19 Apr 11 ways to boost the ROI of your remote working technology
Remote working and hybrid working are the new normal. The rush to enable your business to cope with the pandemic wasn’t cheap though. Using your remote working technology to the maximum and getting a return on that investment still matters as that motivator recedes.
Here are 11 smart starters for you to think of new ways to deepen the returns from your investments, by making your teams more efficient and their interactions more collaborative.
1. Make collaboration meaningful
Functions like chat make it easier to speed up responses to queries – especially when compared with email or phone call. Video conferencing can be leveraged to add a personal level to work interactions, so your team feels connected even when they’re working from home.
2. Nurture company culture
Virtual team building activities and social events help foster a sense of community in your business. Remote workers aren’t able to chat in a physical break room while they make a cuppa, so use the tech to help build connections that unite your workers into one cohesive team.
3. Flexibility and structure: get the balance right
The nine-to-five doesn’t suit everyone, and most people love working from home – but the flexibility of remote working can have downsides. Team members can work when and where it suits them, yet the blurring of the lines between work and personal life can mean staff work too much or in unhealthy patterns. Microsoft Viva is designed to support this in Teams. Remote tech integrations and standalone software can encourage employees to take breaks and remind them to switch off after hours. You can even promote good mental health by providing resources over remote tech to help staff decompress, or use their downtime positively.
4. Motivate and reward with gamification
Without the buzz of the office, remote working can leave staff feeling demotivated, even if they’re still in love with the personal benefits of working from home. While those in the building can feel a bit disconnected from their remote colleagues. Why not explore gamification integrations for your team platforms, to take advantage of friendly competition as your team score points during the working day? It’s a fun way to keep your remote staff enthusiastic, driven and efficient. You can even hold virtual awards to show your team you appreciate them.
5. Enhance productivity
While providing messaging and chat can help keep teams connected, they don’t necessarily help people work productively. Time-tracking tools like Harvest or Toggl and other productivity apps help employees manage their workload and stay on task, so project managers see real-time information on how each project is progressing. It’s a winner for upping efficiency – a high value return for your business – that also makes employees feel good about their working day.
6. On the same page
Remote working tech simplifies project management. Project and workflow platforms like Asana or Monday bring tools and help you build processes to streamline work, connect documentation and keep every project moving. Improving comms and efficiencies with remote working tech keeps up the momentum and deepens the value of your IT investments.
7. Improve learning and development
Remote working opens up huge opportunities for learning and development – your entire team can access training that’s delivered from anywhere in the world. In-person training can sometimes mean the loudest people dominate the room, but online training delivered via Teams or Zoom can make it easier for the trainer to ensure everyone participates fully, using tech like Adobe Learning Manager to integrate learning experiences into your collaboration app.
8. Make meetings effective
It’s easy to invite people to dial into a meeting remotely, but that doesn’t mean it’s cost efficient to have everyone in the virtual room. Only invite the people who need to be on a call, and once you’ve got the right people in that virtual room, use the tech to streamline and organise your meeting. Recordings and transcript tech can save valuable time, use breakout groups for bigger meetings to keep conversations focused, and find ways to use screen sharing to help things flow. Don’t let people opt out – keeping cameras on means attendees stay focused. especially in bigger meeting groups – and stops attention from wandering as people try to multitask.
9. Collaborative customer care
Every customer wants seamless service – there’s nothing more annoying than being bounced from one department to another. Remote working tech can help make different departments collaborate quickly and effectively to resolve issues for customers, keeping track of interactions for training, improvement and audit trails.
10. Headache-free updates
IT support no longer needs to be ‘hands-on’, with staff making time consuming, costly trips to head office when updates are rolled out. Now, software and security maintenance can happen remotely – and overnight – so your team’s working hours aren’t disrupted. It’s a far more efficient way for your business to look after the tech.
11. Keep everyone safe
As with all your business technology, being cybersecurity aware in the choices you make and the behaviour of staff is vital. The right working tech can keep your team and your business safe from cyber-attack – but beware of using random utilities that sound fun without checking them out. While integrating cyber safety smart technologies like virtual desktops into your suite of remote working technologies also means it’s harder for potential attackers to target your business.
Are you maximising the value of your remote working technology?
Remote working technology can maximize the value of your business’s tech investments, helping you create a productive, efficient and positive work environment for your business – whether your teams are remote or hybrid.
Not sure where to start? Hopefully you have a smart IT partner who doesn’t tie you in a technical tangle every time you talk, but can instead help you come up with simple ways to get the most out of your tech.
If not, contact us – we make business technology for remote and hybrid working simple to understand, implement and use so your business can thrive.
Book a chat with Simply IT to discover how you can unlock extra value from your remote working technology.