Businesses of all shapes and sizes are embracing more flexible work environments, including rules that allow employees to work from home, flex time, and compressed work hours. The millennial generation is all about expecting more flexibility.

Almost every company that has been able to convert its usual operations to a work-from-home model has done so. This shift is highlighting the major benefits of remote work and how it can benefit both firms and employees.

One of the most significant factors affecting the technology sector and employment today is the rising acceptance of remote working teams and the availability of excellent digital collaboration tools.

So, what exactly is this distributed workforce model, and why is it seen as the way of the future by many?

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What is a distributed workforce?

A distributed workforce can be best described as a company’s underlying work and productivity mindset. Employees may work from anywhere in the world, even if the organization has a physical headquarters.

Employees could work from the office full-time or part-time, depending on the operating requirements. Salespeople may work from home and only come into the office a few times per week. Other personnel may be stationed on the other side of the globe permanently.

All employees, regardless of their location, will operate on a blended schedule that provides open lines of communication and productive collaboration. Digital technology, as you might think, is critical for a strong distributed workforce.

The organization still has a defined objective, and its employees share common ideals; it’s just that they don’t always work together physically.

The Benefits of a distributed workforce

While the concept of a distributed workforce is simple, you must examine a number of issues before comfortably working outside of the norm. A few of its advantages are listed below to help you make a better decision.

Allow for better concentration with fewer distractions

Your team members who work remotely may be able to outperform those who come into the office every day. This is due to the fact that they are not distracted by the meetings and other distractions that come with working in a shared workplace. Video, chat, and project management software can all be used to collaborate. People concentrate on their tasks, adhere to set procedures, and are held accountable for their productivity.

Ensure that you have a diverse workforce

Distributed work necessitates greater discipline on the part of both the employer and the employee to ensure that you get all of the benefits, but it is well worth it when you consider the variety you gain. Different ideas, attitudes, and work styles come together to create a better work atmosphere and a group of employees who are more creative in problem-solving and better understand their customers.

Retain valuable resources

For instance, some of your most important team members have expressed an interest in moving to different parts of the world or country. Or, a person’s spouse has been offered a fantastic job chance in a new city, and the family is being forced to relocate to support the opportunity. When someone decides to leave, they take a lot of expertise and investment with them. A work-from-home/remote policy aids in resolving this issue.

Boost employee efficiency

Allowing your employees to establish their own work hours, allowing them to work early in the morning or late at night, boosts productivity. Giving more flexibility to your team shows that you trust them with their responsibilities. It’s just as vital to set certain boundaries because the only disadvantage is that not all employees are self-motivated enough to work without supervision.

Improve record-keeping skills

From the start, your team can be split evenly between in-office and remote workers. One of the most important dynamics you’ll acquire as you grow is the requirement to transcribe all meetings in order to accommodate distant co-workers in different time zones. This will establish a flawless auditing system for when you need to dig up data quickly to deal with issues and disputes.

Create a team with the skills you require

With set geographic limits, it might be challenging to cover all of your organization’s talent gaps, especially in the IT business, where new jobs are created at a rapid pace. Keeping a scattered collection of human resources might be a very imaginative and successful alternative if training and upskilling your current staff is not an option.

What’s the best way to manage your dispersed workforce?

With a scattered workforce, it’s critical to keep them active and motivated in order to achieve meaningful results for the firm. There are a variety of approaches that can be used to ensure effective remote worker management. Here are a few examples:

Create a simple and transparent communication system

The team’s digital tools are more vital than anything else when it comes to remote team communication and collaboration. Employees can easily fall victim to “out of sight, out of mind” if they don’t have the ability to have live, in-person interactions. As a result, it’s critical to develop a Digital Toolbox that offers multiple communication and collaboration options.

Slack, Mattermost, Zoom, Google Calendar, and Google Drive are some of the most popular remote work technologies that allow for seamless video conferencing, instant messaging, meeting scheduling, and document collaboration.

Keep your dispersed employees occupied

When employees work from home, they require motivation. Because they are alone at home, they may feel lonely and frustrated from time to time. For effective job engagement and productivity, management must ensure that employees have a positive mood and preserve excellent health.

Keep an eye on their output

You can easily manage remote employees thanks to technology like remote employee time tracking and monitoring software. However, if you want to get the most out of your money, you should invest in staff monitoring software. This will help to promote accountability while also informing your employees that their every effort is being tracked.

Why is a distributed workforce the way of the future?

Operating a full-time, remote, distributed staff is not a simple task, as many businesses are discovering. At the same time, various studies have demonstrated that, while transitioning to this work style can be difficult, it is very possible to be productive. Indeed, as we adjust to a new lifestyle of even greater digital dependency, many people are speculating that the distributed workforce will become the new norm.

Those who have opposed the dispersed, remote work model for years have cited a fear of lower productivity as a rationale to stay in the brick-and-mortar paradigm, yet recent events and countless studies have demonstrated that remote work actually boosts corporate productivity. Employees, too, are seeing remote work as a way to avoid long commutes and spend more time with their families.

Most businesses have made an abrupt transition to dispersed, remote work, but when the crisis subsides and quarantines lift, we may find ourselves in a new world where the distributed worker model is very much the new normal.

Guest author: Umesh Uttamchandani is the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of DevX Accelerator. An active investor and mentor for start-ups; Umesh is a Strategic Thinker with a flair for Corporate Innovation and Sales. With about 10 years of experience in the IT and Real Estate Industry; Umesh is a cut above when it comes to critical thinking, team communication, strategic marketing, and business growth consultation. After excelling at various skills, Umesh’s primary focus now is to build meaningful relationships and uplift innovative start-up ventures in the domain of SaaS, Mobility, Cloud Kitchen, Media-Tech, and Lending.