After more than a year of digital status meetings and people working from their sofas in pajamas, many companies and employees are seeing an upside to the sudden, mass work-from-home experiment brought on by COVID-19. Businesses are finding that they can save money on office space and utilities by having people work offsite, and remote work is making some employees happier. That said, some companies—even traditional stalwarts like Ford Motors—are integrating a hybrid workforce model after the pandemic in order to stay on-trend and competitive.
If you’re thinking about keeping your business remote, or if you’re planning on shifting to a hybrid work environment that utilizes both offsite and onsite employees, here are a few tips to help you smooth out the transition into the post-pandemic “office space.”
Choose Self-motivated Remote Workers
Self-motivation is one of the most important qualities in a remote employee, so keep this in mind when planning which employees will be fully remote and which would be better suited to some degree of regular office time. As a remote or hybrid company, you’ll also have the option of using seasoned remote-only workers from anywhere, so your employee pool will be vastly expanded.
Create a Unified Communications Plan
One of the biggest downsides of a remote setup is the fact that employees can’t just swing by someone’s cubicle and chat face-to-face. In order to keep your remote employees connected to the hive (not to mention customers) no matter where they are, you’ll need to keep the communication flowing. One easy way to do this is to utilize a UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) platform to connect all your company’s communications together into a single application. Powerful UCaaS cloud communications platforms like Intermedia Unite combine a business phone system with chat, video, screen sharing, file management, and more into one easy-to-use solution, enabling employees to connect in a variety of ways.
Make It Easy for Employees to Collaborate
A good UCaaS solution will also make it easy for your remote and onsite teams to work together from wherever, whenever With Intermedia Unite, for example, mobile and desktop apps are included, so employees are able to access the same communications tools on their iOS- or Android-enabled devices as they would in the office. These same apps enable users to switch seamlessly from their desktop or laptop to their smartphone or tablet—or vice versa—to place or take a call, start a video meeting, send a chat, collaborate on a file, and more—no matter where work takes them.
Protect Your Company’s Data
There’s no doubt that some of your remote employees will choose to work in coffee shops and other unsecured environments, so it’s vital to ensure that you have built-in data protection within your company’s cybersecurity software, password protocols, and even your UCaaS platform. A good way to evaluate whether a company’s security is solid is to check whether they have independent, third-party verification of their security, such as the SOC 2 auditing provided by Intermedia Unite.
Get the Support You Need
You have enough to think about as a small business owner, so look for software, platforms, and other tech tools that allow you to focus on your business—and not IT—by offering high reliability and world class support. If a brand is recognized by third parties for excellent support, that’s a good sign. Intermedia Unite, for example, has been recognized by J.D. Power for delivering exceptional tech support for five years running. Plus, Intermedia Unite comes with 99.999% uptime service level agreements (SLAs), so you can rest easy knowing that dependability comes standard.
