In 1979, IBM ran a work-from-home experiment with a group of five employees. Despite the small sample size, this experiment with remote workforce productivity yielded positive results and by 1983, the number of remote IBM employees had grown from 5 to 2000. Significantly, these early experiments of remote workforce occurred prior to the widespread adoption of the internet.
Today, in many industries, the physical distance is no longer an obstacle to getting the job done – we collaborate remotely via email, manage projects with shared spreadsheets, and embrace nomadic careers with the help of digital collaboration tools.
Over the past few decades, remote work has become increasingly popular. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world and rapidly accelerated the growth of work-from-home jobs.
As of 2022, two years into the pandemic, 16% of companies worldwide are now 100% remote and it’s not uncommon to see quotes like these:
Remote workforces are no longer considered unconventional compared to the previously traditional in-office employment.
Whether or not companies have work-from-home policies, a wide variety of research indicates that remote workforce options deserve serious consideration.
In this article, we’ll examine remote workforce productivity and review a few tools that can help organizations boost remote collaboration.
Airbnb has successfully navigated remote workforce productivity challenges and recently, appropriately enough, has embraced location-agnostic work policies.
Brian Chesky, the company’s co-founder, expressed how their work-from-home policies enabled the company to survive and thrive during the pandemic:
And Airbnb is not a one-off. Numerous industries experienced growth as a result of embracing remote and hybrid work policies:
As a result of experimenting with remote workplace policies, other industries achieved a 35% - 40% increase in productivity.
The COVID-19 social distancing policies allowed many organizations to rapidly gather statistically significant data about the benefits of having a remote workforce.
Today, companies like Dropbox, Zapier, HubSpot, SAP, InVision, Shopify, and Wells Fargo enjoy the benefits of remote and hybrid workforce policies, some of which include:
Access to global talent
As the US talent shortage reaches a 10-year high, companies can scale faster by tapping into global talent pools.
Cost savings
Office spaces come with an annual average cost of $18,000 per employee. As a result of these savings, companies can invest in product development and employee benefits, further expanding their business.
Increased retention
74% of employees surveyed said a remote work option would make them less likely to leave their current company.
Reduced stress
Remote work reduces commute-related stress by saving employees 4.6 commute hours per week. Additionally, 65% of employees state that keeping out of office politics helps them keep their stress levels down.
Higher productivity
According to an OwlLabs study, 67% of employees believe they are more productive while working at home
As a result, remote work can enhance workplace dynamics, improve employee well-being, and optimize productivity.
Despite the benefits, maximizing remote workforce productivity requires effort. Companies overcome these challenges in a variety of ways:
To ensure everyone is on the same page, Zapier teams participate in Friday Updates. During these meetings, employees share their areas of focus and upcoming projects, giving everyone a chance to align with one another and be heard.
The lack of exposure to peers and leadership can negatively impact employees' sense of contribution. To remediate this, InVision’s Reimagine Hybrid Collaboration guide promotes using digital collaboration boards to standardize interaction time and foster creativity.
Reduced in-person interactions contribute to employees feeling disconnected from the organization. Virtual watercooler gatherings and outdoor volunteer opportunities are some of the remote team-building activities Slack uses to increase collaboration and trust.
With creativity and focus, organizations can overcome the disadvantages of remote work and develop their own unique style of remote work environment.
Organizations with remote or hybrid workforces can benefit from automating operational tasks. Automating these tasks allows employees to focus on creative projects and decision-making, which helps businesses grow.
Daily operations like communications, project management, and employee engagement can be streamlined with the right tools. Let’s explore a few tools that allow remote teams to collaborate effectively.
Slack is a messaging tool designed for team communication. It can be integrated with other platforms to make remote collaboration easier.
For example, if you’re using Spreadsheet.com for project management, you can easily build automation workflows and share notifications about upcoming deadlines, changes to workbook data, incoming Form responses, and more directly in your Slack channels.
Centralize team objectives and tasks
Setting Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) helps align remote teams with organizational goals. With Spreadsheet.com's Team Objectives and Tasks template, you can track key projects, assign tasks to teams, and monitor their progress.
As virtual meetings have become the new norm, the necessity for administrative tasks such as assigning meeting roles, attendance, and recording meeting minutes has grown. Spreadsheet.com’s Meeting Agenda template helps track meeting activities and document the key takeaways.
Engagement surveys help effectively measure employee satisfaction. Collecting and analyzing employee survey data can provide invaluable insights and help keep employees aligned and motivated.
Spreadsheet.com’s Employee Engagement Survey template is designed to collect, process and visualize employee feedback in one centralized dashboard.
Talent acquisition teams are responsible for a wide variety of functions, including candidate screening, interviewing, and onboarding. Using Spreadsheet.com's Applicant Tracking template simplifies the process of managing these tasks.
Tracking applicants, conducting employee training, calculating salaries, and updating timesheets becomes more complex when hiring globally.
Organize and centralize your HR team’s work with Spreadsheet.com human resources templates.
Having the right tools will help you develop an effective remote work program and attract top talent from across the globe. Spreadsheets.com provides tools to improve remote workplace productivity that can be customized to fit any workflow.
Keep remote teams on the same page with Spreadsheet.com’s templates gallery.
