Remote working & home office

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Make remote and home working part of business as usual

 

Boost agility and transformation with more flexible working styles

Remote working and home office aren't anything new, but the number of people working away from the office at least some of the time has increased exponentially. People whose jobs can be done remotely or in a hybrid work style can experience more freedom and flexibility, increase their productivity, and find a better work/life balance. The remote job benefits for employers include reduced real-estate needs and costs, and the ability to recruit from a wider talent pool.

To take advantage of the opportunities offered by remote working and home office, organisations need to understand the potential challenges. Among respondents to a Konica Minolta survey:

  • 51% identified communication with managers or other employees as a business operation challenge resulting from work-from-home arrangements

  • 38% viewed managing remote work as difficult or very difficult

  • 49% said lack of the right hardware or software was an issue associated with home working


To mitigate these and other challenges, organisations need to rethink some aspects of their people and technology strategies.
For example:

Remote team management. Managers need tools and training to help them manage the workload of remote team members, evaluate their performance, and define professional development plans.

Teamworking and mentoring. Regular video calls and virtual team meetings — including some that have a social rather than a work-related objective — help to foster teamworking and knowledge-sharing, and enable mentoring relationships to flourish.

Technology for productivity. An efficient digital workspace with technology tools that make it easy to connect, collaborate and access information are critical to employee satisfaction and productivity.
 



Benefits of remote working and home office



Opportunity for employees to enhance their work/life balance


Scope to cast the recruitment net more widely


Potential to retain existing employees who prefer working remotely


Simplified inclusion of contractors and freelancers


Reduced need for office space, leading to lower real-estate costs


Acceleration of digital transformation through rollout of tools that enable digital and virtual working

Answers to your questions

 

Can remote workers work from anywhere?

With the right IT infrastructure, remote workers can do a good job from almost any location. Consider Cloud Services for flexible and reliable infrastructure that can support dispersed teams with no need for your to invest in and maintain your own infrastructure. Make sure too that you have the right Communication and Collaboration services in place to help people work together and stay connected, regardless of their physical location. A cloud-based solution like Microsoft 365, for example, can be accessed from any suitable computer or smart device, enabling team members to work and hold virtual meetings wherever they are. A Microsoft Global Managed Partner like Konica Minolta can help organisations optimise their use of the software.

Can remote working replace the office?

During the pandemic, remote work proved invaluable for employees whose jobs don't require them to be in the office, and many organisations continue to allow people to work remotely some or all of the time. Cloud-based Microsoft 365 and Cloud Print Services are often core components of remote and hybrid working models. Whether remote work can replace the office is a matter for each company to decide based on a range of factors. But it can certainly be viable if appropriate remote work policies, IT infrastructure and Security Services are in place to support remote and home-based teams, protect against cyber threats and attacks, and keep everyone connected. The same polices and infrastructure can also help to bring frontline and mobile staff closer to the business, and simplify the integration of contractors and freelancers.

How has remote working affected businesses?

The overwhelming shift to remote work originally sparked by the pandemic has affected businesses in a variety of ways. Employees often feel they're more productive and that they can have a better Work Life Balance, both of which can raise morale. Generally speaking, businesses that are serious about making the most of remote working find they need to rethink their approach to technology, information management and collaboration. Rolling out an efficient, coherent digital environment based on software solutions like Microsoft 365 and M-Files can be a critical success factor — and can additionally help a business accelerate its broader digital transformation ambitions, supported by a full spectrum of Information Management Services.

How does remote work benefit employers?

Beyond enhanced employee productivity and wellbeing, the potential benefits for employers who enable people to work from home include savings on real-estate costs and the opportunity for better operational continuity planning. 

Importantly, too, employers can benefit from improvements in employee acquisition and retention. If there's no need to travel into work every day, an employer can recruit from a broader and deeper talent pool to hire the best people, including those who: 

  • Live further away 

  • Need to combine work with caring responsibilities 

  • Are unable to commute for other reasons, such as a disability 

Enabling remote employees to work effectively, and ensuring they feel cared for and valued can, in turn, lead to higher levels of company loyalty and staff retention.

 

Remote working and home office can be good for business


If you're keen to give people choice about where they work, you need to support them with the right tools to help them stay connected and productive. But among companies who responded to a Konica Minolta survey:

  • 26% indicated they had issues with remote working in terms of infrastructure and IT services

  • 25% said they had issues with applications and software relate to remote working

  • 23% mentioned being short of specialist IT staff to resolve those issues

Konica Minolta can help you remove these barriers and reap the benefits of remote working and home office. We offer consultancy expertise and a range of IT infrastructure, security and application services that allow you to create an efficient digital workspace where people can communicate, collaborate and share information securely, no matter where they work or what device they use.

 

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Further reading

Remote Working and Home Office

Finding the best hybrid working model for your business needs

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Remote work: an integral part of the ‘new normal’ for business

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Create a digital workplace that fosters online collaboration for remote teams

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Learn how our Remote Working and Home Office solutions can help your business

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