Working in Remote Teams: Insights into a New Normal

The pandemic has had varied developments over the last few months, with quarantine bubbles becoming less stringent or more rigid from country to country. Despite increasing vaccination roll-outs across most of North America in 2021, working in remote teams seems to be here to stay. According to a survey of CIOs by Enterprise Technology Research, the percentage of full-time remote workers is projected to double, from 16.4% to 34.3%, in 2021. This is not purely out of necessity, as the potential of remote working still remains to be untapped. A 2021 PWC Remote Work Survey stated that about a third (34%) of employees and about half (52%) of employers believe productivity has improved over prolonged working from home during the pandemic. Click here to learn how MS Teams and TRIYO can enhance a remote team’s productivity. Here are some insights into the shift in remote working over the next year. The structural shift caused by the COVID-19 virus has already been set in motion, and there are divided outlooks on whether physical or virtual workspaces would be more feasible structures to follow for the next year. Major organizations such as Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Fujitsu and Siemens have announced that some form of remote work will be an option for their employees for 2021. However, these hybrid structures have a number of limitations, the biggest being the availability of IT infrastructure and support for employees. This means that for the most part, hybrid working options will only persist for a highly-educated, well-paid minority of the workforce. Based on a McKinsey study, the types of working activities that have the highest potential within remote working models are – updating knowledge and learning, and interaction with computers and creative thinking. These activities, performed by remote teams, have been performed more efficiently, as well as, an increase in quality of work. The industrial sectors that prove to have the most to gain from remote or hybrid working models are the financial and insurance sector, with about 3/4th of time spent on activities that can be performed remotely, with no loss in productivity. Studies with employees of financial organizations have found that a lack of clear communicational efforts have negatively impacted employees in a remote working model, with over 47% stating they experience anxiety on a daily basis, and 49% stating they are somewhat or fully burned out. Click here to read more about how collaboration technology can reduce employee burnout. The shift in working models is going to stay, so organizations of any size and industry need to make the right adjustments to benefit from this new normal. The choices in technological tools are immense, and using multiple software for different functions can create a chaotic remote workplace. TRIYO provides the comprehensive solution to all of your remote collaboration requirements. Managers can utilize our project management system to record projects, tasks and subtasks; with a built-in audit trail to track all updates, changes and comments. Managers do not have to worry about confusion regarding deliverable versioning, as all team members arrive at a single live document related to a certain task. Our integration within industry-reliant software such as the MS Office Suite allows users to create, edit and reference their tasks; all within the native tools they use already. Moreover, our TRIYO INSIGHTS® Dashboard allows managers to monitor the project-specific, task-specific, and user-specific progress through our pre-collected analytic reports with a variety of usage metrics. Want to learn more about what TRIYO can do for your organization? Learn more through a quick video, or contact us below.