Telecommuting and remote work has become more common in recent years, but the trend is increasing as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced team members to work from home. The idea of working remotely has several appealing aspects, but the reality is that even when working from home, distractions are still a battle. We often hear about ways to combat distractions in our own homes, such as setting up a designated work space, hiding the remote, or placing your phone in another room. These are great methods to implement when the distractions come from your own home, but what do you do when the noise comes from your work?
Employees who work outside the office can sometimes feel disconnected and out of the loop when it comes to day-to-day activities. Oftentimes this can be resolved by establishing workflow processes that promote organization and efficiency among remote workers. Business automation is a great way to combat this issue and see immediate improvement in the way your remote team works. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how investing in a business automation software can benefit remote workers:
You hired your employees for their skills and expertise. It isn’t beneficial to them or the company to fill their hours with administrative work. Remote workers need to juggle external distractions along with their everyday work load. Make it easier for them to focus on the most important work by cutting out the more mundane tasks such filling out timesheets, building client invoices, and drafting internal and external emails. Your team members will be less stressed, and it decreases the chance of human error on certain tasks - there's often a few mistakes on timesheets when done manually.
Remote teams no longer have the luxury of casually getting up and walking over to a co-workers desk to ask for a project update. If a business process isn’t established, it’s difficult to know who is responsible for specific tasks, who the point person is for certain projects, and if the workload is being spread fairly and evenly. Business automation sets up the processes necessary to answer these questions. Once a process is solidified to identify who owns a project, there is no longer confusion around it, which relieves stress for employees. Maintaining accountability doesn’t have to be difficult simply because the team isn’t in the same physical space. Use business automation to encourage and drive employee accountability.
Scope creep is bound to happen - and remote workers are no different. We discussed how automation can improve the quality of work being done and establish who is accountable for what project. A third major benefit is that it increases the amount of work being done in a day. When you begin the automation process, one of the first things you’ll need to do is perform an audit of what tasks are being performed. This naturally leads to the next question - does this task really matter? If not, cut it. If so, is there a way it can be automated so employees can focus on completing more meaningful projects? Automation helps you understand where your team’s efforts are going and shed light on the work that needs to be prioritized.
Another huge benefit of using business automation is the peace of mind in knowing that tasks won’t be forgotten and put on the back burner when urgent matters arise that need to be prioritized. When it comes to remote work, a micromanagement style might feel necessary to ensure work is completed on time, but employees prefer to be empowered and trusted to get their projects done. This doesn't mean that you need to complete forego team check-ins, but let automation help keep track of the status of a project. Automation notifies you when a task is complete, so you can rest assured that the business is running smoothly.
Yes - business automation can increase employee happiness. Ensuring employees feel empowered, included, and valued will only benefit the company. Automation promotes a culture of transparency and helps team members do the work they were hired to do with minimal distractions. It's a valuable way to help employees feel supported in their day-to-day role and can increase happiness at work. A happy staff leads to better retention and decreases turnover, which can be disruptive to the entire company.
With remote working becoming more popular among businesses, it’s key to implement processes that can help support this trend. Simply being in an office doesn’t guarantee productivity. Well-established processes (whether you’re in the office or working remotely) that promote empowerment, organization, and transparency will be much more beneficial in the long run. See for yourself. Accelo helps thousands of businesses automate their work so they can get back to the work they love. Sign up for a free Accelo trial today to see how the platform can help you.
