Remote working in 2019

The traditional desk based nine-till-five working day is what modern and innovative workplaces are starting to fade out, and with great success. In terms of professional workspaces, 2018 has seen a particular influx of workers taking to the comfort of their own homes to replicate an office environment and in turn, increasing their productivity. For employees, features and applications, convenience, ease of use, and positive user experience are paramount in creating an ideal working environment. In fact, with 70% of people globally working remotely at least once a week, it’s obvious employees see this as a prefered option going forward.

 

Staying connected with unified communications

With increasing numbers taking to the comfort of their own homes, there are crucial factors that must be addressed in 2019 for a seamless transition, such as the simple yet pivotal notion of sharing documents freely without compromising security and maintaining version control.

 

With the cloud, it becomes easier than ever to improve internal collaboration though unified communications. Whether employees are working in the heart of Mexico or Moscow, migrating business files to the cloud, allows employees from all over the world to work together as if they were right next to each other. With voice and video calls, instant messaging and conferencing all enabled in a unified communication solution, workers are contactable regardless of their location, ensuring the business still runs efficiently. Team collaboration can be made stronger despite being apart, with conference calls via video, voice and mobile devices with powerful screen and document sharing built in the cloud solution.

 

Boost productivity with the cloud

Looking to the new year, businesses will be evaluating their current employee working situation, whether staff work remotely or in the office and will make a decision as to which method generates the most productive team. Employee productivity is key to a successful business, without it organisations lose creative innovation which impairs their ability to stay relevant, competitive and profitable. Creating a new work ecosystem in which staff are able to use new technologies to work together to develop solutions, is an example of how to maintain healthy staff productivity. Companies will experience an increase in profitability as it becomes less expensive to produce their goods and services as a result of their staff productivity levels increasing.

 

Outdated and insufficient technical equipment often dissatisfies employees and it encourages them to fall back on their own equipment or download solutions without informing the internal IT department. This is obviously a huge security risk as well as a productivity hindrance. Those who think technology is effective in their business are generally more creative, content and productive, therefore unattractive equipment loses the business, interest from potential skilled employees, especially generation Z individuals who expect the latest technology. Missing out on these innovative minds, may impede the businesses future in 2019, a year extremely important for the survival during Brexit motions.

 

Remote workers are granted the privilege to choose the technology they use in order to complete working tasks. This could well be a contributing factor to why remote workers actually tend to be more productive than their office-dwelling counterparts. In fact, remote workers are around 13% more productive. The increased flexibility and no time-consuming commute are also important benefits which make remote working so appealing.

 

With the cloud, remote and office-based workers are able to eliminate the time-consuming and often unsecure process of sending files back and forth over email with a more efficient collaboration system that enables employees to access files from one central location, improving productivity. With around one-third of home-based workers using cloud storage, we can expect this number to grow even further. In contrast, the workplace spend 73% of the time taking notes with "analog" writing material, restricting the ability to freely share information between colleagues. Cloud abilities allow remote and office workers to stay connected and share files through one portal, making it an easy business decision for directors to choose a more efficient future for their business.

 

Complying with the mobility need

There seems to be a rising desire to work on anything, anywhere, without technology being the reason to stop us doing this. Coffee shops and trains are just some of the places society now expects white collared employees to work openly. These environments have also adapted to our need to have free WIFI and plug sockets openly available.

 

It seems the fad of remote working is here to stay, therefore with the ever rising number of remote workers, working from different areas the cloud makes a great solution to stay just as connected as if they were in an office. In fact, some cloud solutions only require the user’s device to have a connection to a web browser. This also ensures that shared document data can be edited in real time regardless of where they are.

 

Minimise the security scare

However, having the freedom and mobility attached to working remotely does come with its risks. As previously mentioned, remote workers sometimes use their own devices from unauthorised IP addresses which can make it difficult for the IT department to track which users are exactly staff members, often granting access to unauthorised personnel and downloads. In fact, it was found that most WIFI-related security incidents occurred at cafes and coffee shops.

 

Cyber breaches have the ability to crush an organisation, with evidence in its masses from this year’s headlines like Facebook, Under Armour and MyHeritage. Through innovative workplace solutions, companies are able to prevent security breaches like these for 2019 as a result of remote working. Specific cloud providers offer single sign-on features which permits the individual to use one set of login credentials as well as identity management to further secure the shared cloud platform.

 

Despite its few flaws, remote working should be endorsed by organisations to achieve profitable results. Employee productivity is boosted, which in turn benefits the company's ability to produce more product and generate greater ROI. Staff who work remotely shouldn’t be considered a liability for a business when the cyber threats involved can easily be avoided through the right cloud solution. Cloud platforms are able to deliver and distribute data and applications securely and easily. So will 2019 be the year that organisations grab the remote working life by the cloud?