Surviving in a COVID-19 induced remote working era of business

We have all experienced remote working to some extent. Some jobs are more suited for it than others, but given the severity of Covid-19, almost all businesses are looking into innovative ways of organising their activities and doing business. Even when this threat is over, many will continue to operate remotely, at least in some form, because there are clear advantages to it. Whether we want to admit it or not, things will never be the same.

Culture – creating a strong bond with your team, communicating company values and goals

Culture plays a big role in every company. Creating a strong culture helps you create a strong professional bond between you and your employees, and enables you to communicate your company’s mission and vision more clearly. This also means communicating company values and goals so that everyone can have a clear sense of where you are heading. A strong organizational culture will create a more successful collaboration environment, since everyone will be working together on achieving the same goal. A well-defined culture enables you to motivate your team members and helps everyone sync their individual goals and aspirations with the collective goal. This also helps you attract like-minded people, with similar goals into joining your company.

When it comes to remote working, the company’s culture plays a huge role. With a clear sense of belonging and togetherness, the social isolation and distancing can be overcome. Having the right idea of what the objectives are helps avoiding duplication of effort, which is one of the main drawbacks of remote working. Measurable goals are easily tracked, so even when working remotely you can have insights into your teams’ activities and progress.

Introduce structure to boost collaboration

It is impossible to please everyone, but being flexible will certainly help. Some people prefer the freedom that remote working provides, while others find it hard to cope with social isolation. Every-day distractions by family members or roommates also make it hard to focus. Being too flexible and multitasking can lead to less productivity because you won’t be able to fully focus on any of the activities, especially if you are juggling with your job and personal errands at the same time.

Introducing some form of structure can make a huge difference. Aside from video meetings, some find virtual coworking helpful. You can define a specific time when to connect with your teammates, and work together while being apart. It is up to you if you want to leave the camera or mic on, but what this allows is fast sharing of information, spontaneous collaboration, problem solving, and overcoming social isolation. Open office hours are also an option. This way your team members can have a choice to stop by the office at an agreed time, and where you can all catch up in person about your work and be informed about what is going on in the company. Setting certain rules, no matter how small and insignificant they might seem, can make a huge impact on productivity, motivation and collaboration.

Using all the advantages technology has to offer

Remote working would be impossible without the help of technology. Innovations in communication have advanced so much in the past few decades that we can barely imagine life without all the perks technology has brought to us. Besides all the advantages remote working can bring to an individual, there are still plenty of disadvantages and obstacles many businesses are facing. Social isolation and information flow are just some of them. Leadership skills are also put to a test. It is difficult to have control and insight into all details without the help of technology.

Communication tools are playing a huge role when it comes to remote working. There are also other tools and innovative software that have made remote working easier, one of which is Innovation Cloud. Innovation Cloud is much more than an innovation platform. Not only does it help your business every step of the innovation process, but it also serves as a collaboration booster, performance tracker and enables a fast flow of information and more efficient decision making. Definitely a great tool to have when working remotely. Here are some of the ways Innovation Cloud helps your business cope with disadvantages of remote working:

1. Collaboration Booster

You can easily transfer your whole organizational structure onto the platform, and create a virtual working environment. This means transferring all roles one has in reality to the platform as well. This enables everyone to have clear insight into their activities, tasks and responsibilities. Its unique design enables and boosts collaboration, and motivates your team members to participate in any campaign, communicate and brainstorm about any given topic.

2. Fast flow of information and real-time data

Innovation Cloud helps the information flow, so that everyone gets accurate information on any subject on time. It can be connected to any business software you are already using, and thanks to machine learning and big data, managers will find it of great use. They will be able to connect to the platform at any given time and have insight into real-time data. This will not only make it easier for them to track progress, but also immediately take corrective actions if there seem to be some deviations. When it comes to remote working it is quite helpful to track everyone’s progress and avoid the risk of creating information silos.

3. Innovation Accelerator

Its easy-to-use platform makes idea sharing fun and easy. It makes sure that everyone can participate through both bottom-up and top-down approaches. This means that everyone is welcome to share their ideas, and work together on their development. The structured approaches to the ideation process ensure that no time is wasted and that only the good ideas are further developed into products. Innovations should never be neglected, and remote working shouldn’t be the cause of a less productive innovation process. Innovation Cloud makes sure that innovations are on track.

Whether you find remote working as a good choice or not, it is certainly a choice to consider with all of its ups and downs. Adjusting your business to it might be a challenge, but Innovation Cloud can help make the transition as smooth as possible and make sure that your business is not only surviving the existing situation, but is also able to continue and even improve its innovation and development processes.