What is the right remote working strategy for your business? What should that look like as we come out of COVID-19? What is it that we need to consider?

Recently, Project Resource Partners and Amrop Carmichael Fisher were lucky enough to have John Chambers of IE Group host our third workshop, this time surrounding Remote Working – Now and into the Future. It was a highly interactive, informative and thought provoking discussion that included looking at what we were, what we are and what is required or needs to be considered to progress through the different stages of a remote working model.

Below are the slides from John’s presentation, and I would highly recommend looking through them. If you do have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I can provide you more insight or put you in touch with John.

Before I go into my takeaways, an interesting point to note is that one business, ASX listed, surveyed their contact centre staff and 90% of those who replied wanted a remote working model more permanently.

In the meantime, here are my takeaways from the event:

1. Approach it with an open mind, and be aware not everybody will think the same
2. What is the best distribution of your workforce for your customers?
3. You need to understand your underlying culture, and how remote working can contribute to that culture
4. Sometimes subsidiaries under the same leadership can be very different in terms of culture and therefore the best model for them may differ
5. What is going to enable remote working for your business to continue and to evolve? As well as culture, you need to be aware of the policies you have in place and the guides that will help your staff
6. What are the processes in your business that are critical and what is going to need to be optimized?
7. Is there a tool kit available and does everyone know how to use the tools in the kit, from document storage to workflow automation to conferencing to idea facilitation and culture optimization?
8. How can you create the casual moments that occur in a physical office, the ‘water cooler’ moments where problems are often identified and solved?
9. What is the right balance of remote and together for your business and what does the together part look like?
10. Have you looked objectively at the benefits of maintaining or even lifting your ability to work remotely? What about any potential costs?

My takeaways are a lot of questions, and that is because where your business sits on remote working is on a continuum and we will all sit at different points depending on multiple factors.

What do you think your business’s workforce distribution will look like in the future? How well have you stress tested it and do you know what you need to do to achieve your ideal end state?