you could soon deal with working burnout.
Burnout in the workplace is nothing new and has since become a global problem. McKinsey and Company describe workplace burnout as great exhaustion. Unfortunately, it has intensified during the pandemic, especially in workplaces that stayed open, particularly healthcare, retail, and manufacturing. Post-covid19, many people are working remotely, with the number of remote jobs increasing threefold compared to 2020. At the same time, the effect of COVID-19 on remote work burnout has been deeply shocking. According to CNBC, 69% of remote employees said they are experiencing burnout. Research by Indeed revealed that 53% of work-from-home or virtual workers are working more hours today than they were working in the office, with almost a third of the respondents saying that they are working much more than they did before the pandemic. Mental Health America revealed that 48% of remote workers said they didn’t have emotional support.
Managers of remote employees and employees alike need to bring this problem to an end. This can be achieved by allowing some level of workplace flexibility, providing regular, in-depth progress feedback, setting time for rest and mental breaks, encouraging empathy at work, scheduling routine meetups with the virtual team members, offering helpful resources, setting achievable goals, organizing and automating work, and promoting personal creative work.
c)No red flags
When employees commute, it is easy for the manager or fellow employees to notice a stressed worker since there are telltale signs. Among the signs of a stressed employee include their increased emotional reaction to situations and lack of motivation. Then we have visible signs such as weight loss and bags under the eyes. Unfortunately, all these signs and symptoms cannot be noticed by the employer or colleagues when someone is working remotely. Only the family members may notice; if the remote worker lives alone, it means more trouble.
Basically, managers must do everything possible to maintain adequate levels of motivation among their remote workers lest their productivity decreases which harms the organizational performance. By managing their stress levels, you get to achieve so much because they will engage better with their jobs, stay motivated, and their creativity will be top-notch throughout their remote working days.
Major Technology Trends In Remote Working
It is easy to tell that remote working will still be here in 2023 and beyond! As such, organizations must keep up with changes to cope and stay ahead of the competition. If your company is still toying with the idea of telecommuting and you believe it’s possible in the near future, you could take advantage of the following major technology trends.
1. Telecommuting tools
When the coronavirus pandemic hit the world, the need for fast and straightforward remote collaboration became a priority. Therefore, many organizations had to re-imagine their communication frameworks. In turn, the issue of suitable remote work software is top on the list of agenda for 2023 and beyond. The growing adoption of telecommuting tools has involved associated remote work trends. There is a notable huge demand for applications for productivity monitoring and technical support. Additionally, video conferencing remains a core tool in remote work technology trends.
2. Corporate Cyber Security
The increasing need for advanced cyber security is another trend in remote IT working. It doesn’t come as a surprise that organizations that develop SaaS apps stress the security of the products they avail to the market. Customers and remote workers agree that Cyber security has become more important today than it was during the pandemic. More than half of global companies plan to spend more time on cybersecurity management activities.
3. Cloud-based storage
The days when office tools are strictly confined to the traditional office stations might be numbered with how things are going. Since the pandemic, remote working has received much attention and importance. At a time when companies require more business to prevent bigger losses and, in worse case scenarios, closure, business leaders have heavily underscored cloud-based tools, and this has affected the investment focus of modern business leaders.
An impressive number of US firms have begun investing in cloud-based trends. The adoption and usage of the public cloud have grown by 71%, and the same has happened with modern apps and SaaS by 58% and 51%. One thing that has made cloud-based tools even more popular post-pandemic is their flexibility. Cloud-based tools promote job portability, thus enabling remote workers to work on their tasks at home or in any comfortable space with a stable internet connection.
So, with so many changes happening in the world of technology as far as remote working is concerned, how are remote IT professionals complying to meet the next-gen IT challenges?
Most of them have accelerated upskilling. Global digitalization has, in recent years, been transforming the jobs and skills required. The sudden shift to remote working accelerated these processes and even made them more urgent. According to remote work trends, stats at least 50% of the global workforce will require significant reskilling by 2025. Therefore, upskilling is and will continue to be the most profound remote working trend. Managers are responsible for crafting a skill set to help their remote IT workers respond better to changes. At the same time, remote IT workers must improve their interpersonal skills. As such, speedy adoption of upskilling programs is the next step for companies, but remote IT workers must also upskill on their initiatives – including digitalization upskilling. Even as organizations invest in the relevant technology from time to time, it will be meaningless if remote IT workers lack the skills and knowledge to utilize digital technologies.
Conclusion
Remote working (even if hybrid) will continue and increase in 2023 and beyond. As such, businesses across all industries must familiarize themselves with remote workers. Understanding their needs will go a long way in knowing what resources they require and how best the management can intervene to give them a desirable remote working environment. Work-related stress is a major problem among remote workers originating from a myriad of elements, such as working for longer hours, lack of social interactions, and the fact that it’s almost impossible for supervisors and colleagues to notice when a remote employee has work-related stress. Thankfully, managers can alleviate these problems in various ways, including organizing virtual activities that promote social interactions and encouraging remote employees to set work schedules and take mental breaks during a working day. In keeping up with remote working, organizations and remote workers must pay attention to helpful digital technologies such as cloud-based tools, collaboration tools such as video conferencing, and corporate Cyber security. While at it, remote IT workers must seriously upskill on digitalization to meet the next-generation IT challenges.
References
1. https://www.crossover.com/perspective/the-history-of-remote-work
3. https://www.crossover.com/perspective/how-is-remote-work-changing-the-workforce
4. https://www.skillsyouneed.com/rhubarb/stress-remote-working.html
6. https://teambuilding.com/blog/remote-burnout
7. https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/remote-work-employee-burnout
8. https://www.travelperk.com/blog/remote-work-burnout-statistics/