25 Tips For A Remote Working Strategy

The ability to work from anywhere is no longer a luxury reserved for top executives – remote working is now an essential capability to enable business continuity. But developing a remote worker strategy is easier said than done, with teams being able to collaborate from home making up just a small piece of the puzzle. Try these 25 top tips for remote working to boost your company’s work-from-home (WFH) productivity and safeguard business continuity.

Document Remote Work Policies and Procedures

A written policy should already be in a place that governs remote workers with clear and uniform rules. Focus on job responsibilities, organizational and departmental goals and objectives customer impact, and employee’s work performance.

Keep your security Game on Point

Reinforce your policies and practices regarding the protection of customer sensitive information. This is especially important for employees in customer-facing and customer support sites who may have access to sensitive data.

Automate Security Where possible

Protecting customers sensitive data is and always will be the priority. Support this by enabling automated software updates into the applications your remote workers use, without requiring any human intervention.

Manage and Monitor

Remote workers need to meet the same productivity goals as in-office workers. Predictable management check-in times are reassuring to remote workers. Remember to keep
keep training and monitoring remote workers and reward good performance.

Help Employees with their Home Working Spaces

Based on your own experience, a written policy should tell employees what works, and spell out what you expect of their workplace. These guidelines should be carefully discussed with every remote worker. Almost any room can serve as an office but selecting the right work area is essential to success.

Equip Your Workers to Succeed

Remote workers generally need a handphone or headset ( noise-cancelling headset is best) and a computer. If your company provides the PC or otherwise enforces system requirements upfront, your Help Desk will thank you later.

Ensure Access to Business-Critical Applications

Remote workers need the same access to application, tools and pear as they do when in the office, for constant centre agents, the same access top supervisors as in-office agents. And supervisors working remotely need access to their contact centre management tools for their agents.

Are you VoIP-ready?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) eliminated the costs associated with analogue telephony- as well as call chargers for remote workers- but may reduce voice connectivity via or virtual private network (VPN) support. Provide employees with easy to use documentation and info regarding how to log into remote network services like VPN, telephone services, etc, including password procedures.

Record Meetings wherever Possible

With everyone working remotely, accountability becomes more important than ever. Recording meetings is a true way to ensure this- helping everyone work towards the same objectives.

Megapixels Matter

For video conferencing now and then, a built-in laptop camera does the job just fine. But, when video-collaboration becomes a daily and important part of working life, it’s worth investing in a high-quality camera. The better your camera, the better you will look to colleagues.

The sound of Sucess

When working from home, you will likely have to jump on a lot more conference calls, keep your lines of communication clear with a high-quality microphone headset that carries your voice crisply over the line.

Be Aware of and Manage Risks

Safety and security can be key issues for remote workers. Consider whether homes offer adequate security for both the employee and any equipment or other valuables, and have procedures in place, ensuring that remote workers know what to do in case of an emergency.

Keep Your Business Agile

With so many now working from home, demand will shift for the offerings in your product mix. Deploy resources accordingly, and work out how to streamline the processes in getting you in-demand offerings to market.

Teach Your Teams Video Conference Etiquette

To keep video conference calls productive, have your teams follow simple rules that benefit everyone on the call. Actions like muting when not speaking, being on time, wearing work-appropriate clothing, framing the camera correctly, and paying attention to speakers can go a long way towards a successful video call.

Make Experts Readily Available

Remote workers need access to the same subject matter experts and support as if in the office. “Presence” is a technology that is familiar to users of instant messaging, where a list of names is accompanied by icons indicating whether each person is logged in. When presence is incorporated into an enterprise, finding an expert is just as easy for the remote worker as for the in-office worker.

Select the Right People for the Job

Some good workers may not be best suited to work-at-home, so be prepared to work around any inabilities to fill a certain role remotely. Be on open to organizational changes, monitor performance, and promote the people who thrive in the new remote environment.

Keep you Workers Connected

Ensure that your remote workers have sufficient internet access to connect to corporate resources. Many employees, but certainly not all, have good internet connectivity that could be available for work use. For those who don’t, you may need to provide connectivity for work purpose.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Cloud

Cloud-based productivity solutions can solve business challenges quickly and at scale when used correctly. Enable your teams to trail solutions for their specific problem sets and support them if and when they need to use them out more widely.

Take Advantage of Your Cloud Storage (And Collaborate)

Most organizations have access to huge amounts of cloud storage- through any provider. But that online storage should be used wisely and encourage your workers to keep everything stored on the cloud to make collaboration easier.

Keep Linus of Live Communication Open

Colleagues may not come across in the same way through text or email as they do in person, so regular contact through audio and video helps keep a friendly tone at the voice.

Use Video Wherever Possible

When speaking to colleagues over the video, you can pick up on crucial body language that you won’t see during a phone call. The video keeps your teams engaged and stops them slipping into bad habits.

Use Chat Spaces open to Quickly Respond to issues.

When you have a team collaboration chat room you can quickly flag issues and spot priority incidents and respond to them quickly before they become big business problems.

Lights, camera, Action

Stay professional and productive with a high-quality lightning set-up in your home office. You will not only look better on video calls but you will also be more motivated and alert for completing work.

Don’t Forget the Office you have Left Behind

No, longer working at the office doesn’t mean your office no longer works for you. Enable remote access to your network and IT environment to ensure you are still getting the most out of on-premise technology.

Keep an Open Mind on Policy and Procedure

Some Workers thrive in a remote environment, but others may struggle, so consider how you apply policies and procedures. Regular training and guidance is a key part of successfully introducing and managing homeworking or other forms of remote work.