According to a recent study conducted by the freelancing platform Upwork, over 63% companies now have remote workers, up from 48% just a year ago! The work output from remote workers has also increased by 168% during this period of time. Hiring managers are of the opinion that remote work will be a bigger trend than even artificial intelligence in the coming decade. Besides, remote workers have much higher levels of productivity and motivation than regular office employees. However, there are also significant challenges to this trend. Let us go deeper into those.
The Television
Back in the 80’s when television sets were big and bulky devices, you needed to get up and manually switch channels whenever you wanted to. Now that was quite a cumbersome experience for most of us. However, things changed in the 90’s when we had televisions with remote control. It was much easier to simply switch channels or change the picture settings with the click of a button. That change revolutionized everything, ranging from DVD players to gaming consoles to even fans and lights!
Now it is quite normal for us to use remote controls for managing electronic devices. Amazingly, even aircraft have become remote controlled. At the start of the 21st century, the world saw a massive leap in technology with the advent of drones. These small, remote-controlled aircraft are being used everywhere from law enforcement to disaster management, and even kids seem to enjoy using them as toys!
Digital Nomads
The workforce of the world’s largest companies are also seeing the same type of technological revolution. With a plethora of remote working tools and softwares available online, it has never been so easy to manage a remotely located workforce. There are innumerable collaboration tools, program libraries, online courses, time management tools, software code repositories, and open forums which are helping remote workers do their work from anywhere in the world.
Earlier, business owners wanted to directly supervise the workers and therefore arranged them to be present in offices. However, workflows have become so quantified and process-oriented that you no longer have the need to supervise physically. At the mere click of a button, you can see how the project is progressing and who is doing what.
Also called as “Digital Nomads” the remote workers are changing the way businesses operate. Digital nomads can work from anywhere, such as coffee shops or shared workplaces. All they need is a connected device with the required software tools. That has become the defining trend of millennial, who wish to marry late, travel the world, and enjoy diverse experiences.
The remote workers or digital nomads have moved on from conventional office environment, where there is added pressure on performance, such as:
1) Being seen at your desk most of the time means that you are working diligently.
2) Arriving early and leaving late means that you have a high level of commitment.
3) “Hard Work” means exceeding your working hours rather than quality output.
Rewards and recognition are given to people who tick these above boxes.
Hallway discussions and cafeteria chatter is strongly discouraged.
Team meetings tend to go longer than usual because people get involved in debates frequently.
Challenges
However, there are some challenges too in hiring remote workers. How to ensure that the person is working only for your project and not on something else? How to maintain discipline of putting in the required number of hours each day? These are some issues that each and every business is trying to address in their own way. For IT companies and digital agencies, it is comparatively easier while it may be difficult for others like banking and finance companies. But with the cost and productivity advantages that you get from remote work, it is imperative to solve these issues that work for your particular situation.
Conclusion
Just like the revolution in remote-controlled gadgets, a paradigm shift is happening in remote working. Older reservations are being dispensed with in favor of newer advantages. Over the next decade or so, we may have a very small portion of the workforce that travels to the offices. Most businesses will be having up to 70% of their staff work remotely or as freelancers, helping the companies increase productivity and conserve costs.
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