Studies show that remote work can have a number of benefits across the board—which is lucky, because it seems like many enterprises around the world will be stuck with it as their primary model for at least a while longer. Indeed, 75% of remote workers report better productivity, and 80% report reduced stress. Not only does this mean that remote work can keep the gears turning when it’s not feasible for most people to work from an office, but also that remote workers can form the backbone of a cost effective long-term corporate strategy.
Before we tackle some of the exact ins and outs of remote work policies, we’ll try to answer a simple question: why utilize remote workers? The easiest answer to give right now is that, for many enterprises, it’s the only option during the pandemic—but even outside the current moment there are plenty of ways that this model can drive success. For instance:
These are just a few of the reasons that many companies who transitioned to remote work after the onset of the pandemic are wondering whether they should ever transition back. Taken together, they represent the possibility of utilizing remote work as a strategy, rather than simply as a convenience.
In order to actually get the benefits that we talked about above, enterprises need to go about setting up and empowering a remote workforce in the right way. This begins with establishing a remote work policy. This shouldn’t be something abstract: it should be written down as disseminated among your workforce—and it should include a policy brief, a note on the scope of the policy, and potentially a remote working agreement. From there, the policy needs to address:
As you can imagine, many of the policies we discussed above are going to come with challenges that businesses will need to deal with. For data protection and confidentiality, for instance, you might find that you need a way to remotely manage mobile devices and other physical infrastructure in order to restrict access to devices that aren’t running up-to-date software, connecting to secure networks, utilizing encryption protocols, etc. When it comes to workspaces, you might find that you need to adjust your approach to furnishing employees with equipment, erring on the side of home-office necessities instead of typical corporate swag.
Beyond the operational challenges, most of the difficulties that teams face in going remote are psychological. We noted that remote workers often report higher productivity, but many also report struggling to disconnect from work, having a harder time connecting and collaborating with teammates, and dealing with distractions at home. They also have a tendency to work longer hours at a more intense pace, which can result in added stress and an increased risk of burnout.
There’s no easy solution that will mitigate all of these challenges in one blow. But, at the end of the day, just being aware of these issues is an important first step. That puts you in a position to promote policies that will counter some of the added stresses and risks of remote work (for instance, encouraging your employees to set reminders to take breaks, to set appointments on their calendars for the end of the day, to turn off notification after work, etc.). It also gives you the perspective you need to find the right tools and technology to keep everything running smoothly and your team happy.
Here you might be wondering what kinds of tools and technology we’re talking about. For starters, there’s a handful of different apps and tools that can help keep a remote team sane, healthy, and in-sync:
Then, there’s more complicated applications like Microsoft Intune and other MDM (mobile device management) solutions that you can use to manage the sorts of the remote worker policies that we were covering a few sections ago. These kinds of solutions can help you to ensure that, for instance, remote workers are always using equipment that meets corporate standards, and that they’re never accessing your corporate cloud applications without taking the appropriate precautions. Depending on the MDM solution you’re using, you can even natively provision some of the remote-worker-friendly applications we’ve discussed above, so that as soon as an employee receives a new device they’re all set to start contributing.
Tools like these can, of course, be quite complex when it comes to setup and configuration. Luckily, just as your teams are increasingly not wedded to a particular geographical location, there’s no rule that says your internal IT staff needs to deal with every last task that comes along. When it comes to setting up the right infrastructure to jumpstart your remote working initiative, outsourcing configuration and setup of an MDM solution to the cloud experts can be a straightforward, cost-effective way to get the ball rolling.