Remote work is not a new concept. While only a small percentage of people integrated remote working environments, studies show that most work could be effortlessly completed remotely.

With the worldwide pandemic, we witnessed a rapid and prompt shift in the workforce to the remote working environment. The heightened arrangements and flexible workplaces have grown to stand out, meeting the market demands. Remote workers do not wish to give up on this new normal.

The world is not yet ready to adopt the next "new normal", and WFH is here to stay!

Going Back to the Roots: Re-embracing the ties that bind!

In recent years, mass emigration of people from cities to rural areas was observed since employees learned to connect and work from anywhere. Rural areas allow people to feel attached to their community, and remote working provides everyone's desired comfortable workplace. Furthermore, remote working has saved money when the world is witnessing a rapid increase in the cost of living.

By spending less on professional causes and transportation, people can invest more in personal resources, dwindling financial stress. Here is a surprising stat for all: even with the house chores, family members, and pets at home, almost 75 percent of respondents in a Flexjobs survey revealed that they are less distracted working from home than in an office!

Remote Workforce: The New Normal

Remote workforces are expected to continue even when the pandemic days are over. Effective remote workforce management will bring out long-term impacts and affect the growth of a business.

Effective management of a remote workforce poses different challenges to the smooth functioning of a company since the employees are not physically available. The establishment of an effective remote workforce can be achieved with groundbreaking strategies and active communication, on-time work and dispatch of deliverables, and diligence in operations.

A remote team with unending loyalty and responsibility can bring success to a company by boosting user engagement and increasing revenue.

Remote workforces and SMEs: Overcoming the Challenges

SMEs or Small and Medium Enterprises have been adapting to remote workforces since the pandemic outbreak. The sudden transition to remote working in India was initially met with a network of challenges that seemed to disrupt the functioning.

It was similar worldwide, A report by Buffer in partnership with Nomad List and Remote OK revealed that out of 2000 respondents that constituted 61% males, 20% cited loneliness to be affecting their productivity. The remote team of workers had limited experience in the process, which was an obstacle.

However, this condition did not last long. SMEs are now using effective strategies and business models to bring out the best from remote working in India.

Soon SMEs witnessed the benefits of the remote workforce, which included no real estate costs and travel time, thus balancing flexibility in workforces. The quality and productivity standards are being efficiently kept high with excellent tools and equipment.

With the pandemic posing challenges to humanity, SMEs have swiftly adjusted to the new workplace and are setting examples of successful businesses with high revenues.

Five tips for establishing an effective Remote Workforce from scratch.

A successful remote work model needs to place enormous trust in remote workers' capabilities, intents, and responsibilities. This will ensure that the employees in their work will further cement their focus, allowing them to give their best. Additionally, it can substantially improve user engagement, resulting in a successful business and booming revenue.

Here are 5 tips that will aid you in building an effective remote workforce de novo.

1. Analyze Your Policies

A work-from-home policy is essential when it comes to building remote workplaces. Parameters and restrictions must be set out for the employees on where they can work since no restrictions can make them take it for granted and interpret it as working while traveling. Not having regulations can put the company in peril.

Specialized training and workshops on cybersecurity, good security practices, and cybersecurity policies must be conducted to make the employees aware of cyberattacks and break-ins. When employees work from home, others can access their networks, making cybersecurity important.

2. Reintroducing Your Company's Work Culture

A company should try rebuilding the culture of their company which involves and encompasses their employees by collecting feedback. Employees are more engaged in their job and dedicated to their company's success when they get due importance.

A company has numerous initiatives, some of which may succeed while others may not. Using the failed initiatives to improve the successful ones by asking for employee feedback would put them on board.

Hence, companies should work on nourishing a culture where employees feel authorized rather than feeling they need to propel through their efforts.

Companies can try and address the healthy culture of remote workplaces by:

• Affirming fixed working hours
• Enabling remote workplace vacancies
• Embracing non-simultaneous communication methods over sudden and immediate conferences jeopardizes employee workflow. Assigning the management board to keep in touch with their remote team and offer assistance whenever needed.
• Collecting employee feedback through surveys to check the rising concerns that will aid in the constant progress of your company.

Remote work employees should be given their Paid Time Off and encouraged to use their PTO. Employees usually hesitate to take their time off, thinking about the stress of work they might get when they return to work. An SME manager should make employees comfortable and keep backups to complete the job when someone takes their PTO.

3. Improve your Communication

Good communication is the driving force of remote workforces. Proper communication will keep your company unified and will enhance the remote workforce. Vital communication tools should be effectively used to boost interaction between employees as well as between employees and the company. Synchronous and asynchronous communications should run parallel to eradicate any communication gap that may arise.

Tools to boost communication include emails, collective documents, to-do lists, recorded videos, and so on. Effective communication tools will keep people in sync with the entire proceedings enabling timely follow-up and response.

4. Show them the extras and benefits

A Remote team of workers expects flexibility in the systems, flexible working hours, and an efficient balance of work and personal life. Successful remote working involves bending down the company's perks to meet the needs of the employees.

Few such perks include:

• Investing in their residence internet to guarantee sufficient bandwidth for their job.
• Donating pet and child vigilance
• Furnishing them with setups for their home offices, including office desks, chairs, and other supply equipment.
• Imposing more priority on the recognition and appreciation of good work.
• Maintaining a backup plan for workplace burnout and endorsing mental health and wellness workshops and demonstrations.

5. Revise Your Training

As the old saying goes, a person must listen to something seven times before it registers. Most startups, SMEs, gig economies, and enterprises often forget about revising the old training after delivering once. Companies should dedicate some of their time to getting back to revisiting their old learnings. This can be simplified through various communication mediums since all employees need a push to revise what they have learned along with their work history.

Companies revamp their training by:

• Making interactive sessions with ideas to receive points for finishing assignments and accomplishing particular tallies.
• Integrating a leaderboard for tracking scores of employees to build a friendly competitive atmosphere.
• Awarding the culmination of the lessons with some physical awards, small gifts or gift cards, or anything to celebrate the achievement. This will encourage employees.

Remote Work Culture in India

In the present world connected with virtual platforms, a dissatisfied remote worker is equally risky to the general company vitality and its encouraging company culture. Your company culture is crucial irrespective of where your employees are functioning.

Building a powerful remote team of workers is becoming important day by day. Remote working in India is increasing in demand, and work from home in India is most likely to continue in the recent future.

To get started with building a powerful remote team, mentioned below are some steps:

• Trust, your team in getting your job done. Keep in mind that your employees can amaze you with outstanding results without assuming the worst.
• Make work from home easier with suitable equipment and setups or enable a co-working area with office-like infrastructure.
• Setting benchmarks and recognizing clear and realistic objectives will take your company to new heights.
• Dedicate time to integrating fun and interactive learning or engaging programs which will give employees a break from daily work.
• Occasional in-person meetups can improve employee engagement with the company and colleagues.

WFH & SMEs - The End is Not Here…

Remote working is here to stay. A company must set the right culture to enable a powerful remote workforce. A new remote workforce doesn't guarantee perfection in every aspect. Teamwork and trust are the bases for building a successful remote workplace. Perfection comes in with time and patience and consistency are its two keys.

When there is a satisfied remote work employee, you are entitled to increased productivity, managed company savings, boosted profits, and smooth management. The responsibility, here, is more on the leaders than the team.

Take the time to concentrate on building and sustaining the company culture of your remote workplace by developing an encouraging atmosphere and making your employees feel empowered.

Are you still planning to convert your Small and Medium Enterprise into a remote workforce?

Connect with Gig4U and get help to implement a remote working culture aligned with efficient practices!