The Biggest Challenge for Remote Working in the Covid Era
Who would have thought that 2020 would bring such drastic changes to the world, in so little time?
The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted how many enterprises were not ready and unfit to support and create a work-from-home workforce.
While businesses in the UK have taken small steps to create a work-from-home environment, Italy has been lagging.
Before the start of the pandemic, this is what the statistics said about Europeans ‘sometimes’ working from home and the % of remote workers between 2008 and 2018.
Working from home was becoming a growing trend in the last few years. The Covid-19 pandemic forced many British and Italian businesses to create entirely new structures.
That is why so many organisations moved to secure tools for remote communication apps to connect their workforces.
Unprepared for Immediate Change
Covid-19 forced many enterprises from various industries to find new ways to work and push them to rethink the role of offices and work life.
However, the urgency created to stop the pandemic from spreading, meant that many enterprises did not have the time to trial or research remote working strategies, pushing them to use consumer-grade apps that put sensitive data at risk.
Furthermore, many organisations were and still are not equipped with the required tech skills or understanding to operate remote working offices and the right technology, which is inevitably required for smooth operations and communication.
More than a quarter of the 200 senior decision-makers questioned in a recent poll, commissioned by Leonne International, believe their company lacks skilled workers to manage ‘widespread and long-term remote working for staff.’
Meanwhile, four in ten businesses intend to increase their IT and tech investment to support their working in home isolation.
Present & Future – Secure Enterprise Messaging Apps
The coronavirus pandemic has put a series of unimaginable events in motion that affected every industry, transforming the mobile messaging apps market.
These technologies are now at the forefront of enterprise change. They will be the new norm that will continue to be redefined and redesigned in a post-COVID-19 era, mainly because so many employees are happy working from home.
A study from Mckinsey found:
Eighty percent of people questioned report that they enjoy working from home. Forty-one percent say that they are more productive than they had been before and 28 percent that they are as productive.
While a Flexjobs survey conducted on 3,100 professionals found that 93% said they were more productive working from home, with 54% of the respondents being between the age of 30-49 years of age.
However, the biggest challenge for employees was staying connected.
This is where a secure enterprise messaging app, like Messagenius, comes into play. You may be wondering how?
Whether in healthcare, education, defense, or even a start-up, working within distributed teams means that enterprises are now faced with more one-to-one communication with employees.
Sometimes managers require to speak with specific teams only or send one message to the entire workforce. When it comes to remote working, getting the right message across to the right people is fundamental to a successful remote workforce.
Messagenius facilitates the different facets of communication, allowing managers to send voice-to-text messages, blast messages, and even start private conversations with employees whatever the need may be.
Staying on top of trends and ensuring the workforce has the best means to communicate is paramount now to manage uncertainty, change, and continuously adapt to new and evolving market conditions. A secure enterprise messaging app can help you achieve this and much more.
The role of IT leaders and Managers
Enterprises learned that older means of communication, such as SMS, email, pagers, and phone systems were not suitable to connect the entire workforce. These outdated systems proved to be quite ineffective as SMS alerts do not generate enough attention for critical events.
While email has become the primary standard for communicating in many enterprises and the most prominent system through which data flows, organisations found that email alone was insufficient, and it was particularly vulnerable to security attacks.
Not exactly what a business needs when dealing with a remote workforce.
Let’s not forget the social media platforms enterprises and employees flocked to at the start of the pandemic, only to find that these options did not offer the necessary security (see the Zoom fiasco).
A study from Parliament Street to 200 senior decision-makers in the UK found:
- 43% are thinking about using apps or instant messaging instead of emails post COVID-19.
- 63% are planning to increase their IT spending to make employee communication more user-friendly.
- 61% plan on changing their digital strategy to make flexible working more efficient for their workforce.
Furthermore, they all agreed that they were committed to remote working once the virus passes.
Due to the coronavirus crisis, the need for communication tools is expanding quickly. Our secure enterprise messaging app, suitable for all industries, including public authorities and healthcare organisations, can accelerate and secure data exchange in critical situations and day-to-day operations.
Check out how Messagenius was able to help the Healthcare industry in this unprecedented crisis and how it can continue to do so once it is all over.
Saying goodbye to old habits
A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China encapsulates perfectly the sentiment of change in this covid-19 environment for enterprises:
For managers, the challenge is to lead, inspire, and direct their team in their daily course of work, while being physically remote. Upping the levels of interaction can also work well here.
One chief information officer, responding to a McKinsey survey, said he’s texting the entire company with regular updates because it’s a more human way of communicating than via the official corporate channels.
Enterprises must use this point in time to break from the rigidity of the past by moving away from old habits and systems which are inadequate for this new era for organisations.
It is time for enterprises to create a well-planned return to offices, reinvent their position, create a better talent experience, boost teamwork and efficiency, and reduce costs.
More importantly, decision makers will need to understand what that shift means and what the new tech-enabled operating model can look like.
IT managers can become leaders of innovation, rather than merely active managers avoiding stumbling blocks. How enterprises react to employees’ new needs will likely shape their competitiveness in the years to come.Do not wait any longer. Lead your business to an innovative and more productive future with Messagenius .
If you are interested in a test installation, Contact Us today.
