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What is remote work and how to increase productivity.
Explore how to stay productive and connected while working remotely.
The brave new remote work world.
Ever since workers could telecommute, they’ve been setting up shop at home, in coffee shops, or flex spaces. Recently, the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown made many office workers become remote workers for an extended period of time. Working from home went from an occasional short-term situation to a full-time fact of life for tens of thousands of workers.
What is remote work?
Remote work is a flexible alternative to the conventional office setting, allowing individuals to complete their professional tasks from a variety of environments, such as home, a café, or a coworking space. Essential to this model is the reliance on digital platforms and communication tools, which facilitate collaboration and task management without the need for face-to-face interaction. As long as a reliable laptop and steady internet connection are available, remote work can be effectively carried out from virtually anywhere.
There are different forms of remote work arrangements:
- Fully remote work. Employees are not required to visit a physical office at all, allowing them to work from any location worldwide.
- Partly remote work or hybrid. Employees are required to make occasional office visits, often a few times per month, which means those employees generally need to reside close enough to the workplace to commute conveniently.
The pandemic undeniably transformed the workforce by revealing ways to complete workloads outside of a traditional office space. While remote work existed prior to the pandemic, COVID-19 certainly had an impact on the number of remote companies. Not only has remote work saved gas money for employees and office space rental fees for employers, but it has also been found to increase productivity.
A study from Stanford that included 16,000 workers over 9 months discovered that working from home increased productivity by 13%. More calls could be made per minute due to a quieter and convenient work environment. The average number of minutes worked per shift increased due to fewer sick days and breaks. It was found that there was improved satisfaction among workers, and attrition rates decreased by 50%.
Research from Ergotron found that 78% of respondents felt that remote work improved collaboration with colleagues at their workplace. The perceived increase in freedom of choice plays a major role in remote work productivity. Research from Zippia has shown that remote employees perform 50% more activities by personal choice. It was also discovered that the number of tasks that could regularly be put on others decreased from 41% to 27%.
How to increase remote work productivity.
While studies have shown that remote employees often experience increased productivity, it’s still essential for individuals working from home to actively optimize their work habits. Distractions, lack of structure, and blurred work-life boundaries can impact efficiency. Below, you’ll find five steps to increase remote work productivity.
1. Have a schedule.
If you work from home, it’s easy to start too early or late, or let your workday drag on into the evening. Stick to the kind of schedule that you would have at the office. Log on and off at a set time each day, just like you would at an office, and make sure work hours don’t bleed into home life. Take lunch and coffee breaks. You’re still at work, even if you’re not commuting.
2. Stay professional.
It’s easy to let things get casual while working from home, and at first, it might feel good to log on while in sweatpants. However, if you have a video conferencing appointment with your team, you still need to present a professional version of yourself. When working from home, approach your workspace the way you would any other office. This can help you maintain work-life balance and care for your mental health and well-being.
3. Create a home office.
If possible, designate a specific part of your home for work, and treat that as your work environment. Post your schedule outside your home office so other members of your household know when you’re available and for what amount of time, and when you’re not. Use the physical separation of your work from the rest of your home as a way to enforce work-life balance.
4. List your priorities.
Remote work means fewer in-person check-ins with managers or colleagues. Because you’ll spend less time around them, you need to be even clearer with everyone involved about what you need to do and what you expect from them. Learn how to organize work tasks or create a project management task list that’s a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand list of everyone’s tasks, subtasks, priorities, and expectations for each day and each project. If you can’t make things clear in person, they have to be clear in your project management system. Supplement with video calls to ensure clear communication.
5. Work from any device.
Life happens, and sometimes it will take you out of the home office during working hours. When it does, make sure you can stay connected with your coworkers via a mobile device and collaboration tools, and be available for things that might need your immediate attention. If you’re an employer, make sure that your employees have the right to remove work software for document tracking and management from any mobile device, and to read, add to, e-sign, and collaborate on projects from anywhere.
Remote work productivity vs. office productivity.
Remote work has displayed higher wellness, creativity, and productivity numbers than a physical office environment. The 2021 State of Remote Work report from Owl Labs revealed that 40% of employers provided a one-time payment to employees for work-from-home expenses and 35% provided a monthly stipend. It also showed that only 36% of people felt that the office is best suited for individual work. These are a few of the many reasons that people choose their home over an office environment.
Even as the pandemic ended, people wanted remote work to remain a part of their business models. FlexJobs found that the top reason people enjoyed remote work was the lack of commute, at 84%. Research has shown that people will spend the time they did not spend commuting at their primary job.
People have reported improved mental health and more free time to be active and exercise. Ergotron’s study found that more than half (56%) of respondents saw improvements in their mental health because of remote work. 75% of respondents found that they moved around more frequently and took part in a more active lifestyle when working remotely.
Why remote work performance has increased.
Studies have highlighted that being in the comfort of our own homes while working can have a positive impact on work performance. Workers enjoy a better work-life balance and lower stress levels while working remotely, so they often work longer hours.
Ergotron’s research found that 40% of respondents worked more hours in a remote or hybrid work environment. The National Bureau of Economic Research data revealed that these extended workdays are, on average, 8.2% or around 48.5 minutes longer. If an employee is working full time, this could be an increase of 193 hours a year.
The improved work-life balance is a reason why many people are choosing remote companies. Research from Egotron revealed that 75% of respondents felt that their work-life balance had improved thanks to remote work. Less stress means happier workers, and happier workers are more likely to carry through with more tasks.
A study from Future Forum found that employees who had more flexibility with their schedules had higher scores for connection, productivity, and company culture. Employees who have the ability to be fully flexible reported 29% higher productivity and 53% greater ability to focus on tasks than workers who were not able to move around their schedules.
Remote work tools.
In the rapidly evolving world of remote work, having the right software tools at your fingertips can make all the difference. From efficient communication platforms to frictionless file sharing and secure internet access, the right remote work software allows you to stay connected, organized, and productive from anywhere.
1. Tools to communicate with ease.
You’ll need a good communication platform. Ideally, it should support messaging, plus regular and video calls. You can get by with emails and your cell phone, but bringing all your communications into one central place helps keep things organized.
Many video conference software options are available. Each has its own strengths and features, but you might want to make sure that your pick supports screen sharing.
2. Work-from-home tools to share files.
File sharing is an integral part of remote work. You’ll most likely use a cloud-based file storage service. Again, there are more options available than we have space to list them.
Review their features and choose one that suits you — or just go with what your employer specifies.
3. Tools for secure internet access.
Remote work depends on a steady internet connection. Get a reliable mobile hotspot you can use in case your Wi-Fi goes down. Not being able to do your job because your internet service provider got their cables tied up is not a good look.
4. Tools to process documents remotely with ease.
Lastly, you’ll need tools to process files and documents. For most of the file types you work with, you’ll usually use industry-standard software. For example, Adobe Acrobat makes handling PDFs fast and easy.
With Acrobat, you can share editable PDFs with anyone from anywhere. Easily add comments and annotations, compress PDFs for easy sharing, sign contracts and forms, and much more.
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