At the beginning of 2020, an estimated 62 percent of full-time employees in the United States worked remotely at least to some degree, according to Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work survey. That number steeply increased in the wake of COVID-19. This escalation in working offsite requires the use of virtual communication tools to keep teams on the same page, despite shifts in workflow and location.
Months into the outbreak of COVID-19 and it has become evident that this pandemic will change how jobs are structured in the long-term. In fact, an estimated 25 to 30 percent of American employees could work from home a couple of days per week by the end of 2021, according to a Global Workplace Analytics prediction, with or without further lockdown.
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.
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.
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.
Gone are the days when companies had everybody working physically side-by-side and remote teams were scarce. The future of work is upon us, by choice or by context. And now more than ever, it has become vital for any business to streamline its communication flow and enable access to the company’s life to all their employees, regardless of where these are located.
Cloud-based Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) platforms have become increasingly more popular for businesses of all sizes. Enterprise spending on UCC tools grew to a $45 billion industry this past year, according to Synergy Research Group, with an average annual growth of 16 percent year-over-year.
Coworking is a concept that’s “younger” than the average millennial professional life. Yet it also seems to be hugely popular, trendy even. Projected coworking spaces follow a curve that resembles Moore’s law. Every year, there are twice as many spots to fill. Either extensions or new spaces being open in a novel approach to build “uncorporations”. However, the concept of coworking is as old as early human communities.
After all, coworking is people doing similar work in shared spaces. Unlikely collaborators pursuing mutually advantageous strategies for development. Sharing a workspace with friends, mentors, and the competition. In a sense, this is remote work with superpowers. And it is more than a trend.
Remote work opportunities are on the rise, translating into benefits across the board for staffers and employers alike, according to new research. Retention and morale are first on the list of favorable aspects enabled by working remotely, followed by increased productivity, cost reductions, and access to more human resources.
A comprehensive infographic by Accountemps reveals that 68% of CFOs at large companies are beginning to see some major prequisites as a result of working both in and out of office. The firm carried out the study on 2,100 US-based CFOs at organizations big and small, with staff count ranging between 20 and 1,000.
Imagine this: two employees located in separate offices have only an hour left to meet the deadline of a critical project. Instead of settling for the outdated approach of sending countless emails back-and-forth, they leverage the company’s communications and collaboration tools, such as audio conferencing and instant messaging, to conduct a much more effective conversation and strike a business deal in time.
This is very much today’s reality, as people are simply not as attached to email as they used to be. In fact, one could argue we are witnessing the demise of the golden age of email.