As the world’s communications technologies get better and better, the demand to transition to a purely online workplace is growing. But what are the effects on employees when organisations choose to go 100% remote? Here are a few ways the transition to a digital workplace changes how you work:
A more agile workforce
One of the more obvious features of a digital workplace is the fact that your employees can be much more agile and able to work in more and more flexible situations. Never again will a company have to radically change plans because of a disruptive commute. Instead, your employees simply have to wake up, get some breakfast, and take a seat at their home workstations before they’re ready to get going with their day. The digital workplace empowers employees to be productive anywhere that has a reliable internet connection.
Reduced overheads
When staff can work from anywhere, providing a big enough office to house your employees is no longer a requirement. Suddenly, the traditional overheads of office rent and utilities disappear.
This will cut out a significant portion of your business expenses, meaning that your company is immediately much sleeker and more efficient when it comes to turning a profit. Of course, the cost of some newer software will weigh in and shrink these gains a little bit at first, but your company will find itself with significantly lower costs to account for at the end of the financial year.
Helping technophobe employees
Everyone has that one employee in their workplace. Someone who’s always that little bit behind the curve when it comes to picking up new technologies, and as good as their work is, it can often be a struggle on newer platforms to get them up to speed.
To counter this, you can use a learning management system and other training courses to ensure that your employees are up to speed. Although this could take some time initially, it’s a good way of ensuring that there is as little downtime as possible when putting together your digital workplace.
E-learning courses can help your tech-resistant staff to catch up
Easier to rebuild
One of the biggest threats to any business that goes online is the risk of a cyberattack taking place. Whether it’s ransomware with the intention of holding your data hostage or malware that seeks to irreparably damage your company’s systems, either of these types of attack could potentially put your company out of action for a long time if you’re not properly prepared.
By using a good platform for hosting your documentation and collaboration, you’ll be able to access all the necessary tools and documents to get your company up and running once again. Your intranet security will hold up to the challenge, and keep your company on the go where you could have seen significant downtime if your company was operating in a single location.
Better document management
Many company filestores tend to be quite messy. After years and years, the servers will get clogged up with variations of “Draft”, “Draft-final”, and “Draft-definitely-final”, all of which have the potential to confuse and delay your team.
Using fresh and new document management software will go a long way to dealing with this issue. Firstly, it will provide a refresh of your documentation, helping you to organise your files from a relatively clean slate. It also comes with built-in version control that displays the most up-to-date version of any document, preventing those duplicate and confusingly-named files.
