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.
We’ve been talking a lot about working from home during this climate of uncertainty and the challenges it brings. And we’ve analyzed the efforts we’re all putting in order to overcome these issues while building a new normality. To accomplish this, we need to find new ways to keep our work productivity up, even after the rules of the game have been unexpectedly changed overnight due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has changed every aspect of our lives over a very short period of time. We had to adapt to all kinds of new situations without prior notice, and that came with many challenges. Take work from home for example. Besides the ones related to infrastructure, equipment, and managing work-life balance, there is also an additional barrier. The communication skills of your team members are now at the make it or break it point.
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.
As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, millions of people have transitioned to telecommuting. For some, working from home feels like newfound freedom. There’s no boss hovering over your head, no soul-crushing commute to work, and everything feels so much more flexible and enjoyable. However, after you spend a couple of weeks working remotely, you start to notice its challenges. What once seemed interesting and exciting is now monotonous, dull, and makes you feel the beginning of a burnout.
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.
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.
