Employee Efficiency in the Remote Workplace

We are going on 13 weeks since the COVID-19 Pandemic changed the world and in relative terms, the way that businesses operate. Before March of 2020 most companies had a “work from home” policy in place, and employed features like VPN or Virtual desktops to provide this access.

It seems that overnight these policies changed and business management teams had to adapt to the new remote workplace. Networks were not ready for the increased bandwidth needed for an entire remote workforce and IT staff and/or outsourced IT firms scrambled to get secure employee access setup.

What we have learned 13 weeks later is that some teams adapted to a remote workplace much better than others. This could be the result of different factors: home internet speed, environment distractions, ability to focus while home, or a combination of all three. For the most part, our clients were able to adjust rather quickly to their remote “offices” and utilize tools to continue getting their work done. Although it wasn’t the same as working in their offices, some efficiencies were actually gained. We have had numerous interactions with clients where the overwhelming sentiment was: “I’m more efficient at home, there weren’t wasted hours in a commute or chatting with coworkers” and some do not want to return at all.

We believe that this pandemic is going to change the landscape of the traditional workplace for the foreseeable future. There are a number of tools that allow you to gauge your employee productivity as well as remain connected throughout the day. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Sharepoint, and Cisco Webex are a few tools that any small to mid sized business should deploy to help maintain efficiency while remote but also allow management visibility into their remote team.