Preparing your Business for a post Covid-19 Workplace
Matt Archer
November 10, 2020
The time to adapt is now
The virtualization of work has been happening for many years now, as cloud services become more reliable and interconnected to help businesses better manage all of their operations in a simpler manner. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic occurred, the push towards virtual work has accelerated exponentially, which caught a lot of companies off-guard. According to Gartner, Only 12% of companies were prepared to have employees work remotely before the pandemic.[1]
While that might have made sense at the time, we’re seeing a greater push towards working remotely due in no small part to the impact of Covid-19 where 3.4% of US population worked fully remotely prior to Covid-19 and that number grew to 34% during the height of the first wave of the pandemic.[2] Additional factors also play a part in this desire for working from a virtual environment, such as that the “majority of employees are more engaged while working from home than at the office.”[3]
Do what you can to survive; Plan to thrive
Your business has probably been affected by this dramatic shift to remote, virtual work, but have you been able to implement solutions that are going to help your teams in the long term? Many businesses were not prepared for the sudden move to virtualization and tried to cobble together solutions quickly to stay afloat, which may not be utilized to their full extent or beneficial over the long term.
Now, more than half a year since the shift to a virtual workforce across many companies, there is now enough data to provide some measure about the impacts it can have on a company, both in the short and long term. This data is showing that productivity of work being done virtually is up compared to in-office, employee engagement is also up, costs are down and employees are staying safer as a result of being away from high risk zones.[4] This is a potential win-win for both the company and the workforce.
Now is the time to take stock at where your company is at today, then start to plan ahead for how to better handle the current wave of virtual work while continuing to move towards an even more virtualized future.
2 key areas companies should seriously examine while migrating to a long-term virtual workplace environment are:
- Future-Proofing any systems that were hastily moved to digital during the first wave of the pandemic. More waves are coming and who knows when the next big thing will occur.
- Implementing and Updating Tools to have them function across the enterprise instead of redundant systems within teams or individuals working in silos.
Future Proofing
The drive for companies to have employees working from home before Covid-19 wasn’t urgent because there was no push towards changing what already worked. However, as many of us experienced firsthand, after the pandemic hit, companies were forced to quickly adapt to a virtual environment or fold.
This is why conversations about future-proofing your company in preparation for the next major event are so crucial. Being able to create flexibility through cloud applications is a big part of that plan. Areas to consider when creating a short and long-term strategy for digital adoption are:
- Business Process - what does your company do, and how can it do some or all of those things remotely if needed?
- Applications – How many applications does your company use? Is there redundancy within them? Are some teams using one system while another team is using a different system? How well do they meet the needs of your team(s)?
- Training – How well does your company know how to use your current applications to meet the demands made of them by your business process?
Many businesses plan to permanently shift towards a larger focus on remote work, even after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides. Remote work allows for your company to recruit anybody regardless of where they live, which allows you to find potentially better candidates to help you as your company moves more into virtual work.
The Right Tools Implemented in the Right Way
Just as you wouldn’t use a wrench for a job when you really needed a hammer, so too is it important to use the right virtual applications that best suit your business process and team needs so they can best accomplish their work.
Communication tools are especially important to eliminate workers that are functioning in silos in your business, where no one knows what they’re doing or the impacts it may have on anything else. Making sure these communication tools interconnect with everything is very important to ensure workers don’t get bogged down in too many apps. Employees can waste upwards of 60 minutes a day switching between applications.[5]
RingCentral is a unified communication tool that combines a phone suite, online meeting application, and chat application. It meets the security and compliance standards of enterprise but provides the affordability to be utilized in the SMB space. Positive Results™ is a RingCentral partner and has helped many companies implement and optimize their virtual unified communications experience, allowing them to save money and keep their teams on the same page regardless of where they’re located on what other events are happening in the world.
Final Words
If your company is being challenged with making the transition to a virtual workplace, or wants some help to better utilize existing/new cloud-based solutions in preparation for a more Virtual workplace, Positive Results can help.
Positive Results™ has been working to get organizations up and running in the cloud for over 20 years. While anyone can sign up for a cloud-based application at the source, the challenge for organizations is tying them all together, implementing their business process, and making sure security is thought through.
Many solutions are great out of the box, but require understanding of how to connect them and customize them to meet your business’ needs in order for them to function optimally. Our team has the expertise to get companies up and running quickly and successfully. Nobody knows what lies ahead and now more than ever businesses need to be prepared to work remotely.
Covid-19 will likely not be the last time something so disruptive occurs, so it’s more important now than ever to ensure your company is prepared to adapt to the changing work environment.
If you have additional questions or need support, contact us at:
Positive Results™ Custom Business Solutions
440.499.4944
[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-03-10-gartner-business-continuity-survey-shows-just-twelve-percernt-of-organizations-are-highly-prepared-for-coronavirsu
[2] https://netstorage.ringcentral.com/ebook/importance_of_mvp.pdf
[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/covid-19-and-the-employee-experience-how-leaders-can-seize-the-moment#
[4] https://netstorage.ringcentral.com/ebook/importance_of_mvp.pdf
[5] https://netstorage.ringcentral.com/ebook/importance_of_mvp.pdf
