In the last years, work environments have experienced a significant transformation, with technological tools implemented into work practices.
Small businesses have increasingly adopted remote working as the new standard, offering opportunities for increased efficiency, better management, and enhanced flexibility.
Despite the potential challenges and issues, small businesses can greatly benefit from remote working models with the use of the right tools and technologies available, facilitating business operations and tasks to complete their digital transformation.
What is Remote Working?
Remote working or home office is a working practice where the employees work from their “remote working” environment instead of a traditional workspace. Most of the time, remote working individuals do not have to go to the office during working hours.
They can work from their houses or the places, they are currently located in. They have the freedom to choose the place they are working from so long as they provide service and deliver tasks according to determined deadlines or working hours set by the corporation beforehand.
Remote working offers various advantages to both enterprises and employees. Companies can adopt remote working in all of their branches as well as limit its implementation to a few of them.
Since costs are reduced or eliminated depending on the organization’s implementation of remote working, more resources can be allocated to other branches and departments where they seem necessary.
As determined by the company they work for, some employees working from remote environments have the opportunity to set their working hours. This also boosts maintaining a better balance between work and social life, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.
Additionally, with remote working, employees are not affected by wasting time in traffic due to the lack of daily commutes.
How Can Remote Working Contribute to Small Businesses?
Increased Efficiency and Productivity
Employees who can set their working hours have increased efficiency and productivity compared to those who have to work during office hours.
With remote working, employees can choose the hours during which they can work most efficiently and complete their work within that time. In this way, they have the opportunity to boost their performance by working remotely.
Aside from efficiency, employees may also have other positive effects thanks to their increased control over their working schedule, and some even prefer the benefits of remote working over getting promoted or a salary increase.
Better Management
Small businesses have an advantage over the management of their organization thanks to remote working. With the adoption of technological tools, enterprises can carry out operations with comfort and ease, having a better ability to manage difficult and unexpected situations and emergencies.
Fulfilling the demands of employees who prefer remote working environments, businesses can reduce conflict, stress, and anxiety, by having better control over workflow. A hybrid working model or virtual offices can be adopted depending on the needs of enterprises.
Proper implementation and use of project management and collaboration tools can help in that sense.
Collaboration and Communication
Although a physical workspace is not used, small businesses need to maintain communication with the teams. Thus, consistent communication is the key to ensuring the functioning of teams to achieve goals and finish projects on time.
To enhance communication among the members of a team, and also other departments, businesses can benefit from video conferencing software and tools that improve collaboration.
With the various features functionality and capabilities, these tools help employees of small businesses to keep in touch and work with ease.
Additionally, it could be a good idea to schedule weekly meetings to improve the relationship between colleagues, allowing them to socialize in an office environment, where it seems possible.
Flexibility
Flexibility is an important factor to consider as it has become the new normal in today’s business world. In the lack of a physical office environment, it is natural for employees to ask for more flexible schedules depending on their situations.
Employees, especially if they have families of their own, need to balance their working and social lives. Their availability and hours they work with better efficiency may greatly vary.
Therefore, employees may have to schedule their hours instead of working with set hours. While this is beneficial for them, it may pose problems for the businesses.
Nevertheless, adopting a flexible and result-oriented approach can greatly increase the productivity of a team. Although they may be expected to attend scheduled meetings and be available for contact during work hours, they can deliver their work as long as they meet the deadlines.
What Challenges Do Small Businesses Face in Remote Working?
Although remote working models offer various positive outcomes, there are also some negative impacts that businesses should consider taking necessary measures. These challenges include productivity drain, issues with management and technological tools, and employee suitability for remote working.
Insufficient Communication
Remote working may make it harder to stay in touch and manage the business as a whole, with a chance to negatively affect mutual trust, increasing anxiety.
In this sense, enterprises need to overcome this issue by creating a well-structured micromanagement plan. Applications that improve coordination and communication of teams can greatly contribute to successful management.
Decreased Productivity Over Time
Over time, remote working employees may lose their motivation, and this can hinder their productivity. Therefore, businesses have to clearly define their work policy, provide detailed information about what is expected for the positions of employees, and create appropriate guidelines.
Issues with Technological Tools and Infrastructure
Technical issues such as poor and unreliable internet infrastructure, unstable software and applications, and incompatible and outdated hardware can negatively affect the efficiency of teams and business operations, preventing enterprises from achieving their goal of success.
Employee Preferences and Suitability
Some employees may not prefer to work remotely as a choice, and this can cause another challenge for enterprises. Therefore, it could be a better strategy for small businesses to hire people who are suitable for a remote working culture.
Tools for Remote Working
Collaboration and Sharing Tools
Businesses can make use of various tools and platforms for the continuation of operations, improvement of coordination and teamwork, as well as facilitating file and data sharing between departments.
Platforms such as Slack, Jira, Microsoft Office, and Google Documents allow remote teams to instantly share files and data among the team, and work on projects together, providing seamless communication.
Cloud storage tools such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive allow data to be shared and stored online, facilitating data access regardless of time and place.
Remote access and management tools such as VNC, TeamViewer, LogMeIn, and Splashtop facilitate providing support in case of technical issues. Additionally, employees can access their computers at the physical office through the use of these tools.
Project Management Tools
Assigning and sharing tasks are essential steps in project management. The use of data-sharing platforms with management tools allows enterprises to track their employees and efficiently conduct business processes.
Project management tools such as Nextcloud, Asana, Trello, Jira, and Monday aid enterprises in task management, assigning tasks within teams, as well as recording and tracking the progress of business operations by offering a central software platform.
These tools allow for the calendar, e-mail integration, and file-sharing features. Additionally, thanks to the integration with video conference solutions, businesses can use screen sharing during online meetings and seamlessly operate processes.
Increasing efficiency and productivity among employees is crucial for enterprises, and this requires professional project management practices and the selection of appropriate management tools to support business operations.
Therefore, the use of project management tools aids in tracking work progress and preventing potential misunderstandings and issues that may arise.
Video Conferencing Tools
Video conference software enables enterprises and employees working in hybrid or remote working settings to virtually hold meetings and connect. These tools make it possible to maintain the workflow of various processes and branches remotely.
These tools provide businesses with tools they need in their daily processes, including daily, weekly, and monthly team meetings, presentations, webinars, marketing, sales, and so on.
Taking the requirements of the workflow into consideration, businesses can choose the most appropriate solution. Most popular video conferencing tools include OctaMeet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet.
OCTAPULL’s Easy-to-Use Video Conferencing Platform: OctaMeet
OctaMeet provides seamless online meetings with its fast infrastructure and industry-level security measures. Basic features include screen recording and sharing, whiteboard tools, and annotations to make meetings and presentations more interactive and visually supported, increasing productivity, collaboration, and efficiency.
OctaMeet’s advanced sharing features allow users to plan meetings and manage them. By adding notes and tasks, users can schedule meetings and integrate their data into the calendar with ease.
In-app messaging facilitates communication among users during and after meetings. Calendar integration with e-mail platforms allows users to synchronize their meeting data with their accounts such as such as Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.
Single Sign-On integration allows for collaboration with other business applications easily and efficiently, offering a smooth user experience and effortless transition between desktop and mobile applications.
Built-in cloud storage functionality allows data to be stored securely, accessed, and shared anytime from anywhere, eliminating the necessity to use other cloud platforms for data storage.
As a video conferencing platform, OctaMeet utilizes end-to-end encryption to ensure the secure transmission of user data and prevent its access by unauthorized third parties. Hence, sensitive user data is protected during and after the meetings, thanks to its advanced security features.
Eliminating concerns about security and data breaches, OCTAPULL ensures enterprises conduct work processes seamlessly, offering financial and reputational protection.
Enterprises can also choose the best plan suitable to their business needs and have the option to cancel their plan at any time if they desire, as monthly or yearly subscriptions are not required.
For more information about OctaMeet and tailored plans aligned with your enterprise needs, please contact us.
In conclusion, remote working comes forward as a model that aids small businesses and enterprises by offering various advantages to support business processes. By using technological tools and embracing flexibility, small businesses can maximize efficiency, enhance productivity, and adopt better management practices.
Despite the challenges such as potential productivity drain and technological issues, small businesses can overcome these obstacles by implementing the right management strategies and investing in suitable tools and infrastructure.
With the right approach, remote working can not only facilitate operations but also foster a culture of collaboration and adaptability within small businesses.
In this context, the integration of digital tools and technologies such as video conferencing tools will continue to be an important step for businesses to complete their digital transformation and allow them to thrive in today’s competitive business environment.
