Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies create ready-made solutions for digital challenges. Instead of enterprises designing their own tools and applications, SaaS companies offer their products hosted in the cloud. A variety of models in the form of as-a-service have emerged in the past decade. One prominent example is Unified Communications as a Service, commonly referred to as UCaaS.
For the past half of the year, the economy has been revolving around virtual teams more than ever before. With lockdown measures in place, the only way for companies and workers all over the world to keep their jobs and their business going was switching to virtual spaces. Adjusting to this new way of working hasn’t been easy for anyone. And it has been particularly challenging for those who were doing it for the first time.
This article is coming to give a helping hand to those team leaders, managers, and workers who are trying to make their virtual teams work and prosper during these strange times.
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.
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.
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.
In 2019, remote employment secured its position as more than just a trend but as a mainstay in American business. With 62 percent professionals working on a remote basis either full-time or at some frequency, according to Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work Survey, remote work was quickly becoming the norm.
In 2020, this flexible option has abruptly become mandatory. In the economics of the Coronavirus pandemic, organizations were forced to switch in order to survive. And for this purpose, they need to keep their remote teams virtually connected, no matter how spread out they are. Not only to drive connection between employees, but also to ensure productivity.
The core concept of working from home has changed overnight. Instead of making a choice when the context was right, millions of people are now forced to work from home during a crisis that affects and even threatens their lives and the lives of those they hold dear. Our way of living turned upside down and we are forced to readjust without prior notice. As a result, even if previous studies have shown incredible benefits in favor of remote working, most of those do not apply in the current situation.
