How To Deal With The Common Remote Work Challenges in 2022
Over the past few years, the remote work trend has been increasing tremendously. The pandemic is not the only reason to boost its popularity but the ease & benefits it gives individuals — make it a new norm.
Considering its high demand, lots of studies have been conducted to justify its merits and demerits. Few studies have found — remote workers are healthier, enjoy a more positive work-life balance, are more productive and less suffer from burnout. The benefits of remote working for employees and businesses are together bringing a workforce revolution.
According to a survey, in 2020 50% of the UK workforce had been working remotely.
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According to a report by Owl Labs, globally 16% of companies are operating fully remote.
Among the remote employees, the percentage of youth is higher. They believe, remote working gives them work-life balance to spend time with family, reduces travelling time which can be utilized to develop new skills, stay motivated & healthy, prioritize their freedom by saving travel and other costs and take fewer leaves. Remote workers end up saving more money than office employees. According to FlexJobs, a remote worker earns $4,000 higher than that of other workers annually on an average.
The future of the remote workforce is promising and clearly visible. It may seem business revolution but it is not a one-day's show where businesses and employees will leverage all the benefits of remote working by turning a switch only. There are multiple downsides and challenges both parties face if proper strategies are not Incorporated. Thankfully, Trackolap has come with innovative tools and techniques to cope with the remote workforce challenges with the dynamic field employee monitoring software .
Let's dive into this blog to discuss every tiny prospect businesses, as well as employees, face during working remotely.
Challenges & Solutions
Although remote work sounds alluring, multiple challenges arise while working at home. One of the prominent issues is unplugging after work, followed by loneliness, lack of communication, distractions at home, laziness, collaboration and staying motivated. According to the State of Remote Work report, published by Buffer in 2019, unplugging is the most common problem remote workers have after work – 22% of employees responded they face this issue.
Whereas,
19% of people suffer from loneliness
17% suffer due to a lack of collaboration
10% of people face distractions
8% of people struggle to stay motivated
These challenges lead to job burnout and poor productivity. So, if you are thinking of a remote workforce make sure you are equipped with the advanced software to efficiently manage the versatile remote workforce.
Well, you are aware of the challenges but how will you mitigate those? The dream of a failed remote business is terrific. We Trackolap, after serving hundreds of remote workforce, are here to help you manage your remote workforce model with our dynamic intelligent techniques and Field Sales Tracking Software that will give you real-time information at one click.
Let's start the discussion on the challenges employer as well as employees faces in the remote business.
1) Improper Time Management
While working remotely one of the widespread challenges that employees struggle in managing their time. People think- remote work saves time in traffic jams or travelling time to the office but still at home people are unable to manage their time. Doesn't it sound absurd?
According to the latest research in 2021, 82% of people don't use any time management system. They solely rely on a simple to-do list to organize their time. While working remotely, employees juggle between performing their house chores such as cleaning, cooking, attending to guests or organizing the workspace.
However, the traditional method of time management can be hectic and lengthy to use, when we have an efficient time field staff tracking app that works in real-time.
2) Lack of Communication
Lack of communication due to different time zones is one of the significant challenges that employees and employers struggle to cope with. It takes sufficient time to schedule, reschedule, compose a mail or answer the mail to communicate with the managers and vice versa. Unlike the traditional way of communication where the cafeteria is the favorite destination to start a conversation. Due to a lack of communication and interaction employees lose their interest in work which eventually ends up in procrastination and lower productivity. What is needed is a tool which is instant, effective and fast to mitigate communication and collaboration hassles.
The good news is, apart from field employee monitoring software, there are some tools such as G-suite, and Microsoft Teams for instant messaging, managing availability statuses, file sharing, and scheduling instant meetings & calls at one go.
3) Technical Issues
The contribution of technology is myriad when it comes to remote working. Starting from HR training to team meetings - everything happens with the help of technologically advanced tools. However, employees who are not technical savvy faces huge complications while using these tools. Which eventually slowdowns their efficiency and productivity. We will recommend you deploy tools which are simple, and easy to use. Do not let your employees suffer from burdens by enabling multiple complex tools. Choose a few ones which can perform 85% of business work. Trackolap has been serving businesses in multiple domains ranging from HR management, and productivity tracking to location tracking. You will get everything to run your remote business under one umbrella.
4) Trouble In Managing Projects
Managing projects appears to be the biggest challenge managers face when the workforce is scattered across different time zones and locations. According to a survey of 425 people, incompetent resources, delays in project deliveries and project cost overruns are the most common issues due to poor project management. According to the participants, more than 50% of the organizations face issues in successful project delivery. There are endless short-term and long-term consequences, starting from business loss to a bad reputation, a business faces due to the failure of project management.
At Trackolap, you will get the tools to cope with every possible challenge that a remote team manager can face. First of all, you need sophisticated project management software to monitor the assigned tasks and their progress. Managers can track multiple project progresses, and take the time to complete the project in one place with one click. The task management system of the tool is great. You can assign or reassign tasks and track the status of the progress of your team members in real-time.
5) Monitoring Productivity
Now we get into one of the complex challenges of managing a remote workforce. The big hurdle is that you need to make sure every small and large task is delivered efficiently within the time. However, keeping the track of the progress work or completed work is not a cakewalk. If you fail to track any tasks, it may cost your business huge.
How can you keep a keen eye on every task when there is a huge diversification in time zones and location of the remote employees? Well, the field employee monitoring app can help you do those tasks efficiently with one click. It will show you the total time taken by your team members to complete a task, and also their current locations.
You can see what your team members are currently working on, the availability status and
what they got up to yesterday. This means your employees can peacefully complete their tasks without any interruption of messages from leaders like — Are you available? or Have you completed the task?
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6) Different Work Locations
One of the greatest benefits a remote workforce gives business is, availing a large pool of talents from all over the world. However, this is one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is businesses struggle to manage the project as the employees belong to different locations and the team is out of sync. When one part of your team is snoozing may be other part is trying to get things done. And to monitor the locations and productivity together of your employees, you can take the help of the employee location tracker . Apart from tools, placing a few guidelines in the team can work wonders to solve the problem. However, you should not infringe the flexibility and freedom of your remote employees otherwise you may ruin your remote workforce. You can have a regular schedule or work hours to minimize the communication and collaboration gaps.
Wrapping Up
A remote workforce brings enormous potential benefits to the table. However, if you fail to track your remote employees and their productivity you may face terrible consequences. You never going to reap the full benefits of a remote workforce unless you achieve a great level of discipline in your team. Managing a versatile virtual workforce seems a daunting task if proper tools and techniques are not utilized. 85% of managers believe that remote working teams will become the new norm. The remote workforce also plays a crucial role in terms of employee retention. As 74% of workers say they will not leave the company if they get the option to work remotely. People chose remote work for better work-life balance. Make sure you avail your employees of a healthy work-life balance by incorporating proper disciplines, technology and strategies.