Remote working is gaining prominence in the light of COVID-19 outbreak worldwide. Due to social distancing, over 50% of the employees are working from home. Thus, they are increasingly dependent on technology to keep in touch with their supervisors and subordinates.
There exist numerous ways to leverage online tools to boost team performance and productivity. The technologies that are mentioned below help in maintaining communication, offers the right platform to work faster and much more.
So, let us delve right into it.
Technologies that Makes Work from Home Easier
- Communication Applications
Sharing of information and communication with the team members is of the utmost essence. Almost 69% of the managers state that they cannot convey messages to the employees accurately. And, 57% of the employees mention that they do not receive clear instructions. If this is the scene at a workplace, how can one expect to enforce coordination at home?
Thus, people should rely on Whatsapp, Gmail chat or Facebook Messanger to send and receive important updates. One can also enable desktop notifications and push notifications. This way, they do not have to look into smartphones now and then, in the middle of the work.
- Web Extensions
Web extensions like Chrome extensions and Firefox extensions help in getting multiple jobs done in the blink of an eye. Applications like Grammarly, Google Docs, Google Drive help in sharing error-free documents quickly. To ensure increased productivity from home, one can use Hubspot Sales, Todoist, Rapportive, etc. These applications help you schedule your emails, maintain a to-do list, integrate CRM, etc.
To ensure the best security, one can use HTTPS Everywhere, Click&Clean and J2Team Security. These applications protect the software against virus invasion, third party attacks, etc. Since social media platforms are crucial for marketing and sharing news, one can use bitly, BuzzSumo, Pinterest to optimize the content.
- Video Conferencing Platforms
Meetings are necessary for the growth of any company. Managers and supervisors hold meetings with employees to form strategies and decide the steps to be taken to achieve a goal within a certain period. With the lockdown imposed worldwide, one needs to take advantage of the video conferencing platforms like Skype, Cisco Webex, Zoom, Facebook Workplace, Google Hangouts.
Applications like Skype allows 25 participants (which is the average size of a department in a small company) to hold a meeting at the same time. Furthermore, applications like Cisco Webex, Skype, TeamViewer allows screen-sharing. It allows one to look into the procedures required for the completion of a particular task. It also helps one to demonstrate their ideas clearly, which will lead to enhanced productivity.
- Corporate Relationship Management Software
CRM is indispensable as it helps the companies know about customer experiences, marketing campaigns, valuable data and statistics, etc. Furthermore, it enables automation of the sales process, optimization of customer interactions and much more. Thus, 91% of the companies, having more than 11 companies resort to CRM solutions like Bitrix 24, Salesforce, Qualsys.
In addition to the benefits stated earlier, these applications help the companies conduct email marketing, lead management and forecast sales. The CRM software acts as an all-in-one marketing tool, and has provisions for SEO, content management, customer segmentation, and automated data entry. Thus, the employees get to sit at home and perform extensive tasks simultaneously.
- Online Project Management Solutions
Often a project requires the participation of more than one employee. In order to ensure proper coordination, one should maintain virtual bulletin boards or a task list. Moreover, Project Management solutions like Basecamp, Zoho Projects, Trello make sure tasks lists are updated and can be accessed by all.
Robust applications like Microsoft Teams and TeamViewer offer a one-stop solution to all the requirements. These involve desktop sharing, videoconferencing, scheduling of tasks, file saving and sharing, chatting, etc. Reporting is another crucial aspect when all the members are working collectively on the project. With Microsoft Teams at their disposal, the employees can update their status from time to time.
- Enterprise Resource Planning Platforms
The growth rate in adoption of ERP software has been 8.86% from 2014 to 2020. And it is playing a vital role, now that people have to work from home. It helps the supervisors keep a tab on the daily performance of the employees. And, every member of the company gets to know the statistics related to sales, marketing, daily production, etc.
Since the employees get access to the centralized database, it is the perfect technology for remote working. It enables the addition of new users and functions, and can be tailored to meet unique needs. Some of the most widely used ERP softwares are Microsoft Dynamics, SAP ERP, ERPNext, Metafresh, Syspro and ORACLE Netsuite.
- Service Automation
In order to have a unified interface for all the workflows, integration of domain and functionality tools is important. This is made possible by service automation. Today, data can be automatically updated; mails and messages can be scheduled, etc. This provides the employees with an opportunity to focus on their task without worrying too much about sending updates.
In addition to this, password managers come in handy when you have several accounts and have a habit of forgetting the password. For instance, Google password manager automatically detects the registration forms and fills in the password. You can use it to manage your Gmail or YouTube accounts. Similarly, automatic password management can be achieved through McAfee True Key.
As you can see, the technologies have come a long way to make the ‘work from home’ look easy. With the facilities at hand, one has to work smarter and not harder, for swift results. With the advent of cloud computing, Big Data analysis, blockchain and AI, the companies have been able to reduce the costs and also the need for workspace.
So, all you really need is a stable Internet connection, and you are good to go. And that is what the employees are doing in this tough situation. If you are writing an assignment on the latest technologies that have made remote working possible, you will get assignment help from the points above.
