06 Aug
Remote Workplace Trends 2021: Navigating the Next New Normal
Remember when remote working was a reward reserved for a company’s most dependable employees? How quickly things have changed. Many firms were obliged to send all but the most essential staff back to work as a result of COVID-19. According to a recent Upwork poll, 26.7 percent of Americans will be working remotely in 2021. This year will witness a major remote work shift, with work-from-home rules across firms and sectors changing dramatically.
Twitter, Shopify, and Dropbox have already indicated that they would migrate to permanent work-from-home solutions, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have stated that 50% of the company’s workers will be able to work remotely over the next five to ten years.
People nowadays have adopted hybrid workplace culture that is considerably more tailored to their needs. They have been able to construct increasingly active days and a manner of working that they would never have imagined before the epidemic because of the advent of technology, networking, and collaborative work.
While there are several advantages to working remotely, there are also some significant drawbacks to the practice. Here are few remote workplace trends to watch out for in the future—
1. The hybrid workplace will take the lead
A mix of remote and onsite work will become the standard. Many employees already find commuting difficult, and more may begin to avoid it totally to be more productive and flexible in their work schedules. Others, on the other hand, want to return to their jobs, citing improved peer relations and face-to-face problem solving as reasons. As a result, many businesses will begin to use a hybrid approach.
2. Onboarding goes online
Digital transitions are taking place in various sectors across all the industries. Departments of human resources (HR) are no exception. Onboarding is only one HR business action that will benefit from technological developments in the future.
Making remote working a rule rather than an exception allows firms to employ the best and brightest from across the country without incurring relocation costs. By automating the onboarding process, you can reinforce your company brand as one that promotes innovation and productivity. Hiring staff while adhering to the law and completing the proper documentation may be complex and time-consuming. Managing document completion virtually adds another degree of complexity unless your company has an onboarding software solution that is specifically intended for distant employee onboarding.
Intranets can provide a great experience as it delivers the relevant information to the newbies and also gives them the information about the experts. This will smoothen the onboarding process and enhances employee engagement.
3. Integration of different tools
Integration of various useful tools in a single digital platform will be one of the biggest hits in remote work culture in 2021. 66 percent of employees believe that having all of their apps in one place would improve their workflow, boost their productivity, and lessen their feelings of “technology fatigue” throughout the workday. Moreover, having one platform to access various tools will reduce the problems of multi-sign on’s and context switching. This makes a user access the integrated tools with ease, thus increasing employee engagement and productivity.
4. Upgraded cybersecurity
Organizations will be much more concerned about cybersecurity upon the onset of remote work culture. Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) rules are springing up all over the place, causing dozens of new cybersecurity challenges for IT professionals. When more people use a range of devices to connect to networks, a company’s computing systems become increasingly vulnerable.
82 percent of employers believe “cybersecurity is now highly critical or more significant than before COVID-19,”
– Cisco’s “Future of Secure Remote Work Report.”
Concerns about how data is accessed remotely and how safe it might be are rising.
5. Flexibility
Although organizations are working remotely, the work schedule remains the same as before. Employees may find this constraining since many must balance household responsibilities while caring for their children. As a result, more organizations will begin to evaluate whether typical work hours are truly necessary, and some may begin to offer flexibility to their employees as long as the task is completed
6. Retraining and upskilling
Skill gaps are widened due to the pandemic and the leaders need to come up with training courses to upskill the employees. As per Gartner, only 16% of the newly joined employees possess adequate skills for the required designation. Managers face a lot of difficulties when it comes to training employees working in different locations and shifts. A variety of user errors might arise when the remote workforce is left connected to online learning platforms. A digital workplace platform will surely lessen the problems that may arise amidst learning sessions. Managers do not have to worry about the dispersed workforce and their shift timings as the pieces of training can be assigned to the employees. They can access the learning materials whenever possible.
7. Establish strong communication
Everyone recognizes the importance of employee communication in any high-performing team. When a substantial section of your team works remotely, though, employee communication can be difficult. How many crucial discussions occur in the halls, at the front desk, or during coffee breaks? With the hybrid work culture, it’s difficult to replicate these conditions.
When the majority of your staff work remotely, it’s easy for them to lose sight of the company’s essential principles in the hustle to hit the next deadline. This may provide a false image to their colleagues, clients, and other stakeholders when their emphasis shifts away from the company’s objective.
Intranets play a crucial role in boosting employee communication among the hybrid workforce. It will keep employees posted about the recent announcements, news, and company policy changes. The personalized feature will bring the relevant updates to each individual based on his preferences, activities, location and job profile, etc. This will have a positive impact on employee communication and engagement.
The pandemic has shown that we may work from home and be productive at the same time. “94 percent of companies claimed productivity was the same as or greater than before the pandemic even with their employees working remotely”, according to a poll by Mercer, an HR and workplace benefits consulting business. A digital workplace platform covering all the needs of a remote workforce can deliver a great employee experience.
The remote workplace trends, if they are properly taken care of, with Acuvate’s Mesh-the employee experience platform have the potential to revolutionize the way we work well into the future.
Want to know about Mesh? Get a personalized demo from our digital workplace consultants!
Poonam Chug is AVP - SaaS Strategy & Business. She has worked in various areas, right from designing and executing sales & account management strategies to reengineering digital workplace solutions. With her determined focus on our mission and progressive approach, she has achieved customer delight in the space of AI, Knowledge Mining, Content & Collaboration, Virtual Assistants, RPA and more. Backed with a deep understanding of customer needs and technology, she leads the SaaS business unit with an upshot of maximizing revenue while ensuring customer satisfaction.
Poonam Chug