For some companies, the need for remote working has come out of nowhere. This sudden need to make a fundamental switch raises all kinds of questions, and it’s difficult to know where to start.
With a bombardment of information about remote working suddenly hitting the social platforms, a filter is really useful to help navigate it all. With that in mind, here’s a summary of some of the best remote working blogs and guides in the market right now.
Business transition
Back in early 2018 I was offering bitesize advice to businesses about how to make an effective transition. If you’re just beginning to move offsite and embrace remote working, this blog offers a list of important things you should consider:
RingCentral – Setting up remote working in your own business
From an IT perspective, secure access is paramount. Last week, Naked Security from Sophos responded to business’s remote working concerns with a handy post about how to enable remote working in a safe and supportive way:
Sophos – Remote working: Here’s how to do it securely
Productivity is a common worry. Is managing remote teams like herding cats? Will everyone end up at the pub or watching Netflix? It’s not that bad – in fact ACCA makes the case that being a ‘flexible’ business is a good way to improve productivity:
If you need some support for encouraging and monitoring productivity, there’s plenty out there. BT’s podcast on rethinking modes of work to boost productivity brings in the concept of remote working. This is a great listen about culture change – so bear in mind there’s more to boosting productivity than simply changing location:
BT – Positive workplace culture and productivity
Team management
Around this time last year, we published a long-form piece on how to increase business productivity through remote working.This piece raises an interesting statistic on employee wellbeing: 82% of telecommuters report lower stress levels when working remotely. Flexibility can make people happier:
RingCentral – The recipe for high productivity
From the managers’ point of view, our comprehensive guide to managing remote teams explains how to give your direct reports the flexibility and empowerment they seek and also enable them to be even more productive than they are in the office. Presence is an important component of maintaining engagement and collaboration, and it’s crucial to implement the right tools when planning to enable a remote team:
RingCentral – How to increase remote team collaboration
HR Technologist recently ran a blog about enabling your remote working team to collaborate effectively. The advice includes identifying what successful collaboration looks like, how it’s important to set standards, and introducing the idea of over-communicating.
HR Technologist – How to help your team excel at remote collaboration
Self management
Remote working has been with us for ages – it’s no surprise there are plenty of guides out there. Who better to take advice from than those with a tried-and-tested method? Zapier, a 100% remote working organisation since its founding in 2011, produced a guide to remote working which was last updated in March 2019 but is just as relevant today:
Zapier – Ultimate guide to remote work
Our guide to telecommuting from July 2019 advises workers how they can improve their work/life balance while delivering even higher productivity in their professional lives. While voice calling, video meetings and email all play a role in keeping workers connected and communicating, team collaboration software really comes into its own here. The guide goes on to reference Office Angels’ survey that reported a third of employees think commuting will be unheard of by 2036:
RingCentral – Guide to telecommuting
RingCentral – Effective Time Mangement while working from home
Top tips
If you’re after a really quick intro to managing remote workers, Econsultancy was quick to offer four top tips:
Econsultancy – Four tips for managing remote working
HubSpot offers employees eight tips for successful remote working:
HubSpot – 8 tips for working from home
Not exclusively for Mac fans, Computer World’s Apple-centric guide also has some great non-fruit-related content:
Computer World – Apple-centric guide to effective remote working
Longer read
In a similar but broader vein, Intense Minimalism has a great guide on approaching remote working:
Intense Minimalism – Quick, work remote!
The wider discussion
Speaking of the future, Forbes’ article on the future of work is a challenge to turn this negative into a positive, and help to create a brighter, more collaborative future for us all:
Forbes – A deep dive into remote work
Similarly, LinkedIn curated a thread asking “Is this the end of the office?” that collates some interesting posts as a starting point to a discussion:
LinkedIn – Is this the end of the office?
Meanwhile, BT had a look at how working from home can benefit SMEs, which needn’t mean we’ll never set foot in an office again, but hopefully encourages SMEs to cut back on needless overheads:
BT – Why working from home is a win-win for SMEs and their people
Poll Everywhere ran a post that looks at the pros and cons of remote working. The article considers productivity and access to talent as pros, the difficulty of building culture and having to adapt management style as cons, and concludes that “remote working can work for you”:
Poll Everywhere – Building a remote team: pros, cons, tools for effective collaboration
If your employer hasn’t yet made steps towards remote working, point them to this compelling treatise in Elite Business Magazine about how remote working benefits business’s greatest asset.
Elite Business Magazine – Why remote working isn’t going away
Finally, we’ve collated a whole library of resources to help your business start remote working. Find info on taking your business remote and managing remote teams, setting yourself up to use VoIP on any device, maintaining business continuity and much more.
Originally published Mar 13, 2020, updated Jan 17, 2023
