Remote and flexible work is on the rise, with 40 percent more U.S. employers reportedly offering flexible workplace options than five years ago, according to Global Workplace Analytics. On top of this organic growth, the Coronavirus pandemic skyrocketed these stats in the second quarter of 2020.
More than a decade ago, open floor plans were heralded as the future of workplace design. The drab walls and cubicles that conjured images from the movie Office Space were no longer the norm. By then, companies could look and feel like hip, young startups with open space plans and team members sitting right next to each other.
The Coronavirus pandemic has in a very short period of time profoundly impacted our lives, changing the very way we live, work, and socialize. These days, many employees are trying to adjust to working from home – sometimes without a proper workspace available – and being productive in the midst of it all can be a real challenge. However, of all the challenges that come with this transition, setting up an accommodating home office is one of the easiest to fix.
Only using this term — digital transformation — in this day and age, gives me shivers. By now, most businesses around the world should have already gone digital. But you know what they say, what you fear most usually happens. And this is how a pandemic has succeeded to change the unchanged.
In this landscape of social distancing and remote working, staying in touch with coworkers and clients is more important than ever before. Real-time communications platforms have cemented the importance of virtual technology across most industries and workspaces. And under this new normal, voice communication has surged back after years on the decline.
COVID-19 turned our lives upside down and lockdown forced millions of people to suddenly give up their office routine and relocate their desk to the kitchen table. As we discussed in a previous article on this topic, these changes came with several challenges. But it’s not only individuals who are affected by all these. Companies lose billions while being forced to rethink employment, advertising, and even their business models.
Suddenly a good portion of the workforce finds itself working remote. If you’re an HR professional or manager who had new hires lined up pre-pandemic, you might be wondering how to onboard remotely. When you’re already dealing with an experimental distributed workplace, bringing on a new team member might seem at best, daunting, and, at worst, a nightmare.
Transparency may seem like a corporate buzzword, but it actually has real-world benefits. According to a recent poll, two thirds of consumers would spend more if it meant buying from a transparent company, and 94 percent of consumers rank transparency as the biggest factor in brand loyalty.
Flexible work is no longer just a trend. And remote working — mostly from home during this pandemic — comes with a unique set of challenges. While none outweigh the overall benefits of distributed teams, leaders do need to shift their management and processes to get the best results from a remote workforce.
Remote work delivered by a virtual team has been an increasingly popular workplace trend over the past decade. However, given the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire global workforce is participating in a mass work from home experiment. A recent MIT survey found that more than 34 percent of workers switched to telecommuting in April due to stay-at-home orders.
