Remote working is indeed becoming a key part of the 'new normal' in today's company culture practices, if not already.
In short, remote working is a form of flexible working arrangement, being a practice where you are allowed to work in a location other than your physical office, such as working from home.
Some potential benefits of remote working:
1. Widen talent pool.
E.g. Can now work with wider range of employees no matter where they are located, such as different countries.
2. Improve employee productivity and efficiency.
E.g. Lost time originally spent commuting to/from the office can now be used by employees to focus on completing work instead.
3. Save on office-related costs.
E.g. With lesser employees in the office, you will likely need lesser office equipment and utilities, hence saving on costs originally spent here.
How to implement remote working for your company culture?
As part of implementing remote working, here are 3 important considerations, using the 3 T's:
- Tasks
- Tools
- Trust
1. Tasks
When implementing remote working, you need to consider the required tasks of your employees' respective job functions.
This is to ensure compatibility of remote working with your employees' job functions, as some tasks may not be suitable or even compatible to be done remotely.
For example, some admin-related tasks handling the original company documents may need to be handled by the employees in person at the office.
With this in mind, you can consider implementing remote working as part of a hybrid working model, where your employees are working in office when required, and working remotely when not required in office.
2. Tools
For remote working to be implemented, you need to ensure that your employees have the right tools to perform their work remotely.
The tools generally needed by your employees here are remote working equipment and remote working technology platforms.
Examples of remote working equipment:
- Computer/laptop
- Camera/webcam
- Telephone/mobile phone
- Microphone/headphone
Examples of remote working technology platforms:
- Stable Internet connection
- Cloud storage for file management and sharing
- Business communication software
- Job-specific applications (e.g. word processors and spreadsheets)
3. Trust
Trust is a crucial element for remote working to be implemented successfully, since there is less visibility of the remote working employees.
Especially with the common skepticism around remote working, "Are the remote working employees really working with nobody monitoring and supervising them?"
To address this 'trust issue', you can set clear remote working guidelines and expectations for your employees, such as:
- Mindset reinforcement that remote working is not a 'break', just a different location of work
- Fixed check-ins with employees to update on work progress during remote working day
- Employees are to be actively responsive during remote working day, such as replying emails promptly and available on call
Just remember to find the right balance and not overdo this. 'Too much' check-ins with your remote working employees may actually interrupt their work productivity.
Concluding remarks
You don't have to adopt a fully remote or remote-first working practice to reap its benefits. It can also be implemented as part of a hybrid working model as earlier mentioned depending on your business needs.
Implemented right with the 3 T's, remote working can become a strong enabler as part of your company culture towards business success.
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