99&One Highlight the Top Challenges of Remote Working

Here are the issues that remote workers face

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Collaboration

Published: April 29, 2020

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

As the demand for remote working increases, driven in large part by the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, companies need to address the challenges that may arise in these new environments.

Connectivity leaders 99&One have conducted a study to determine what issues were most problematic for businesses in these new remote working environments. According to the report, missing out on social interaction and therefore feeling isolated was the main issue of working from home. 27% of respondents mentioned a lack of interaction as a challenge.

Further research into 2016 flexible and remote workers carried out before the COVID-19 crisis hit, revealed other major issues experienced by employees in remote spaces. These problems included everything from connectivity issues to the pressure to prove productivity.

The Issues that Remote Workers Face

The report highlights all of the leading issues that today’s remote workers face when given the opportunity to work from home. Second, to missing out on social interaction is the pressure to prove productivity, (24%), followed by colleagues taking longer to respond (18%), and connectivity issues (17%). Other problems highlighted by the report include:

  • Feeling disconnected from team members (16%)
  • Feeling out of sight and out of mind (16%)
  • Feeling out of the loop with the news in the business (15%)
  • Getting distracted more often (15%)
  • Relying too much on technology (14%)
  • Feeling isolated (12%)

According to 99&One, these findings reinforce the need for today’s companies to put business culture first and enable greater connectivity, productivity, and collaboration opportunities.

Part of the problem for modern remote workers is that people are being forced to depend on technology that they’re not used to. Cloud collaboration tools, instant messaging, and conferencing are all critical to interacting with teams from a distance. However, 99&One’s research indicates that people who get training on how to use these tools are 5 times happier (56%).

Keeping Remote Teams Connected

Not only are trained employees happier than their counterparts, but they’re also twice as likely to get more work done when they’re working flexibly.

According to the CEO of 99&One, Steve Haworth, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the whole landscape has changed. Companies have been forced to adapt quickly to get the right technology in place. Business leaders have needed to focus on getting enough devices out to teams to allow for remote working. This means that adequate training and support has been overlooked.

Now that it’s becoming increasingly likely that the remote environment will be here for the long-haul, it’s important to ensure that the right strategies are in place to optimise technology use. There’s a good chance that many companies will never revert back to the old ways of working. Because of this, businesses need to think about how they’re going to support this new and more virtual environment.

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