Distant work: productivity without compromising safety
Will coronavirus bankrupt considerably more persons than it kills? Very well, economists are predicting that it will, in a variety of industries, by the finish of 2020.
The International Labour Organisation said that almost 25 million jobs will be lost globally as a result of coronavirus pandemic.
For countries like Bangladesh, dependency in garment export and overseas remittance means we should embrace ourselves for severe economic strains.
Governments around the world are actually imposing lockdown to lessen the pass on of the virus. Various businesses' operations are at halt.
However, staying productive in this crisis period may save firms from going out of business soon.
Remote work is now the safest approach to achieve the highest degree of productivity in this example.
With the proper mindset and tools, in this digital era, anything can be carried out remotely.
As the pandemic has already reached local transmission level in Bangladesh, a growing number of corporations in Dhaka are asking their workers to home based.
Grameenphone, Unilever and Banglalink were a number of the firsts to ask their workers to do the job from the confines of their homes.
Other multinational and localized companies, including Robi, Nestle, eGeneration, NewsCred, Magnito Digital, JoomShaper, HandyMama, Sheba.xyz, JoBike, Adcomm, MGH and Cisco, soon followed fit.
A growing number of companies are embracing this trend every day to stay productive during this challenging period without compromising on the health and safety of their workers and their families.
This is not only assisting to restrict unnecessary transmission of the disease but also enahncing employers' branding and goodwill among employees and potential employees.
However, there continues to be a sizable number of firms that cannot make the decision to do the job remotely for insufficient proper tools and structure.
Before asking employees to get started on working from real estate, it is important to have a work-from-home policy set up, which can only help management feel comfortable about productivity and set expectations for the employees.
The policy should think about who can work from home, admissible working time, approval process while working remotely, communication channels, responsiveness and availability standards, technology support and requirements, how exactly to ensure data and product security, reporting standards, frequency of team meetings etc.
It is also vital that you place quantifiable and well-defined major performance indicators for personnel to measure their remote work performance.
Given that the insurance policy is ready for execution, here are some efficiency tools that can be utilized to ensure seamless interaction and collaboration between associates to keep them productive from the safety of their house.
WHATSAPP AND SLACK FOR MESSAGING
WhatsApp is a very popular instant messaging iphone app that is available on both mobile phone and desktop platforms. It offers messaging, audio/video cell phone calls and document sharing among its users.
In addition, it has features want group calls and live location sharing, that can be useful for clubs that work remotely.
Slack is essentially a tool for organisations to collaborate through messaging. It offers onboarded 7,000 clients in only seven weeks since February amid the remote-function boom around the globe.
Its workspaces allow any organisation to have interaction by channels for group discussions.
Slack also allows personal messages for sharing facts, files, and even more all in a single place.
GOOGLE Get, DOCS, SHEETS AND SLIDES FOR PRODUCTIVITY
Google Drive allows users to securely retail outlet and share data files between them.
Google Docs can be an online expression processor, Google Sheets can be an on-line spreadsheet and Google Slides is an online slide building software to create and present business presentations.
Associates can collaborate with the other person in real-time from different locations using these equipment from Google.
ZOOM AND GOOGLE HANGOUTS FOR Video recording CONFERENCING
Apart from messaging, another effective approach to communicate with colleagues when performing remotely is video conferencing.
Both Zoom and Google Hangouts offer this service with features like digital conference, screen sharing and call recording with up to 250 people.
TRELLO AND JIRA FOR Job MANAGEMENT
Managing general projects and assigning work among team member has been made convenient with Trello, a light in weight project management tool, crafted as a Kanban panel to visualise task flows of any job.
However, Jira is designed for agile software program development teams for job setting up and issue tracking.
It provides various dashboards and overviews for scrum and agile approaches. In addition, it offers time tracking for each and every team member.
MICROSOFT TEAMS WITH OFFICE
365: ALL-IN-ONE
Microsoft Teams, which is going to be part of Microsoft's Business office 365 suite, is similar to a Swiss Army knife. It combines all of the best features of the software and tools mentioned previously.
It provides instant messaging just like WhatsApp; channel and group conversation like Slack; video conferencing and display screen posting like Zoom and Hangouts; Google Drive-like data file storing and sharing through OneDrive; online version of industry standard efficiency tools such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint with real-time collaboration; Trello-like project management and planning through Microsoft Planner, brainstorming and take note bringing through OneNote; and several other integrated tools to accomplish business collaboration.
Following the COVID-19 outbreak took place in Wuhan, Microsoft Clubs usage soared 500 % in China as much Chinese companies chosen working remotely.
Microsoft also came forward to help businesses in this global crisis by supplying a limited version of Microsoft Clubs free of charge for six months.
Adaptation is the key to survival. The coronavirus pandemic can be fundamentally changing just how many corporations operate for the near future.
As governments and businesses around the world tell those with symptoms to self-quarantine and everybody else to apply social distancing, remote do the job is our latest reality.
Winning from this virus will come with stamina and which will be the defining point in time of our generation.
At the same time, it has given us an chance to bring about digital transformation to your businesses with the proper tools, technology and plan re-engineering, not merely to survive in the coming times but also to thrive under any future threat.
The writer is the chairman of eGeneration, general partner of Pegasus Tech Ventures and former president of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services
