Remote Working 101

The idea of work has changed drastically within the last year. It feels like ages have passed since we adopted this restrictive lifestyle and unlike the initial months, most people have started noticing the bright and better things that this regime has brought into our lives. The things that could not have been imagined doing without physical efforts are today just a click away. Office work, coursework, medicinal consultation, e-sport tournaments, grocery shopping, and so much more can be done just with the help of the internet. Talking about the internet reminds me of advising you to bundle up your internet service with cable or phone in order to stay within your budget limit, if you ask me, I will recommend you to check out and explore Spectrum bundle deals for excessively suitable and affordable bundle deals.

Workpuls – Remote employee time tracking software that allows you to take care of your tasks with respect to time spent on them and allows employers to maintain check and balance of employees.

And while everything else adds to our day-to-day convenience, working from home opens up new realms of business working, which brings me to the agenda of this article: remote working and all about it. If you have no idea about remote working as yet, be sure to be an expert on it by the end of this article.

Remote Working

The art of flexible working is now called remote working, teleworking, work from home, and digital nomads. These terms fall under the same umbrella, though are slightly different.

A remote worker is someone who works remotely, regardless of him traveling for it or not. It can be a freelancer, a contractor, or an employee who is not taken back by commuting to the office. A digital nomad is someone who works while he is traveling abroad. They can be freelancers, bloggers, vloggers, etc. Their nature of work is not affected by the traveling, or in other terms, is benefitted by it. Someone who works from home is a typical employee and might work from home some days of the week.

Difference between Remote-first and Remote-friendly

Unlike popular belief, there is a substantial difference between remote-first and remote-friendly companies and it is always better to understand the one you belong to, in order to understand the policies thoroughly.

Remote- First	Remote-Friendly
Encouraged to work remotely	Permitted to work remotely
Communication synchronization is flexible	Communication synchronization is adamant
Minimum and critical meetings are conducted. When scheduled, all time zones are taken care of.	Meetings are scheduled as per the convenience of employees
Company information is equally and easily available to all employees	Company information is more readily available to the employees in the office
Significant decisions are taken by taking all relevant people being included online	Significant decisions are made while being in the office
No bias between remote and regular employees when promoting opportunities come along	Regular employees are favored for promotions

These differences have made one thing evident that remote-first companies have embraced remote working and have started designing their organizational model in accordance with this newest working model. On contrary, the remote-friendly companies are still favoring the traditional set up of work, however, have acknowledged remote work. If history has taught us anything, it is that accepting and appreciating change is a vital key for success.

Remote working – Advantages

There are multiple benefits to remote working and these benefits have been acknowledged by research conducted by Stanford. Some of the many benefits of remote working are stated here:

Remote hiring means that you have a greater pool of talent and you can choose the best candidates for your work.

There is a noticeable increase in productivity levels when employees are working from home. This is due to the flexibility and comfort supplemented to the employees.

Lower organizational costs and expenses are another great advantage of remote working. Lesser or no requirement of office space, electricity, and water supply reduce the business expenses greatly, which in other words, increases the revenue of the company.

Lesser employees tend to take time off when it comes to working remotely. Studies have also shown that employees who work remotely do not require time off even when during times of childbirth and pregnancy.

Remote workers tend to exhibit greater levels of gratitude because of the flexibility and ease they are granted. This entails employee well-being and resultantly adds to company success.

Remote working – Obstacles

Although remote working is posed as being the best in all aspects, we still have some obstacles to take care of. It is expected that these issues are due to us being new to this working model and can be sorted in the next few years. Some of the challenges remote workers face are:

• Miscommunication between teams and colleagues can result in a bigger problem.
• Lack of company culture being practiced due to distance among employees.
• Employee engagement when remotely working gets a bit difficult for the management.
• Work can be affected due to irregular distractions for some people.
• Trust building among employees and employers might take up some time.
• The recruitment procedure gets lengthier and challenging.

Software and tools used for remote working

You might get benefit from the following software and tools meant for easy remote working:

Slack – offers real-time messaging service amongst teams and let them work efficiently, no matter which time zone they belong to.

Google Drive – lets employees store all their files and documents in a secure setup. You can also share documents with other team members without any problems.

Zoom – allows you to conduct remote meetings with utmost convenience.  You can also real-time chat with your team members.

Asana – helps you organize your tasks and activities. It also allows you to manage your projects and lets you collaborate with each other as well.

Jira – a bug tracker that includes project management facilities and capabilities.

ProofHub – a remote project management tool that helps all team members to communicate effectively with each other. It supports online discussions, proofreading, and allows you to share feedback with each other as well.

Todoist – a tool that allows you to maintain a to-do list for your projects and tasks altogether.

EverHour – a time tracking software that allows you to take care of your tasks with respect to time spent on them and allows employers to maintain check and balance of employees.

Conclusion

This article was written to give you all the necessary information about the trendiest working model, i.e. remote working. With the information provided, we are hopeful that you would become efficient in working remotely.

Have a great time working from home!