5 Steps to Remote Work Success
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This document outlines 5 steps to making remote working a reality in businesses: 1) Establish rules for remote working by creating a policy and measuring success. 2) Invest in technology like laptops, tablets, and cloud services. 3) Communicate regularly through email, video calls, and instant messaging. 4) Consider security measures like VPNs and antivirus software. 5) Trust remote employees and treat them well. Remote working is growing in popularity due to benefits like improved productivity, staff morale, and cost savings.
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5 Steps to Remote Work Success
- 1. SME Masterclass: 5 Steps to Making Remote Working a Reality in Your Business Follow us @Daisy_Group
- 2. Speaker Graham Harris Product Director for Connectivity and Security at Daisy • 30 years’ telecoms and IT experience • Previously worked for Lucent Technologies, Ascom and Avaya • Making the complex simple to understand and consume
- 3. What you will learn • What remote working actually is • Why it is growing in popularity • The different types of remote workers • The benefits • The 5 step approach to success • Why you need to embrace it
- 4. What is remote working? £52 billion Remote working is work done off- site, away from a company’s main location. Home working is often referred to as REMOTE WORKING. It is qualified by the level of consistency that your telecoms and IT solutions can replicate the experience that you enjoy in the office
- 5. What we didn’t have in 80s… REMOTE WORKING WAS HARD TO DO BECAUSE NONE OF THIS EXISTED!
- 6. Why is it a growing trend? Source: ONS 2.9M 1998 2015 4.2M ? 2020
- 7. The different types of remote workers Field-based worker Full-time home worker Part-time remote worker 1 32
- 8. The benefits of remote working Improved staff morale Improved productivity Online marketing Substantial cost savings Reduced carbon footprint Business continuity Improved customer service Improved staff retention
- 9. Step 1: Establish the rules Create a remote working policy • Know the law • State expectations • Define roles and responsibilities Measure success • Set KPIs and objectives • Arrange meetings and reviews
- 10. Step 1: Establish the rules Trial remote working • Use senior/experienced staff • Evaluate suitability after the trial Train your staff • Equipment • Policy • Communication expectancies
- 11. Step 2: Invest in technology Provide staff with • Tablets • Laptops • Internet connectivity Use cloud-based services • Access files, data and software from anywhere possessing an internet connection
- 12. Step 2: Invest in technology Go Green Provide staff with a 4G-enabled device • 4G provides superfast internet speeds • Staff need high data allowance • Windows, Android and Apple all work with the cloud Consumerisation & web-based tools • Dropbox to share files • Google Drive to store files • Basecamp to measure productivity
- 13. Step 3: Communicate, communicate, communicate Go Green Communicate regularly by: • Email and mobiles • Video conferencing software • Skype, Google Hangouts and FaceTime • Instant messaging
- 14. Step 3: Communicate, communicate, communicate Go GreenInvest in VoIP: • Improved customer service • Never miss a call • Free internal calls
- 15. Step 4: Keep security in mind • Use cloud-based services • Consider Mobile Device Management (MDM) • Consider VPNs if workers need access to corporate network • Use strong passwords • Use anti-virus software
- 16. Step 5: Trust your workforce Go Green TREAT YOUR EMPLOYEES WELL AND THEY WILL TREAT YOUR BUSINESS WELL
- 17. Recap Establish the rules1 2 3 4 5 Invest in technology Communicate, communicate, communicate Keep security in mind Trust your workforce
- 18. 70% of UK workers feel their productivity increases when working remotely Don’t think remote working is for your business? 58% of UK workers would take a pay cut to be able to work from home 85% UK businesses believe offering remote working helps retain staff Average UK worker could save 1.6 weeks per year if they didn’t commute to work
- 19. Further resources • [Info] Daisy’s VoIP solutions: www.daisygroup.com/business-telephone-systems/business-voip/ • [Blog] How to avoid the security risks of mobile working https://daisygroup.com/resource-centre/avoid-security-risks-mobile-working/ • [Blog] Why flexible working will become the norm https://daisygroup.com/resource-centre/why-flexible-working-will-become- more-the-norm/ • [Whitepaper – part 1] Mobile and remote working https://daisygroup.com/resource-centre/mobile-remote-working-white- paper/ • [Whitepaper – part 2] Mobile and remote working https://daisygroup.com/resource-centre/mobile-and-remote-working- whitepaper
Editor's Notes
- Welcome to Daisy Group’s next webinar: SME Masterclass: 5 Steps to Making Remote Working a Reality in Your Business.
- Graham Harris is the Product Director for Connectivity and Security at Daisy Group. He has 30 years’ telecoms and IT experience, and previously worked for Lucent Technologies, Ascom and Avaya. He aims to make the complex simple to understand and consume
- What you will learn: What remote working actually is Why it is growing in popularity The different types of remote workers The benefits The 5 step approach to success Why you need to embrace it
- Thanks Andrew and hello everyone! Remote working, flexible working, mobile working, call it what you want – there’s a strong chance you’ll have already heard of the business phenomenon. Some of you might already allow your employees to work remotely, whilst some of you might have only just started considering it. The aim of this webinar is to get some of you started on your remote working journey, and to help the rest of you improve your existing strategies. Before I start, though, I think it’s worth defining what I actually mean when I talk about remote working. There are several explanations out there, but I think the two screen are the clearest. In its simplest sense, remote working is being able to work outside of the office or your company’s main location.
- The term has become popular in recent years for a number of reasons, but remote working – or home working as it used to called- has actually been happening for many years; in fact, I was “home working” back in the eighties! But back then it was a totally different landscape to the world we operate in today. For a start, there was NO mobile. NO voicemail. NO email. And NO internet. Some of the younger ones on this webinar might be wondering how we actually managed to communicate – or even survive! It was a frankly a nightmare for people working in the field to find a public phone box that was actually working. What’s worse, people who worked from home had to share their business phone number with their home one, so they often didn’t know what to say when answering the phone. And we haven't even started on the lack of business information! Remote working was extremely hard to do and it just wasn’t a productive way of working.
- But I think that’s enough of the 1980s history lesson, let’s now look at why the remote working trend has taken off so dramatically within the last decade. There are a couple of reasons for the pace of change you can see on the screen. One is change of attitude from businesses towards remote working. Previously, the majority of UK SMBs were reluctant to allow employees to work outside of the office, but once they began to understand the benefits of remote working (which you will also see during this webinar) they started to embrace this new way of working. But alongside this change of attitude, it is hard to ignore the influence that technology has had on the remote working trend. New hardware and equipment will always arrive, but it has been the rollout of superfast broadband across most parts of the UK; the increased availability of WiFi hotspots; and the availability of 3G and 4G that has enabled remote workers to be connected to the office like never before. There is now NO technological reason why we shouldn’t all be able to work as effectively from home, or anywhere with an internet connection, as we could if we were in the workplace – assuming that you have a suitable job.
- When thinking about a remote working strategy for your business, it’s important to consider the different types of remote workers there are and which types you have within your business. Employee number 1 is the type of person who primarily works in the office, but on odd occasions will work away or might do one day a week working from home. Employee number 2 is a field-based worker, for example a salesman or service engineer, and regularly travels up and down the country. This person might sometimes hotdesk in the office, but primarily they will work from home, on the train or in the ‘field’. And finally, we have employee number 3 who works full-time from their home, and they will have slightly different demands. If you didn’t know, Richard Branson is an example of employee number three as he regularly works from his home in the Virgin Islands. The idea of a CEO working half way across the world would have seemed absurd 20 years ago, but today it is possible thanks to technology. What is important to note here from this slide is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for an effective remote working strategy, as every business will be made up of the different types of remote workers. Some of the points in this presentation will relate to all three types of remote worker, whilst some may only apply to one. It really does depend on your business.
- By now, some of you might be wondering when I will start reeling off the benefits of remote working. And on screen now you will see some of them. By the way, please don’t think that the man on the screen is supposed to be me! He is far better looking! Cost savings. Reducing your carbon footprint. Getting more things done. ( DR / BUSINESS CONTINUTIY) The list goes on. But purposely I don’t want to talk too much about them in this webinar because there are a number of resources that already explain them in more detail. Instead, what I wanted to do was create a unique presentation that gave you all a plan of action to realising these benefits. So without further a do, let’s look at the first of five steps to implementing a successful remote working culture within your organisation.
- The first step for any business wanting to implement a remote working culture is to establish the rules. But unlike larger businesses that may have an in-house HR department, SMBs don’t usually have a specialist person to create a policy. Now although a remote working policy doesn’t have to be too detailed, it is important to have one that is in line with the law and states clearly what is expected from an employee. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this on your own, it may be worth getting some support from an external HR consultant. So what do you include in a policy? Well, that’s a difficult one to answer because every business is different, but there are certain things that you should look to try and implement. The flexible working legislation that came in last year – which allows anyone who has worked for a company for 26 weeks or more the right to request flexible working - rushed a lot of businesses into allowing staff to work from home. In your policy, you need to include your expectations of your worker, as well as define roles and responsibilities of who they will need to report to when away from the workplace. However, the main thing to cover in the policy is how you will measure productivity. If you can’t measure performance, how can you expect to effectively manage them? You need to create a clear set of objectives and KPIs and analyse these at regular periods throughout the year, whether that’s weekly or monthly is up to you. Bt many businesses are focussing more on outputs rather than activity, so constant monitoring isn’t quite as essential. I will touch upon measuring productivity a little further later on during the presentation.
- A good practice for SMBs looking to embrace a remote working culture is to trial it first with some of your more experienced and senior staff. If it works for them – great, you can look into how you roll it out for the rest of your workforce. If it doesn’t, you need to ask yourself: will it work for my other employees? The answer is probably no and you might have to look at re-working your strategy. If the culture is embraced from the very top, any negative perceptions amongst staff are unlikely to appear. And finally, it is vital that you train your staff before you send them on their way to work remotely. Training should include showing them how to use the equipment you provide, advising them about the policy you will have created, and teaching them how to communicate and collaborate with colleagues. Taking the time to train your staff will help minimise the risk of any negative remote working experiences arising.
- Let’s move on to step 2 now. For remote working to be a success in any business, you HAVE TO provide your workforce with the equipment and technology they need to do their job effectively. Previously, businesses would have to install equipment into the worker’s home for them to be able to work effectively. Not only was it impractical, but it was very expensive. Today, however, there is an abundance of technology that has made working outside of the office easier than ever. And what’s more – it’s cheaper than ever. All the worker needs is a device that can connect to the internet. I have already mentioned that superfast broadband is available in the majority UK homes, so residential connections are often fast enough for remote workers to complete their tasks. Some workers will prefer a laptop to get tasks done, others will prefer to work on a tablet or iPad. Providing you invest in cloud-based applications and systems, staff will be able to access their office desktop from any device possessing an internet connection. What’s the cloud some of you ask? Well, a simple example is your email – Gmail or Hotmail. The reason you are able to access your emails from anywhere and at anytime is because your data is hosted in the cloud, which is basically a large online storage facility, rather than a hard drive in your office. The cloud allows employees to use programmes and applications remotely from their home, simply by logging in via online secure portal. Hosted desktop, for example, is a cloud-based programme which can be used anywhere over a secure connection. Instead of having to download data, you are able to access it and work on it through the cloud. Some of you might be in the process at the moment of replacing your Microsoft Server 2003, but instead of investing in on-site hardware, why not look to virtualise this in the cloud to give yourself much greater working flexibility and mobility.
- I have already discussed that improved residential broadband across the UK has facilitated the remote working growth, but remote working doesn’t always mean working from home. For those in the field who often travel by train or car, having access to broadband is unrealistic. Instead, they need to be provided with a 3G or preferably a 4G-enabled device. 4G is extremely quick and provides a reliable and secure connection for business use. It is a must-have if you rely on the internet for social media, email, or regularly want access to the cloud. But make sure your employees have a high or unlimited data allowance because there would be nothing worse than it running out when needing to send an important email. By providing your staff with mobile devices that enable them to access files and programmes, they can literally work anytime and anywhere, ensuring that work can get done around the clock. The type of devices you provide your workforce with is dependent on what activities they are doing, so make sure you consider their requirements. But whether its an Apple, Windows or Android device, it will make little difference to how they access cloud-based applications. Another driver for flexible working is consumerisation. But what do I mean by consumerisation? Historically, clever stuff was develop for business use and then made available to the consumer. Now, however, we are seeing applications that are made with the consumer in mind being used in the business environment. A good example of that is Dropbox, which people have been using to share their holiday photos for a while, but now businesses are starting to use it to share data securely. Google Drive is another useful tool for saving documents, photos, and files in a place that can be accessed from anywhere. To mange productivity, it is wise to invest in project management apps that can monitor the status of tasks and allows staff to collaborate on projects. Basecamp is a very good tool which I suggest you look at; again, it is another cloud-based application that you can subscribe to on a usage basis. The key thing to remember is to not overcomplicate your technology.
- You’ve established the rules, you’ve trained your staff, and you’ve provided them with a mobile device. It can now often be easy to forget about your remote workforce, but the key to the culture becoming a success is to maintain constant communication. Some businesses owners believe that staff working together within the same office will get more done, but providing you have the right collaboration tools in place, the same amount of productivity can be achieved by a remote workforce. In some cases, more can often get done by remote workers as they are working in environments without the distractions of the workplace. Now I've already talked about email and smartphone devices so I won’t touch on them again. I want to now move on to video conferencing, which is actually a really easy practice to do. Free software such as Skype, Google hangouts and even FaceTime allow you to hold regular virtual face-to-face meetings with employees to ensure effective communication, which is a good replacement for the chats in the kitchen. Providing your worker has a superfast connection (whether that’s 4G or fibre broadband) then this can be done from almost anywhere and sometimes this is a much better alternative to text-based communication. Almost everyone is now on social media, and that is another method for staff to communicate with each other. But I want to introduce you all to a platform called Slack. It is an instant messaging service that is a dream for collaboration. Instead of sending emails to each other, you can just drop messages in a room, or share documents for everyone to review when they’re online.
- The last form of communication technology I want to talk about is VoIP, which essentially transfers phone calls over the internet. The main benefit of this service for remote workers is that it routes calls to workers wherever they are and to whatever device they are using, so workers never miss a call and no-one ever notices a difference. Imagine a customer rings your office number and it routes to you at home, you are able to answer the call correctly because of the information that you have on your handset. You then need to transfer the call to a colleague and you can see that they are available by the lamp status on your phone, so you transfer or even conference seamlessly. Your customer experiences excellent customer service and has no idea that you are working from home. This can all be achieved by deploying hosted voice telephony, more commonly known as VoIP. What’s more, if your staff want to make an internal call (ie colleague to colleague) and they are they are both using VoIP, the call will be free of charge. If you would like to know more about VoIP, please let me know in the chat box and I will happy to expand further in the Q&A later. Distance management is essentially an art, and communication is critical. Your business needs to make sure that it communicates clearly and frequently with its workforce. There is no excuse for not having regular updates to keep everyone in the loop. By communicating regularly and by providing them with the tools to collaborate, productivity shouldn’t be harmed. If you fail to communicate regularly with distributed teams, workers can often feel isolated and left out, which is where productivity problems often start. To counter this, make sure they take part in regular video meetings, but also invite them for regular catch ups in person.
- I have talked quite considerably about all the products and services available, but when it comes to using any technology you have to consider your security requirements. Far too many businesses believe it won’t happen to them, but as we see in the news on a weekly basis, cybersecurity is unfortunately a growing trend. So how do you keep your business safe? Well, if you choose to utilise the cloud as I have suggested, these services often come with security measures as standard. This makes it perfect for SMBs that don’t have a dedicated or large IT team because the service provider will manage the security for you. But what other options are available? The first solution I want to discuss is mobile device management, more commonly known as MDM. As the BYOD (or bring-your-own-device) trend continues to grow in the UK, mainly down to the fact that it can save businesses money by allowing workers use their own devices, your business needs to make sure the data on those devices is protected. By investing in an MDM solution, your company (or IT team) can remotely manage devices in order to set rules for who can access certain data; install up-to-date anti-virus and malware software; and automatically update any other software. Another major benefit of the solution is its ability to remotely wipe devices, which is particularly useful if a device gets lost or stolen. It is a solution worth considering if your remote workers are largely field-based. The next security measure I want to come on to is VPNs. If you know that your employees will need access to your corporate network, a VPN is advisable to ensure the transmission of confidential business information isn’t intercepted. But don’t be intimidated by the term, VPN. We are now seeing web-based applications secured by HTTPS and SSL in general usage, such as when you do your online banking, and that is essentially the same thing as what a VPN does. They are widely available on business application like hosted desktop, which I mentioned earlier, so you might already be using it. Again, I would be happy to speak further about VPNs in the Q&A if you wish. And finally, don’t forget more simple mesures such as storing passwords in password management software, and using strong, encrypted passwords that use a combination of numerical and alphanumerical symbols. Simple techniques, but highly effective.
- We have now the fifth and final step. For remote working to be a success at your business you have to be able to trust your employees and be committed to this new way of working. Companies from almost every industry are each finding ways to realise the benefits of remote working (just type ‘remote working success’ into Google if you don’t believe me) and this should act as reassurance if you are still unsure whether it will work for you. Providing you have followed the previous four steps, your staff should have all the tools they need to effectively work away from the office. Besides, if you treat your employees well and provide them with the opportunity to work in comfortable environments, then they are much more likely to work harder for you and repay your faith. If you do still have trust issues, you need to make sure that you or your team hold regular meetings with remote workers to monitor their performance and help you make informed decisions, rather than jumping the gun and giving up completely with remote working. Remember: it sometimes takes time to get things right.
- So that’s it, we’ve reached the end of the five-step approach to successfully embracing a remote working culture. Let’s just quickly recap on the points we’ve discussed and put them all on one slide for you. Number 1: Start by establishing the rules, including creating a policy and training staff. Number 2: Make sure your employees have to right technologies and tools to do their jobs. Number 3: Make sure your staff can communicate and collaborate. Number 4: Ensure security measures are in place. Number 5: Trust your employees to stay productive when outside of the workplace.
- Feeling ready and convinced that remote working is something you need to offer your workforce, then? I certainly hope so. And like I said, you can ask any questions you have about the content discussed in the upcoming Q&A session. To conclude the presentation I thought I would put some interesting stats on the screen Just look at these: 70% of UK workers feel their productivity increases when working remotely 58% of UK workers would take a pay cut to be able to work from home 85% UK businesses believe by offering remote working it helps retain staff Average UK worker could save 1.6 weeks per year if they didn’t commute to work Now ask yourself: can your business afford to be missing out on all of these benefits?
- We are now reaching the end of the presentation, but I would like to refer you to some further resources on the Daisy website. On the website we have some links to some further remote working content and some information on the technologies discussed, such as VoIP.
- So that brings us to the end of the presentation. I want to thank you all for watching and I hope you found it useful. My email is on screen if you would like to speak to me further about anything I’ve discussed.