Since many of us have been working remotely for at least 6 months due to COVID-19, working remotely isn’t necessarily a “new” thing anymore.
However, the hottest topic recently has been, how will the workforce look post COVID-19? Will employers allow more or all of their employees to work from home? Will they go straight back into the office?
Interestingly, I have been working with my teams remotely for over 2 years, and it’s been going great. Ever since the beginning.
Sure, it can sometimes be difficult to coordinate with different time zones, but if working remotely works efficiently for your team, you are able to communicate well, and people are generally happier, why wouldn’t you do it?
For the newest generation, they are PROS at this whole remote working and learning thing.
They had to pivot in a split second to have school, work, or even both completely remote. But for those of us who were so accustomed to the traditional office life, it’s a bit more of a transition.
Whether you are an employee or a business owner, you will need to adapt to the new remote workforce at some point or another. In fact, it has become clear that some companies will prioritize and adapt to the remote workforce, having no plans to return to the “traditional” office. Twitter, Facebook, and Google have announced extended work from home policies.
So, how do you plan accordingly?
If you are a business owner, you now have access to talent across the globe. Maybe you live in a small town and weren’t able to find a good fit (in office) to manage your social media accounts the way you would like them to be managed.
Check this out: with this new shift in the traditional work paradigm, you now have an entire new pool of applicants that you could draw from if you are open to remote work!
Yes, the transition to remote working becoming the norm will continue to take a little bit of adjusting.
As a business owner, you may want to play around with a couple of project management tools and establish a good channel of communication with your team. While certain productivity tools work great for some, each one works differently for everyone, it’s just whatever works best for you!
Another important consideration when establishing a permanently remote workforce, is to establish boundaries early on with your teams.
As a business owner, having plans and policies in place around things such as what times do you expect your employees to be online? Do you have hard time requirements for being online, or do you just expect them to get their work done, no matter when they choose to work on it?
And going along with that, what are expectations for messages after hours? These are all really important expectations to set with remote work, because remotely working can often blur the lines between work and personal life.
And what goes the distance in anything is including everyone in these conversations. The way to retain talent is to be flexible and accommodating when possible.
Whether you are a recent graduate who is extremely familiar with remote working or a brick and mortar business owner trying to pivot online, we will all need to continue to adapt to the world of remote working, to some degree.
Either way, it will definitely be interesting to see how the working world transforms over the next few years!
Here’s To Your Success,
Kate