How Remote Working Will Transform the Way Businesses Approach Collaboration

This year has produced the biggest remote working experiment the world has ever seen. The majority of businesses have been forced to shut offices and operate from home. Yet, while remote working may only be a temporary means of keeping businesses afloat during this unprecedented time, it is highly predicted that once the pandemic is over, the human race will be left with a new ‘normal’. A ‘normal’ where remote working and collaboration is an expectation rather than a nice to have.

It is clear that employees and their organisations need to adapt to the expected long-term impacts of COVID-19. However, when many were rapidly forced into remote working, they might not have had the time to reflect on the impact that it can have. In reality, a company’s approach to remote operations can actually have a hugely significant benefit to both employer and employee.

Keeping ahead of the curve

For remote working to become a success, businesses need to continue to implement digital transformation practices if they wish to remain not only operable, but competitive. There is a lot of work to be done by these businesses with regard to leveraging the technology that allows employees to work away from the office.

The remote working experience needs to be richer, and more than simply sharing a screen and hearing voices of colleagues. While many of the current most popular collaborative tools offer video conferencing and screen sharing, this simply isn’t enough to facilitate more complex tasks that need to be completed effectively.

The need for more

Having access to a platform that allows a team to come together in a seamless, collaborative way is crucial. Consider the time to completion on various projects around the world; be it a construction project, pharmaceutical development or fashion designing, complex projects will often run into problems. These problems require emergency meetings with all experts involved, so it is imperative for businesses to be able to discuss and rectify complex matters remotely.

This need is similar to how we work face to face. We don’t enjoy working in a meeting room with a big whiteboard on a wall, slowly taking it in turns to stand up and write or draw diagrams. It’s inefficient and slow. Instead, we have an innate desire to huddle together, working within the same context to make the group smarter. It’s more natural.

Screen sharing and video conferencing is much like the former. We’re confined to watching one-person work, struggling to talk over each other, becoming stuck with awkward pauses and waiting for someone’s screen to load.

A virtual workspace, rather than a quick conference call, breeds innovation. It allows employees to jump in and out when needed, fine tune small parts of the bigger picture and have everything flowing seamlessly and without friction.

Entering the new normal

As businesses have become accustomed to working remotely, many industries quickly found that the standard desktop collaboration platforms simply don’t offer enough for what they need. Productivity levels have been crashing as a result and while that might be sufficient for a few weeks, after three months the negative impacts really start to take their toll.

The stark reality has set in for many organisations: they need to evolve, and do it quickly. As we prepare for a huge shift towards more home working post pandemic, companies need to start looking for technological options that allow both knowledge management and knowledge distribution in a virtual workspace.

~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~

 

By Jocelyn Lomer, Chief Executive of nuVa Enterprises

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