The United States is at a tipping point when it comes to office mobility and remote work. The COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020 may be the thing to push us over the edge.
As of last year, the US already a global leader in remote work in second place with 45% of companies offering remote possibilities. Over the last 5 years, there’s been a 44% growth in remote work and today, 4.7 million workers are working remotely.
Still, employers remain hesitant or even resistant to employees working from home, even for roles that are not location dependent. These employers may need to grin and bear it, and not just because of the spread of an infectious disease. Eighty percent of employees would turn down a job that didn’t offer remote possibilities when given a choice between two otherwise similar offers, and of those that already work remotely, they are 13% more likely to stay in their role than employees without the flexibility.
The truth is, working from home is quickly becoming a highly desired perk and a low-cost way for employers to attract and maintain talent.
Getting Started With a Work From Home Policy
Enacting a work from home policy in your workplace is going to rest on a bedrock of strong communication. This starts with internal guidelines and ends with technology.
How often an employer insists on open lines of communication, and through which channels, is going to vary and will likely change as the initiative becomes more routine (although it may need to be said that if you can’t trust your employee to perform their role without constantly checking in, maybe you don’t have the right employee to begin with).
For both communication and security, technology will form the foundation for your organization’s policies, to enable and enforce best practices.
Here at I-M Technology, our monitoring software can monitor your employees’ work laptops, even when they are working from home. We’re able to login, diagnose and troubleshoot your employees’ IT issues to keep your business running and your employees in contact, even if everyone isn’t under the same roof. Technology should not be an impediment in working remotely.
If your business is still in the process of putting together a WFH policy, but you feel pressure to begin implementing as soon as possible due to outside circumstances (such as the COVID-19 novel coronavirus at the time of writing), I-M Technology can provide your employees with 24 hour permission tokens. Think of these as guest passes to your network for your remote employees, and a convenient way to afford network to your infrastructure while you get up to speed.
Flexibility with remote work is easily achievable with a positive company culture and open lines of communication guided by a thoughtful work from home policy, and a bedrock of strong IT security and support. I-M Technology can help with both.
The coronavirus may force an employer’s hand in a situation like this, but it’s worth keeping in mind that those who work remotely are 24% happier and more productive with their work and that companies with a work from home policy experience 25% less turnover. This is not just an investment to curtail the spread of a virus, it’s an investment in your business and your employees in the long run.
