For the past couple months, we have witnessed the whole world transform in front of our eyes. Shake-ups like this occur only once in a great while, and this will be cemented in the history books as one of the most significant and defining events of the century. As we embrace these challenging and uncertain times, it’s important to think about the opportunities the present has opened for us to change our world for the better.
As we transition to this new virtual world, what does the future of work look like?
One answer: remote.
Remote work is not just an experiment that tech startups are trying out. Now more than ever, leaders must rethink and reshape their business and workforce operations. Many organizations are getting up to speed on technology and remote work best practices, and I envision industries that struggled to enable this -- such as healthcare and education -- will jump ahead.
Talent First, Geography Second
The movement to a remote workforce will unleash a bigger talent pool that otherwise would not be available. By hiring for talent first and geography second (time zone and location), leaders will be able to put the best possible team in place. When hiring for a specific location, you limit access to top talent, ruling them out based on their location versus skill set and ability to contribute to the success of your company.
My business partner and I co-founded our company while living in two separate countries with the philosophy from the outset of creating a company where people are excited to work, contribute and create. Because we were a globally distributed team, our organization has since grown from single digits to more than 650 employees across 35 countries, with our whole team currently working remotely (over half of our employees worked remotely before the current crisis).
If you invest in a culture that welcomes people who don’t work out of physical offices, you will have the ability and flexibility to find the best people for the job, without having to compete with other companies within a certain region. In addition to constructing a stellar team, additional benefits we’ve realized include increased productivity, an emphasis on happiness and freedom for our team, and diversity of culture and thought.
Trust, Not Control
Unfortunately, this crisis has highlighted some terrible remote work practices. As we’ve seen in the media, some companies have made their employees take photos of themselves at their workspaces to prove they are working. Obviously, this is not a way to build trust among your employees and internal relationships. We can learn from these poor examples to change the future of work for the better and build successful distributed workforces.
Trust and a philosophy of work based on results and not on chair time are at the heart of a successful remote culture. When it comes to building trust, communication is the most powerful tool, not a culture of control or fear. Multidirectional communication is critical here -- trust is built from the bottom up and from the top down with clear lines of communication and tools that facilitate real-time interaction and encourage virtual idea exchanges, team bonding and general socialization.
One of the greatest benefits of a good remote work culture is empowering and encouraging employees to take advantage of the flexibility as well. As a parent of two kids, I rely on this flexibility in many ways, whether to pick my kids up from school or attend a sports game.
Securing Our Connected World
As remote work becomes the new normal, security and privacy concerns are top of mind. Malicious activity from bad actors and global cyberattacks like phishing scams are on the rise and are more sophisticated than ever before. What does it take to secure a remote workforce?
Solid security measures from general awareness and educational training to advanced security tools and data protection should be every company’s priority -- whether remote or not. Invest in your security team as early on as you can, and create a culture of security where every employee is an advocate and watchdog to support ongoing best practices.
From a technology standpoint, a transition to remote (or a commitment to sticking with it) presents companies with a great opportunity to do a full assessment of their security infrastructure. Do you have the foundational security built into your software? How are you handling authentication, for example? A strong identity management platform with features such as multifactor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) will go a long way in securing account login operations. Authenticating and authorizing your logins in the most seamless way possible, whether you’re creating an end user experience, onboarding suppliers or partners, authenticating your employees or facilitating machine-to-machine communication, has to become part of your new normal.
While the future of our virtual normal has yet to be determined, I encourage you to view this as an opportunity to gather information and push through your own preconceived boundaries. Let’s take this challenge as an opportunity to learn, grow, and better ourselves, our business practices and our world -- the only one we have.
"work" - Google News
June 03, 2020 at 06:06PM
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The Future Of Work Is Remote - Forbes
"work" - Google News
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