Here's how technology helped us survive COVID-19 lockdown
COVID-19 impacted our lives in many ways and even our work culture changed. Here's how many companies used technology to survive the pandemic.
The world today fights a common, omnipresent enemy. In 2020, businesses shifted to remote working at scale as it was the only fix to what appeared a temporary disruption. Now, more than a year into the pandemic, and with the second wave currently raging across India, the remote work model has become an integral part of the organizational structure and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
While interacting with Mr. Rahul Sharma, MD-India, LogMeIn, he shared the importance of SAAS industry in these days. The safety of working from home is not the only reason why the remote working paradigm has gained permanent relevance in the global business ecosystem. Having operated digitally for more than a year, businesses have recognized the benefits a flexible, remotely enabled work culture can offer to both the organizations and employees. On the one hand, working remotely has helped enterprises save on various company expenditures. Many companies have estimated to have saved more than a billion dollars on an annualized basis on account of reduced spending on travel, entertainment, digitization of physical campaigns, etc.
On the other hand, employees have reported feeling more productive working from home, given that the conditions of striking a healthy work-life balance are met. The onus of helping the employees avoid facing fatigue, burnout, and isolation-related challenges falls on the senior leadership and management. Strategic use of digital connectivity and communication tools has empowered many businesses to ensure an efficient, engaging, and satisfactory employee experience.
The role of remote work to ensure business continuity
The role of the remote work model in helping businesses to continue operations in and despite the viral outbreak cannot be overstated. During the initial lockdowns last year, many enterprises enforced WFH policies, driven by necessity. However, many lacked the necessary tech backup to make the best of the remote work paradigm. As a remote work enabler, we were aware of the on-ground situation and had the required technologies to enable a safe and seamless transition of organizations into the new normal.
We began by providing Emergency Remote Work Kits for free organization-wide use to critical front-line workers including healthcare professionals, educators, municipalities, NGOs, etc. The idea was to help them streamline, scale, and automate their workflows and keep them going despite the lockdowns.
Since the viral outbreak, SaaS players are relentlessly innovating to offer better remote working solutions while minimizing existing and emerging challenges. For instance, we upgraded our video conferencing and connectivity solution GoToMeeting to filter background noise to enable a seamless meeting experience for professionals living at home with children or pets. We also enhanced the audio quality to help professionals collaborate smoothly even from regions with patchy network conditions.
Such upgrades are necessary because, even after the pandemic is over, enterprises are going to use digital connectivity solutions to enable teams to communicate and collaborate remotely. According to a Capgemini study, three-quarters of organizations expect 30% or more of their employees to be working remotely in the future. Against this backdrop, the role of SaaS players such as LogMeIn is to empower these organizations to facilitate a work environment conducive to efficiency and productivity for their remote workforce.
How can the team be motivated in a remote working culture?
A community is about connection, communication, and collaboration. One of the drawbacks of an extended remote work setup is the isolation that a professional can feel, especially if they are living alone. Feeling isolated and overburdened can cause employees to experience low motivation and lower productivity.
On the other hand, when employees feel a sense of community, not only can they work more efficiently and are more likely to have their creative juices flowing, but they also feel valued. By focusing on creating a well-being-oriented work culture, managers and leaders can help boost employee experience as well as loyalty. Communication is the key to building such communities. Making use of virtual collaboration and meeting platforms can help the co-workers to meet and share ideas in a virtual setting. Collective workplace rituals are important for employee motivation. Embracing new collective rituals can help to keep employee motivation high. For instance, General Assembly, a New York-based education company, has a video chatroom link set up for workers to join in the morning, where they can catch up with colleagues over their morning coffee.
Being empathetic and offering support is also very important. Employers must ensure to stay in touch with their employees and ask them how they feel at regular intervals. Opening all means of communication to your employees can help build a sense of trust and understanding.
What are the most effective tools for corporates to use in the WFH scenario?
Video conferencing solutions drove collaborations within an organization when the remote work kicked in. However, with time, organizations fell in need of solutions that they could use to carry out other essential tasks online such as conducting recruitments, driving employee management and training, providing constructive feedback, etc. This has resulted in the need for more advanced HR tech solutions.
As a result, there has been an increase in SaaS-based platforms that provide a unified experience to organizations of all sizes on the back of a suite of remote access and collaboration solutions. For instance, LogMeIn’s service portfolio includes solutions such as GoToWebinar, GoToMeeting, GoToTraining, and Rescue, among others. These products offer a holistic range of scalable products that allow SMBs and SMEs to expand the application of our solutions at the point of need.
Our aim is to empower organizations to create an effective remotely enabled workplace by utilizing conveniently scalable applications designed to meet their business needs.