Even as the pandemic unfolded, physical workspaces have started to become obsolete with remote work growing in popularity. A U.S. Census Bureau data reveals that the number of people primarily working remotely grew from 5.7 percent in 2019 (roughly 9 million people) to 17.9 percent in 2021. An Accenture’s 2021 Future of Work survey shows how a whopping 83 percent of employees indicated preferences for hybrid work, while 63 percent of high-growth companies are already implementing hybrid work models to enhance workplace productivity and nurture a culture of flexibility and openness.

With companies world over implementing remote work policies, how well are you covered? Being able to work remotely is a great way to go if you have the right tools. That said, is investing in a comprehensive remote work platform on your radar?

Let’s help you figure it all out in our detailed guide on remote work software and its uses. 

IN THIS GUIDE

• Defining a remote work platform
• Common myths of a remote work software debunked
• Why is a remote work platform essential for today’s digital workforce?
• What are the benefits of a remote work software?
• What are the challenges involved in implementing a remote work software?
• How does a remote work software drive employee experience?
• Why should InfinCE be your go-to other remote work platforms?
• Conclusion

First things first, let’s explore a few myths that are typically associated when the topic of remote work is discussed. Let’s explore a few.

Defining a Remote Work Platform

A remote work platform is a digital tool or platform that allows individuals or teams to work and collaborate on projects, tasks, and assignments remotely from various locations. They are typically equipped with communication tools, task management, file sharing, and video conferencing.

Common Myths of a Remote Work Software Debunked

1. Remote work brings down productivity of employees: Well, this is a big no. A remote work software is equipped to handle virtual communication and collaboration tasks effectively without compromising on efficiency, thus playing a significant role in driving employee productivity. With optimized workflows cutting down on time-intensive processes, remote work tools help build agile teams that are ready to take on the challenges of a future-ready workplace. As the complexities of the modern workforce increase, the time is now to think about a comprehensive remote work platform that handles the a to z of communication, connectivity, and collaboration and helps employees adapt to the evolving needs of a dynamic business workplace.

2. Remote work can leave room for communication gaps: This is yet another misconception that often gets tagged with remote workplaces. A remote work platform helps remote teammates collaborate effortlessly through sharing files on the go over the cloud, manage projects efficiently, and track progress reports frequently by offering an integrated view of several linked workflows. This ensures that cross-functional teams stay well connected and are not working in isolated silos besides fostering an integrated working environment where team members can track project statuses, leads, define tasks, and set deadlines.

3. Remote work demotivates employees: With workplace demographics continuing to shift, the use of remote collaboration tools is on the rise and for good reason. Particularly fuelled by the growing demands to increase employee productivity and cut costs, remote work platforms act as a source of motivation by reshaping the very outlook of work.

Now that we have debunked some myths, let’s define the elements that constitute a remote work platform and understand the benefits it brings to the corporate table. Precisely, a remote work software entails a robust, technological version (aka a digital workplace) of a physical workspace, that encompasses all the technologies that both employers and employees use to get work done in today’s workplace. Ranging from HR applications, e-mail communication tools, core business applications to  instant messaging and enterprise social media tools and virtual assistants, a comprehensive remote work platform consists of a suite of several applications that are meant to transform the employee experience. 

Why is a Remote Work Platform Essential for Today’s Digital Workforce?

In today’s digital workplace, remote work platforms are essential for organizations to ensure seamless communication, collaboration, and project management. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote work platforms for many organizations. Remote work platforms provide a range of benefits to both employers and employees, including increased flexibility, reduced overhead costs, and improved work-life balance.

Remote work platforms enable employees to work collaboratively with their colleagues, thereby fostering teamwork and productivity. By using a remote work platform, employees can work on the same documents, share their ideas and collaborate on projects as if they were working in the same office.

What are the Benefits of a Remote Work Platform?

1. Greater employee retention and talent acquisition: A remote friendly work culture is a perk that any employee appreciates. Given that working remotely gives autonomy and flexibility to employees, there is a good chance that employees would opt for a lower paying job if they could work away from the office. Not just from the employee standpoint, employers also stand to gain with remote work as they get to hire top talent and indirectly save on business costs. 

2. Enhanced communication channels: Today’s digital workforce prefers modern communication channels that allows them to communicate on the go without having to gather in meetings that are all too time-consuming. 

3. Reduced costs: For employers in the digital age, investing in IT infrastructure and physical office workspaces may run into overhead costs in the long run. With fewer people in a physical office setup, organizations can cut down on their real estate footprint, reduce costs to run onsite business operations, including office space, equipment and travel reimbursement.

What are the Typical Challenges Involved in Implementing a Remote Work Software?

1. Steep learning curve: While a remote work software is composed of a bunch of applications serving distinct functions, it’s important for your remote work software to work as a unified platform that helps employees have a delightful employee experience. However, this comes with a certain trade-off. To make the most of remote work, it’s important for employees to be tech-savvy and invest time and energy on getting a grasp of multiple tools, no matter how simple they seem. 

2. Integration issues: It’s important to ensure that your technology teams work in cohesion with your infrastructure management teams to get through the traps of siloed implementations and disparate ownership. 

3. Data security and porting: While employees work with scores of data that gets exchanged across all remote work collaboration tools, it’s imperative to keep a tab on secure data sharing and porting. Switching and porting data between multiple apps leads to significant time losses. For instance, a typical day of a remote worker would involve attending a meeting over a video conference on a separate application while also writing an email via an email tool. So the need to maintain a unified view of data is important. 

How does a Remote Work Software Drive Employee Experience?

In addition to boosting productivity, remote work platforms also drive employee experience. These platforms help employees feel more connected to their colleagues and their organization, even when working remotely. Communication tools such as chat, video conferencing, and messaging platforms facilitate a sense of community and enable workers to build relationships with co-workers and managers.

Remote work software also contributes to work-life balance for employees. They allow workers to work from anywhere, anytime, thereby reducing the stress and time involved in commuting. Additionally, these platforms provide employees with greater autonomy, resulting in improved job satisfaction.

Remote work software is essential for organizations that want to stay competitive and provide the best experience for their employees. By using remote work software, businesses can empower their remote workforce to work collaboratively and productively, regardless of where they are in the world. Moreover, remote work platforms drive employee experience, enable work-life balance, and foster a sense of community among remote workers.

Must-Have Features of a Comprehensive Remote Work Software

We list some must-have features that should comprise an ideal remote work software. While investing in one, be sure to check on them.

1. Collaboration apps: Since collaboration is the lifeblood of remote work, your remote work platform needs to be fully equipped to facilitate video meetings, live chat, and bring up a comprehensive employee directory for quick lookup.

2. Productivity tools: Contextual tools that raise productivity such as spreadsheets, presentations, calendars, and calendars are an absolute must. 

3. Flexible integrations and mobile compatibility: Your remote work platform should be capable of unifying all your existing and future digital systems. This gives you an inherent edge because you are not only able to centralize the technology architecture but also indirectly increase enterprise-level flexibility. This helps businesses to scale up, or down, according to dynamic business needs.

4. Secure cloud file sharing: To support a workforce that’s spread across the globe, your remote work tool should be hosted on the cloud, facilitating employees to to work from any location and from any device, with just a basic connection to the internet. Besides being cloud-based, the tool should also have cloud storage to store all important business files and documents in order to make it easier for employees to access the latest versions of files, whether they are in the office or working from home.

Why should InfinCE be your go-to over other remote work platforms?

The following features make InfinCE truly beneficial for customers and offers them a competitive advantage over other remote work software. 

1. Comprehensive and customizable: InfinCE offers a comprehensive suite of tools and features to facilitate remote work across multiple departments in an organization. The platform can be customized to cater to specific business needs, ensuring a personalized and productive workflow.

2. Affordable and scalable: The pricing of InfinCE is transparent and budget-friendly, with no hidden costs or fees. The platform is scalable and can be adapted according to the size of the organization, making it accessible to small start-ups as well as large enterprises.

3. Secure and reliable: InfinCE is built with enterprise-grade security protocols to ensure data confidentiality and protection. The platform also ensures reliable access to data and applications with 99.9% uptime.

4. User-friendliness: InfinCE is designed to be user-friendly, with a user interface that is easy to navigate and understand. The platform is also compatible across multiple devices, making it convenient for users to work remotely from anywhere in the world.

5. Collaborative and efficient: InfinCE fosters collaboration among team members, making it easier to work together and achieve goals. The platform enables efficient project management, workflow automation, and streamlined communication among team members, resulting in improved productivity and efficiency.

Conclusion

As the modern workplace continues to evolve, and employee expectations shift, organizations that do not embrace the digital workplace risk falling behind. With InfinCE, you can experience seamless, integrated and intuitive collaboration with the perfect remote work software at play! Get in touch with us for a free demo, and we would be glad to chip in!

Productivity leakage is a concern when it comes to remote work.

There’s still a debate on whether to work from home or the office. And to settle this debate, we focus on the productivity levels in each working environment. Productivity can only be measured with the amount of outcome generated by the employee.

It’s a common notion that employees are distracted or less productive when working remotely. A leader constantly worries about deadlines, deliverables, team relationships, employee creative levels, and upscaling employee skills that contribute to the company’s goals. However, a survey conducted by Work Trends Study states 87% of employees say they’re more productive when working remotely or in a hybrid setup. 

But employees, on the other hand, might feel a communication gap and lack motivation when working remotely. Employers must ensure a connected workplace with effective and regular communication, feedback, and employee training. Focusing on these factors alone can help companies tackle the challenges of shifting work culture.

With remote work culture growing, particularly given recent trends with companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and SalesForce all announcing new policies for unlimited working from home, it is crucial to stop and see how this change in dynamics might impact the culture at your company. These nearly invisible changes directly impact employees’ happiness, yet data and analytics are lacking to see how remote and hybrid working impacts things.

Regarding productivity, managers who track it down on baseless metrics like working hours, putting a tracker system, and following up every hour, jinx the work culture. In this blog, let’s try to understand how remote work culture directly impacts productivity, internal relationships, creativity, and collaboration and if it is the future of work!

How is remote work culture impacting work productivity?

While working remotely may increase productivity, decrease stress, eliminate real-estate costs, and lower greenhouse emissions, it may cause several workplace problems. Remote work can hurt a company’s culture in several ways; a lack of social interaction may cause workplace relationships to suffer. For those individuals who strongly prefer working in-person, remote work culture’s de-engagement effects can be as severe as 17% lower productivity to 24% higher turnover.

We covered quite a bit of ground on building good communications and developing a positive corporate culture while working with distributed or remote teams. Developing company culture is not simply done for its own sake; it significantly impacts employee retention, satisfaction, and performance.

You need to understand that long-lasting remote working culture impacts how you are perceived by employees and customers, which will eventually define the success or development of the company. But considering the upside of having a remote work culture, especially the cost advantages, it is not smart to completely turn down this culture shift. The only way to still embrace this shift is by ensuring healthy employer-employee or company-staff relationships. And with technological advances today, nothing is impossible!

Read more: How to Keep Your Remote Teams Connected

How can a digital workplace platform help maintain productivity in remote work culture?

There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to rethink the way they operate. For many, this has meant implementing remote work policies for the first time.
While working remotely has many benefits, some challenges also need to be addressed to ensure that productivity levels are maintained.

One way to do this is by using a digital workplace platform. This platform can help facilitate communication and collaboration between team members and help set and track goals.

It can be tough to cultivate a remote work team culture, but it’s worth it. Here are a few tips to help get you started.

1. Defining team culture in a remote work setting

The best way to create a team culture in a remote work setting is to start with the team’s goals and values. Define what the team wants to achieve and how they want to work together. Once these are established, everyone on the team should be on the same page and understand the culture that is being created. It’s important to be clear about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior and have a set of guidelines that everyone can refer to. This will help ensure that the team culture is maintained and everyone is working towards the same goal.

No one can work in a vacuum. To be productive, people need to feel part of a team. A remote work setting can be a challenge when it comes to creating a team culture.

Here are a few tips to help you get started.

• Define your team’s values and culture: What are the things that are important to your team? What are your core values? Defining your values and culture will help you to create a common understanding among your team members. It will also help you to make decisions when it comes to things like hiring and firing.
• Establish rules and guidelines: To ensure everyone is on the same page, it’s important to establish some rules and guidelines. These can include how often team members should communicate, what type of communication is acceptable, and how to handle conflict.
• Encourage team bonding: Even though team members may be working remotely, it’s important to find ways to encourage team bonding. This can be done through team-building exercises, social media groups, or video chats.
• Celebrate successes: When your team achieves something great, take the time to celebrate! This can be done through team emails, social media posts, or even a team video call.
• Be transparent: When things go wrong, it’s important to be transparent with your team. This includes being honest about why something went wrong, what is being done to fix it, and what the consequences will be. Creating a strong team culture in a remote work setting can be challenging, but it’s definitely worth the effort. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating a team that is productive and happy.

2. Managing conflict in a remote work team culture

To manage conflict in a remote work team culture, it is important to understand the dynamics of the team and the culture in which it operates. Effective conflict management involves understanding the triggers for conflict, the communication channels available, and the team’s culture.

In a remote team, there may be a higher chance of misunderstandings due to the lack of communication or facial expressions. This can be exacerbated when team members are from different cultures. It is important to be aware of the potential triggers for conflict and to have effective communication channels in place.

When managing conflict in a remote team culture, it is important to be aware of cultural norms and expectations. In some cultures, it is acceptable to be more direct in communication, while in others, it is considered rude. It is important to be aware of these differences and to adjust communication styles as needed.

By understanding the dynamics of the team and the culture in which it operates, you can better manage conflict in a remote work team.

3. Encouraging team productivity in a remote work setting

To encourage productivity in a remote work setting, setting up some ground rules and expectations for team members is important. This includes clearly defined working hours, communication methods, and expectations for quality and output. It is also important to foster a positive team environment where team members are supportive of one another and are willing to help out when needed. By establishing a productive remote work environment, team members are more likely to be productive and meet deadlines.

Read more: Modernize and Simplify Your HR processes with a Digital Workplace Platform

How InfinCE makes an apt Digital workplace platform

InfinCE allows you to feel more in control of your data and your work-giving you a greater sense of mastery and purpose. It also helps you feel more connected to your team and organization, fostering a sense of community and collaboration matters.

InfinCE: Interactive, Data-Rich Dashboards to Boost Engagement

As an HR professional, you know that employee engagement is essential to organizational success. But what’s the best way to promote engagement within your organization?

One effective way is to use modern dashboard software to create custom dashboards for employees. By doing so, you can ensure that employees have the information they need to stay aligned with organizational goals.

Not only will this help to promote employee engagement, but it will also help to improve communication and collaboration within your organization. So if you’re looking for a way to boost employee engagement, consider using modern dashboard software to create custom dashboards for employees.

A Comprehensive Employee Directory

Looking for the contact information for your entire employee base? Look no further than the InfinCE comprehensive employee directory. This easy-to-use tool provides all the information you need to connect with your employees, no matter where they work. With multiple modes of collaboration available – live chat, one-on-one video calls, and meetings – your employees will stay connected and productive, even when working remotely.

More Productivity tools with InfinCE

Enhance your organization’s credibility with business emails. Store captured business data on documents, presentations, or spreadsheets in a private drive and ensured selective access through permissions and controls. Create events on InfinCE’s calendar, track tasks, and enhance your workforce efficiency easily!

Conclusion 

Various stats have proved that remote work culture has contributed to productivity but, at the same time, has also increased work stress for employees. However, the advent of remote working tools has helped embrace the work culture shifts and continues to enable the company to empower the upside of remote work culture! 

InfinCE, a powerful digital workplace platform, can help your company improve communication and collaboration and maintain transparency to embrace the remote work culture. It’s easy to use and can be customized to meet your needs. Start a free 30-day trial today and see how it helps your company!

The necessities of Covid-19 made companies rethink their priorities regarding managing their workforce. As a result, remote work shifted from being a short-term quick fix to a  long-term solution for increased efficiency and productivity. And in the post-pandemic world, work has become more partially remote, aka hybrid, than fully remote.

Hybrid Work Defined

A hybrid workplace blends both virtual and on-site arrangements to give employees the flexibility of dividing their working hours between the office and home. As a result, the employees enjoy more autonomy and life-work balance while remaining more engaged and productive at work. 

So, Why is Hybrid Work Relevant?

A Salesforce post says, “today’s hybrid workplace would soon be called just “the workplace”. A survey of 278 executives by McKinsey revealed that the surveyees planned to reduce their office space by 30%, indicating an increased acceptance of remote work, be it partial or otherwise. Cloud technologies and the right online tools would enable your employees to access data, connect with their colleagues from anywhere, and get their work done in a networked environment. 

The McKinsey study “The postpandemic future of work: Hybrid, remote and what’s ahead” surveyed 100 executives across multiple industries and geographies say that 9 out of 10 companies would go for a blend of remote and on-site working. As work culture gets increasingly hybrid, companies need to ensure efficient online tools are in place to enable their employees to collaborate and communicate seamlessly to get their work done. Organizations need to enforce the specifics required for a mix of remote and on-site work on a permanent basis to keep their hybrid workforce productive. 

Read more: Tips in Building a Hybrid Workplace for the Future

Benefits of a Hybrid Workplace

A hybrid workplace brings quite a few benefits to the table. 

1. Flexibility at work leaves workers happy

Increased flexibility and reduced commute would help employees enjoy a better work-life balance.

2. Reduces operational costs

Hybrid workplace solutions reduce the cost of real estate and office supplies considerably. The money saved on rentals can be invested in technology, marketing, etc.

3. Increases productivity and efficiency

Working from the comfort of their homes and flexible working hours have proven to increase employee productivity and efficiency.

4. Boosts employee engagement

A hybrid working model boosts collaboration among your remote teams, thus keeping them more engaged at work. 

5. Offers location independence

A hybrid work model will essentially have a remote work infrastructure in place, enabling your workforce to work from anywhere in the world.

6. Enhances company culture

A blend of remote and on-site work would motivate your employees to remain more productive and engaged and proactively contribute toward the company’s goals and culture. On-site working days can hold face-to-face meetings and build interpersonal relationships among employees.  

Post-pandemic, companies are increasingly opting for a hybrid working model on a global scale. The Accenture study “The Future of Work: Productive Anywhere” says 83% of the 9326 employees surveyed agree that a hybrid working model would be optimal wherein they get to work remotely for at least one-quarter of their working hours. This calls for adopting smart digital workplace solutions marked by flexibility, scalability, and connectivity to stay efficient and competitive. As remote work evolves into hybrid work, companies must reimagine their digital workplaces to stay competitive. 

Read more: How Can Your Business Be Future-ready to Embrace the Flexible Work

How to Reimagine Your Digital Workplace to Nurture a Hybrid Work Culture?

1. Choose the right set of digital tools 

Your business needs the right set of digital tools and technologies to support hybrid work. You need to choose a smart digital workplace solution well-equipped with state-of-the-art communication, collaboration, and remote technology tools to connect your entire workforce to support a hybrid culture. The platform should enable a seamless and secure flow of data across multiple departments, thus connecting your geographically diverse employees. It should also have smart analytical tools like custom dashboards to get intelligent reports on the progress of projects. As the digital workplace comes integrated with all the tools required for your business operations, your employees needn’t waste their precious time switching from one app to another.

2. Connect employee experiences to business outcomes

Make sure that new technologies enhance employee experiences. Modern tools integrated into the digital platform should recognize your employees’ efforts. Care should be taken to put your employees at the center of the design so that your digital workplace solution transforms how people collaborate and communicate to get work done and meet business goals. Employee surveys help realize what your workforce actually needs to get their work done efficiently. Integrate productivity tools on your digital platform to boost employee performance. The architectural elements should be synced to delight the end users, viz., your employees, while serving to meet goals smarter and faster. Better employee experiences help boost business outcomes.

3. Create a great workplace experience

Your employees deserve a good on-site experience whenever they report to their physical offices. This is very important to make your hybrid working model succeed. Better on-site experiences lead to better in-person collaborations, which boosts better online collaborations among your employees. On-site events should support virtual events to delight your employees. Good on-site experiences make the office a place your employees would love to go.  

4. Build digital fluency

Digital fluency is vital to meet business goals as well as enriching employee experiences. You need to leverage technologies to offer training programs for all segments of your workforce to upskill them.   

In short, the pandemic and multiple lockdowns have caused companies to revisit their long-term business strategies and revamp their business processes to make them hybrid compatible. An April 2022 study of 800 business leaders, “At Work: The 2022 Workplace Trends Report,” says 77% of the companies surveyed have adopted a hybrid working model and that an “at will” hybrid policy has gained momentum. 

Read more: How to Keep Your Remote Teams Connected

To Conclude

You need the tech support of a smart digital workplace solution for your hybrid work model to succeed. This is where an efficient digital platform like InfinCE comes to your aid. InfinCE can support and improve the performances of your hybrid workforce in more ways than one. Here are a few:

1. InfinCE has efficient office and collaboration tools to help your remote teams collaborate efficiently, share files seamlessly, and improve their productivity.
2. It keeps your data private and safe on a secure, private virtual cloud.
3. The curated InfinCE application marketplace offers a multitude of both commercial and open-source business apps from multiple vendors to suit your unique business needs. 
4. Single sign-on access enables your geographically dispersed employees to have unified access to your data.
5. InfinCE offers seamless IT infrastructure management from one place to help you manage your information assets with ease and scalability.
6. It comes with a pool of varied collaboration tools to help your teams connect with each other as well as external contacts through live individual and group chats; secure file sharing; audio and video calls, etc.
7. Helps improve your business efficiency by simplifying your data analytics with the help of custom dashboards and tiles for enhanced visibility and productivity across all departments.

InfinCE is, thus, your one-stop technology solution that caters to anything and everything your hybrid workforce needs. Get in touch with our experts to know more.  

Today’s workforce is witnessing a massive shift in culture. The pandemic disrupted the workforce in every way. We may be inching back to normalcy, but many companies still work remotely, and remote work seems to become a permanent fixture. It also has benefits, including giving companies access to talent pools across locations.  

This Gartner report published in 2022 finds that a company will risk losing up to 39% of its workforce if it returns to a full on-site arrangement. Even an office setting involves collaboration and communication with employees from other time zones and office locations. The hybrid work culture has led employees to witness better physical and mental well-being, indicating that companies need to evolve with the changing workforce and embrace this new reality.   

This increases the need for a new work model that values employee connection, team building, and collaboration. The role of a manager is changing too. Managers should invest in the right tools and team workflow technologies to ensure teams are connected, whether remote or hybrid. Collaborative notes, shared documents, and tools to monitor response times and communication standards will ensure that all team members are on the same page. Companies should focus on consistent communication and a purposeful agenda to make the best of hybrid and remote work cultures.  

With all its advantages, managing a remote workforce is not easy. According to this Harvard survey, remote workers often feel lonely and disconnected. This proves that keeping remote workers connected is more important than ever. Companies must use employee experience software and digital workplace solutions to keep their remote workforce invested in the work. Here are some ways in which you can keep remote teams connected. 

Read more: 6 Ways to Improve Engagement of Your Digital Employees

1. Use the Right Communication Tools

Streamlined communication is the key to keeping remote workers connected. In fact, ineffective communication can negatively impact your productivity and team morale. Most teams face problems when they choose the wrong messaging apps to solve complex problems. When handling high-priority projects, for example, teams must use apps that give complete information exchanges and team interactions. Companies should not leave employees struggling with perception and communication gaps. Look for digital workplace solutions that offer multiple communication tools to meet different requirements, all in a unified platform. 

Channel selection also plays a role in effective team communication. Companies should use high-bandwidth and synchronous, face-to-face channels like video conferencing for complex projects, tasks, and exchanges. Similarly, they can use low-bandwidth and asynchronous channels like email or apps for simple and linear tasks and interactions. 

Another crucial piece of the puzzle regarding communication among remote team members is the need for a comprehensive workplace chat app. This is different from virtual meetings and video interactions or calls.  

2. Invest in the Best Collaboration Tools

A common problem in a remotely functioning team is that when using different collaboration apps like Zoom, Slack, Google Hangouts, and Spreadsheets, switching between multiple apps becomes a huge problem. Look for a digital workplace solution that integrates different apps under one roof. 

Before companies onboard remote teams, they must choose and implement collaboration tools like video conferencing, meeting rooms, and group chats to ensure that team members can communicate instantly.  

Collaboration tools include everything from apps and video-sharing technologies to programs that let employees revise documents, share interactive presentations, and brainstorm together in real time. InfinCE, for example, ensures that companies can bring partners and clients on board for a video conference or online meeting without downloading the app and even has features like simultaneous document editing. Such features are designed specifically for remote or hybrid teams and to improve productivity significantly. 

Besides enhancing the workflow, collaboration apps capture a lot of data and insights from projects and tasks, which can be used in the future. Companies should choose digital workplace solutions that support custom app integrations to meet specific needs. For example, developers and project managers who are collaborating remotely on a project rely on cloud-based tools with task-management capabilities. This means that they need tools that let their team members merge changes, schedule meetings, update events, check member availability, coordinate better, and reduce planning time.  

Read more: 5 Tips to Improve Remote Collaboration

3. Opt for Intuitive and Visual Dashboards

Dashboards are superb information management tools that enable visual facilitation. Visual tools are great ways to help employees focus, get involved, and access information on demand. Dashboards are also great analytics tools to generate reports to drive business decisions.

A centralized dashboard is essential for collecting data from multiple sources and providing a unified workflow view. It also keeps employees engaged by sharing a snapshot of the team’s projects or the company’s performance. Dashboards are also useful for organizational communication. Senior management can set objectives that can be broken down into action items, and these actionable tasks can be attributed to overall company goals and metrics. Apart from being an excellent organizational tool, this dashboard feature makes employees feel invested in the company’s growth, and they can track the company’s achievement milestones in conjunction with their own projects and efforts. 

Some digital workplace solutions also offer dashboard tiles that further customize the dashboard experience and strengthen communication, especially with application tiles that help to visualize business data on the dashboard.

4. Use Productivity Apps and Management Tools 

Remote team workers can stay connected with the right project management tools and productivity apps. The right productivity apps are built to be intuitive and to improve the employee experience. They keep teams and projects connected and synchronized. Productivity apps also track performance and enable professional growth across the team. You can also choose productivity tools and project management software that automate workflows and save valuable time.

There are multiple productivity apps but pick a digital workplace solution that can integrate all the productivity apps of your choice. Employee disengagement is a silent killer in the remote workplace, and having an integrated remote work platform will ensure that all team members are focused on the work and believe in the team. 

There are so many other factors that keep remote teams connected. It is important to implement a good remote onboarding program. InfinCE’s collaboration platform, for instance, makes it easy for managers and administrators to onboard employees quickly, instantly assign new job roles, and address personal employee needs. Data security is another matter of concern. Opt for apps that let you share files securely and a digital workplace solution that enables you to run your enterprise on a secure private cloud location. 

According to Gartner, organizations will be forced to adopt digital solutions to support remote and hybrid work, an investment that will drive business growth like never before. Companies that don’t adapt could slip out of the race.
InfinCE offers future-proof digital workplace solutions that truly lead to cross-functional collaborations, exemplary teams, and high-value business outcomes. Book a demo today to set your company on the path to digital transformation.

Teamwork is always the underlying element for business success, now more than ever, considering today’s remote working environment. The remote work revolution has caused companies to increasingly let their employees work from home, requiring geographically diverse team members to work in unison to attain corporate goals. 

So, why is remote collaboration important? 

74% of Fortune 500 CEOs expect to reduce their office space, thanks to anywhere working. Remote work calls for seamless collaboration among teams, and the digitalization of business processes endows companies with remote work capabilities. Remote collaboration is essential because it can:

1. Increase productivity, 
2. Optimize workflow processes,
3. Strengthen team relationships,
4. Help manage projects better, and
5. Improve communication.

A robust virtual collaboration environment must be in place for remote work to be productive. Your business needs the support of a smart digital workplace solution integrated with efficient collaboration tools to enable its dispersed team members to seamlessly share data to meet goals faster. 

What are collaboration tools?

Remote collaboration tools are the different kinds of software and services that allow your geographically diverse teams to work together to meet business goals. They eliminate the limitations of geographical locations as impediments to teamwork and equip your team members with the right capabilities to work in conjunction with each other to complete projects. You need a suite of various collaboration tools integrated into your digital workplace platform because they bring diverse benefits to the table.  

Read more: How A Collaboration Software Can Improve Productivity

A Few Benefits of Remote Collaboration  

1) Increases productivity   

Productivity is vital to increasing profits and efficiency. A productive workforce is a key to sustained business growth. Your remote employees have more time saved by eliminating unnecessary commutes, which can be effectively used to complete tasks faster. Likewise, virtual meetings consume less time than face-to-face meetings. In short, remote work helps your employees save a lot of time which they can productively use to complete their work faster and smarter.

2) Eases problem-solving

Collaboration enables diverse skill sets to come together to carry out tasks and address any challenges. Seamless sharing of knowledge can help resolve problems with more efficiency and address the blind spots, if any, with more ease, thus optimizing workflow processes. 

3) Allows freedom and flexibility at work     

One of the biggest boons of remote work is enabling your employees to enjoy more freedom and flexibility at work. The employees have ample time to accommodate their personal and professional lives while clocking the required work hours and completing tasks on time. This serves to ease work pressure and foster trust while leaving your employees more satisfied. 

4) Saves cost for both employers and employees  

Remote work relieves employers of the need to pay huge rentals for their office premises. Even in a hybrid environment, the physical premises of the office need to be retained only on a limited scale, thus saving huge costs which are otherwise incurred in the form of rents payable to huge commercial spaces. Remote work eliminates the costs of transportation, childcare, and work wear for employees, thus adding up to their savings. 

Thus, it is imperative for businesses to foster smart and effective collaboration among their employees to help the latter thrive in an increasingly digital working environment. Remote collaboration requires your teams to leverage technology to nurture communication among their members to work collaboratively to complete projects.    

Here are 5 Tips to Improve Remote Collaboration 

1. Set clear-cut goals and allocate tasks effectively

Your employees must be given a clear idea of the goals set. Removing uncertainty around the goals would help improve remote communication, increase productivity, and track the progress of projects. Set periodic milestones in well-defined terms, the progress of which can be tracked and displayed on custom dashboards to be viewed by the relevant persons.

2. Plan and schedule regular meetings  

Meetings should be set in a recurring pattern such that your employees get to know beforehand about it and plan their home and work life around it. Video calls and meetings, single and group chats can be done in real-time on digital platforms and made more fruitful by the data sharing feature of digital workplace solutions.

3. Set boundaries for communication 

Timelines should be set for communication which the teams should strictly follow to avoid false assumptions and misconceptions that could adversely affect team relationships and dynamics. Respecting the timeline for communication is important because the line between personal and professional lives blurs when working remotely and because diverse teams would be working in different time zones. The importance of the matter to be conveyed merits the type of communication that needs to be used, like email, instant messaging, phone calls, etc.

4. Create a collaborative environment by setting up multiple communication channels 

A torrential flow of data through a single channel of communication can cause the information to get lost and people to disconnect. Your teams need a digital platform that streamlines communication by dedicating separate discussion channels for separate tasks such that the right set of data reaches only the relevant personnel. Smart digital workplace platforms offer a multitude of avenues for effective communication among teams, like email, audio calls, one-on-one, and group video calls, individual and group chats, etc. 

5. Create custom dashboards for smarter data analysis 

Creating a custom dashboard on your digital workplace platform is the smartest way to track the progress of your projects. A smart, personalized dashboard simplifies data analysis and displays the right sets of metrics to the relevant people, thus giving transparency to the progress of tasks. Your employees get to stay on top of company updates and seamlessly share data through standard and custom tiles on custom dashboards designed exclusively to meet your unique business needs. 

Read more: How Can Organizations Profit More from Collaboration Software?

Effective remote collaboration thus improves productivity and builds healthy relationships among your employees while keeping them engaged at work. Businesses must embrace smart digital workplace solutions to make them future-ready and create a smart digital working environment for their remote employees. The challenges of cloud technologies are ever-evolving, and so are your business needs. A smart digital workplace solution like InfinCE would be your best buddy to promote smarter collaboration among your dispersed teams because:  

1. Its feature-packed collaboration apps affect smarter and streamlined communication among your teams. 
2. The employee directory on the platform lists all details of your internal and external contacts, allowing you to initiate a call, chat, or email directly from the directory.
3.  You can choose the right collaboration application from our extensive collaboration suite to help your employees connect better with remote team members and work together to meet goals.  
4. Individual and group chats can be made more meaningful through seamless and secure sharing of files.
5. Build trusted relationships through the multiple communication apps integrated with the platform.
6. Leverage centralized data using custom tiles on multiple dashboards.

InfinCE is the one-stop digital workplace solution that can make your business future-ready with infinite scaling-up capabilities to meet the ever-evolving challenges of the digital ecosystem. Get in touch with our experts to know more. 

Digital transformation is essential to your businesses primarily because it enables effective and efficient management of all your resources, be it technical or human. It empowers your business with technologies to help you stay relevant in today’s challenging market. Pandemic-induced lockdown forced businesses to increasingly adopt digitalization to enable their employees to stay connected and agile while working from the comfort of their homes or any place they preferred, thus preventing disruptions to workflows. 

Digital workplace statistics definitely demand the attention of non-adopters of digitization. McKinsey’s The Future of Work After the COVID-19 report says that 20-25% of the labor forces in advanced economies now have the capabilities to work from home between 3-5 days a week which is nearly four to five times more remote work than the pre-pandemic period. Reports from other market research firms also speak of an overall increase in digital adoption worldwide, endorsing a growing trend among businesses to embrace future technologies to remain competitive.

Foundry’s 2021 Digital Business Study report says 91% of the organizations surveyed have either adopted or have expressed their plans to adopt a digital-first business strategy. The report also says that the sample members plan to invest as much as $16.5 mn on digital initiatives this year on cutting-edge technologies like machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, and public cloud. What is important is once you decide to digitize part or whole of your business processes, you must wisely choose the right technologies that suit your operations best and ease your digital transition. Here is where a digital workplace solution comes in very handy.  A digital workplace solution is your best buddy when it comes to making your digital transformation journey productive, cost-effective, and meaningful.     

A digital workplace platform lets you have virtual meetings with any or all of your employees beyond the barriers of time, geographical location, devices, or network connections. It is an integrated platform that offers your employees all the right tools required to carry out their working tasks effectively and efficiently. It digitizes all the workflows related to your internal business processes and relocates your business space from a physical location to cloud space. This is achieved by moving all the data and technologies related to your business’s internal operations to a secure web interface that can be seamlessly accessed by your employees from anywhere on any device of their choice. InfinCE is a one-stop technology solution that simplifies the cloud by offering a wide array of applications and tools to help your business run its internal operations smoothly and productively. 

Having said that, adopters shouldn’t mistake that everything will always be hunky-dory in a digital workplace environment. Of course, a digital workplace solution has its own share of advantages and disadvantages. But the advantages always outweigh the disadvantages, and the latter should never deter your decision to embrace digital technologies.  

Read more: Five Myths Around Hybrid Workplaces Demystified

A few advantages of digital working places  

1. Promotes employee engagement 

In today’s digital world, businesses need engaged workforces to stay agile and competitive. Engaged employees are motivated to invest their best at work. Seamless communication in digital workplaces enables easy access to data, which helps simplify decision-making and improves employee engagement. 

The communication and collaboration tools of InfinCE help better engagement among your geographically dispersed employees and promote an interactive culture. The custom dashboards available on the platform are powered by a variety of tiles for enhanced visibility. Efficient collaboration and easy file sharing enabled by InfinCE help create a better user experience and bring your workforce together. The in-built digital workplace tools of InfinCE have capabilities to address all the internal operations of your business. 

2. Increases revenue and reduces costs

Digital workplace services improve the overall efficiency of your business operations by optimizing its capabilities while saving time and human efforts. Consolidation and automated processing of documents serve to eliminate the manpower previously required to accomplish the task in a non-digital environment. Centralized data offers information at the fingertips, which saves a lot of employee time. Digital capabilities help save time and human efforts while reducing the operational costs of businesses. 

With InfinCE, you get to run your business without a full-fledged in-house IT team. Thus, saving you much on your operational costs. 

3. Increases business productivity

A digital workplace streamlines business processes and removes communication hazards, thus increasing productivity. Integrating a wide range of tools and software into a digital workplace platform allows end-users to choose the right applications that suit their business model. Furthermore, automation of processes helps save time which can be productively used to achieve organizational goals. 

InfinCE is a perfect digital workplace platform for organizing work and managing your data, thus improving the efficiency of your workforce. The platform empowers your business with a wide range of productivity tools to create documents, manage emails, oversee tasks, and schedule events. Thus, the day-to-day activities of your business can be achieved with ease, and the efficiency of your workforce increases by leaps and bounds.  

Read more: How Digital Workplaces Improve Employee Experience

A few disadvantages of digital working place 

1. Increased dependence on technology

There is no guarantee that the software infrastructure of your digital workplace will run smoothly 24/7. Every aspect of work is likely to get technology dependent which can become a drawback in the long run as a technical glitch on the server-side may lead to a loss in productivity. In addition, if the system crashes, workflows will be disrupted until the issue is resolved. 

With InfinCE, you can enjoy concierge support from a technically adept team. The digital workplace services offered by InfinCE include a dedicated team to assist with the hosting, maintenance,  and updates of the software. The services of our dedicated support time include email, live chat, and phone support round the clock.  

2. Software upgradation can prove expensive

Technology keeps evolving, and so do your business needs. The cost of the upgrade has to be followed up with the cost of training your workforce to handle the upgraded software. A repeated need to learn new applications would be stressful for the employees, adversely affecting their performance and job satisfaction. But with software upgrades, efficiencies improve at all levels.  

The scalability feature on InfinCE helps you increase your server capacity and storage space without any hidden costs. The platform also allows you to scale down your cloud technologies in tune with your changing business needs, and you need to pay only for the applications you use. 

One of the biggest advantages of digitization is facilitating virtual and global collaboration through digital workplace solutions. A digitally integrated workforce enables businesses to keep their geographically dispersed employees on the same page logistically and coordinate their efforts toward meeting organizational goals. Digitization is here to stay, and businesses cannot afford to turn their backs on it if they want to stay competitive.

Reach out to our team for a quick demo or to know more about the InfinCE platform.

The advent of IT fundamentally changed the way businesses operate. It empowered companies with hardware and software capabilities to manage information overload better, and their workforces upgraded their skills to manage digital devices to fast track their work. As workplace demographics changed and expanded, big companies began to increasingly digitize their business operations to stay competitive and successful, thanks to the emergence of cloud technologies. When Covid19-induced lockdown disrupted workflows, small and medium-sized companies started digitizing their business operations to remain competitive. The last two years saw on-premise systems replaced by cloud-powered technologies at a much faster pace than ever before, and digital workplaces have come to spearhead the digital transformation of businesses. 

So, what is a digital workplace? A digital workplace is a virtual workplace setting wherein your employees across all departments get to stay connected as and when they want, across geographical boundaries, on devices of their choice,  and access all data and information relevant to get their work done. The cloud-backed tools of the digital workplace platform have the capabilities to enhance your employee experiences.

So, what is employee experience? Gartner defines employee experience as “the way in which employees internalize and interpret the interactions they have with their organization and the context that underlies those interactions”. In short, it is an employee’s perception of his job. HBR Analytic Services defines employee experience as “how hard or easy it is for employees to do their best work, taking into account technical, cultural, and physical touchpoints”.

So, why is employee experience important to businesses? The digital revolution has made companies realize that engaged, collaborative, and productive employee experiences are vital to delivering excellent customer experiences. Companies have discovered that the best way to build good customer experiences is by building good employee experiences. Communication and collaboration enabled by digital workplaces are vital to building good employee experiences. Sharing data across departments and geographies has paved the way for employees to build fruitful business relationships beyond their immediate workgroups or teams. Good employee experiences create good employee engagement.

Read more: Five Myths Around Hybrid Workplaces Demystified

Your digital toolbox will have all the tools and technologies required to help your employees stay connected, thus seamlessly easing their workflows. Pandemic-induced lockdown and remote work have redefined the way companies let their employees work. The introduction of digital workplaces has caused the line between employees’ professional and personal lives to blur, enabling them to leverage the tools available on their digital workplace platforms to seamlessly communicate and collaborate with their dispersed team members virtually. A good digital workplace leverages cloud technologies to integrate all applications required for business communication and employee collaboration like email, enterprise social media tools, virtual meeting tools, CRM, file storage and sharing, HRM, etc. InfinCE is the right partner for your company’s digital aspirations, with all the applications available on a single platform!  

An efficient digital workplace like InfinCE can improve your employee experience in more ways than one! Here is how:

1. Offering an efficient remote working environment.

The Talent Tech Outlook 2022 Study says 82% of employees prefer working from home. Remote work gives employees the freedom to set their own schedules and manage their work from whichever place they like. In addition, most employees consider the time saved by avoiding daily commutes a big blessing. InfinCE is a one-stop technology solution that has efficient office tools to bring your workforce together no matter which geographical location they work from. The platform enables secure storage and quick sharing of documents too. Thus, improving your employee experience by leaps and bounds. 

2. Providing instant communication and effective collaboration tools.

InfinCE has an extensive suite of collaboration apps that eases communication and collaboration with your company’s in-house and external contacts. While remote working is undoubtedly an aspect that enhances your employee experiences. 

3. Offering your business a unified, centralized platform to access all its applications.

Businesses need to use multiple apps to manage their daily operations. InfinCE has a curated applications marketplace with a growing list of apps to choose from, providing a wide range of solutions, including CRM, CMS, and HRM, hosted in secure environments. You have the absolute liberty to choose the applications you deem are right for your business operations. Seamless integration of multiple apps on a single platform eases business operations and improves employee experiences.  

Read more: How A Collaboration Software Can Improve Productivity

4. Boosting productivity.

With InfinCE, your employees get to connect to a  custom workspace that displays information based on your preferences through flexible tiles. A branded workspace easily connects your employees and aligns them to your organization’s core values, which raises engagement and productivity. The platform has multiple productivity tools to organize and manage your data and work. Its advanced data protection features enable private storage and secure sharing of your valuable data. InfinCE is a cutting-edge digital workplace that can help your business streamline its work very efficiently and effectively. Better employee experiences lead to increased productivity.

5. Providing single sign-on accessibility.

A single sign-on provides access to all your business software and productivity tools from anywhere. 

6. Offering device independence and ensuring work continuity.

InfinCE lets you enjoy the freedom to access your entire business software from anywhere through any device and allows you to continue working from exactly where you had previously left off. The device independence feature will definitely serve to improve your company’s overall employee experience while ensuring your work continuity.  

7. Providing absolute data security.

Your data enjoys absolute privacy and security on secured private virtual servers. Advanced firewalls and encryption/password-based access controls add to the security protocols of your data. Getting to work in a virtual environment that keeps your data safe and secure is an aspect that enriches your employee experience. By adopting an efficient digital workspace like InfinCE, your business can enhance its employee experiences in many ways and nurture a work culture wherein your employees would always want to do their best and improve their performances. InfinCE endows your company with the right kind of capabilities to achieve the true digital culture, thus helping its employee experiences scale new heights, leading to increased productivity and improved customer experiences. 

Read more: Why is It Necessary to Safeguard Data Privacy in Project Management?

In the digital ecosystem, employee experiences determine productivity, which shapes customer experiences. When you choose InfinCE to spearhead your digital transformation, you get access to the platform’s numerous features, which would serve to improve your employee experiences.

Get in touch with our experts to know more about how InfinCE can enhance your employee experiences. 

There is no arguing the fact that digital transformation is the need of the hour for businesses to drive success. So once you have made that crucial decision to embark on the digital transformation journey, the next step would be to choose the right digital workplace software that would make the transition smoother. Read on to learn about the core competencies that you need to look out for when adopting a digital workplace solution for your company.

Read more: Why InfinCE is The Only True Digital Workplace Orchestration Platform Ever Created

The Essential Features of Digital Workplace Software

Selecting a digital workplace platform can be much more overwhelming than it may sound. There are a lot of digital workplace tools available out there, and most of them look quite the same at a glance. Nonetheless, you need to ensure that the digital workplace solution you choose fits your organizational requirements in the best way. Otherwise, it will not serve the purpose, not to mention lead to unnecessary costs for the company in training and learning features that you would never use.

At the same time, you should realize that using multiple workplace tools to manage different aspects of the company is not a worthy option either. That is because it will require you to spend more hours training your employees as well as buy multiple subscriptions to meet different needs. That is why choosing all-in-one digital workplace software like InfinCE is a more practical approach to fulfilling the varied demands of digital transformation. For one, it comes with all the essential features to meet day-to-day communication needs in an organization. Plus, you get advanced tools for project management, time tracking, task allocation, file sharing, data storage, and more.

Read more: 5 Common Remote Work Challenges Solved by InfinCE Digital Workplace Solution

Here is a look at some of the most important features that you must have in the digital workplace software that would help to get you started with your digital transformation strategy.

1. Modules to Facilitate Multiple Tasks

Studies have found that more than 60% of employees end up wasting around an hour toggling between different applications to perform their jobs. With an all-in-one digital workplace solution like InfinCE, your employees will not have to juggle between different software to, say, share documents and have a video conference. A platform that comes with modules for automating simple tasks, building project boards, and handling collaboration needs from a unified dashboard is the right remedy.

2. Seamless Integration

Shifting to a digital workplace culture means you will need to move the existing processes and operations to a digital environment. Therefore, you need to choose a digital solution that allows for a seamless integration with the CRM, accounting, and other essential systems you are using. This will ensure that all the tools you require for the day-to-day running of your business are strategically connected to help you achieve higher productivity.

3. Simplified Project Management

One of the most striking benefits of adopting an ultra-modern digital workplace solution like InfinCE is that it allows you to jump right into managing your workflows with its no-code environment. In other words, the learning curve is never steep with InfinCE and you can get started in no time to create as many workflows as you need for your company. There is also 24/7 concierge support available to help you deploy the right solutions you need.

Read more: 5 Ways InfinCE Custom Dashboards Can Boost Your Workplace Productivity

4. Pre-Built Application Suite

Reports say that a reliable and intuitive digital workplace software solution can boost employee satisfaction and retention rates significantly. This is also because of the vast pool of pre-built apps in all-in-one workplace platforms, which helps you to save time in finding the right tools to automate the running and planned workflows. With InfinCE, you can start from scratch, upgrade the existing apps, or integrate the current systems through a unified platform, no matter what the type of your business is.

5. Communication Solutions

Contextual conversations are the backbone of a successful business in a digital workplace environment. Ineffective communication can severely affect the ability of your employees to perform their jobs, which can, in turn, lead to poor collaboration and lost productivity. InfinCE bridges this gap by providing multiple types of communication tools to meet your organizational requirements. Be it a quick audio call, instant messaging, or a group video conference, you can do it all using the unified platform.

6. Smart Reporting

Building a successful digital transformation strategy relies on generating a variety of reports. This helps to track performance and focus on areas that need to be improved to deal with the issues that affect process efficiency. An all-in-one digital workplace platform gives you multiple reporting options with pivot tables, aging metrics, audit logs, and even custom reports to meet your varied requirements, which would help to identify problems and take the necessary action to address them in time.

Read more: How InfinCE Online Collaboration Tool Helps Achieve Your Business Goals

7. Security and Access

You should also look for a digital workplace solution that provides you flexible access control options. This is vital to ensure that your confidential business data does not fall into the wrong hands. InfinCE comes with improved data security features to ensure absolute privacy so that you can keep sensitive conversations under wraps. It allows you to make the most of secure virtual private servers, advanced firewalls, as well as encryption and password-based access controls to simplify enterprise-wide collaboration and communication.

8. Workflow Flexibility and Automation

Another great feature that all-in-one collaboration software gives you is the ability to switch from different boards and layouts to meet your workflow needs. You can also assign tasks to different team members using custom parameters and set the expectations and deadlines clearly upfront to make project management simpler. Setting up rules for recurring tasks for different categories and generating them automatically at regular intervals will save a lot of time in task distribution.

Apart from these, you should also make certain that the digital workplace software you choose allows you to connect with remote teams globally and supports portability. InfinCE is a cloud-based workplace solution, which not only gives you unmatched versatility but also expands your reach to acquire talent from around the world. It can be accessed from any device, while you can also scale the server capacity and storage space needs as your business grows.

Read more: 8 Ways Cloud Automation Significantly Improves Your Legacy IT Operations

Make the Move Now!

Once deemed as an ambitious goal for large enterprises, having a digital transformation strategy has become essential for every business to stay competitive in the market. As the world is moving hurriedly toward a digital-first culture, it is high time to adopt the best digital workplace software and equip your organization for the future. So wait no more!

Sign Up with InfinCE today or connect with our experts for more details.

How to Ensure Optimal Workforce Productivity in Uncertain Times

The COVID-19 outbreak may have forced many businesses to adopt remote work policies that they were unfamiliar with earlier. However, with the right productivity apps and collaboration tools at their disposal, such organizations found managing their remote teams much easier than they initially thought. As the world embraced work-from-home practices, a lot of new productivity tools also entered the marketplace. Nonetheless, where this made managing the remote workforce simpler for some, it created further confusion for others when it came to choosing the right remote work tool for their business.

For instance, InfinCE team management software offers all the essential remote work applications and productivity tools you need to make remote work seamless. In addition, InfinCE allows you to pick additional productivity apps and third-party tools from its curated app marketplace and integrate them quickly. All these features of InfinCE simplify team management. With InfinCE, you can improve operational efficiency and employee engagement by ensuring that your teams have all the tools needed to perform their jobs.

Read more: 5 Common Remote Work Challenges Solved by InfinCE Digital Workplace Solution 

Remote work challenges

Remote workplace culture brings many benefits to the company in the form of cost savings, while it benefits employees by letting them work from the comfort of their homes. But, yet again, the work-from-home approach is not devoid of challenges either. For example, managers find it very difficult to establish a personal connection with their employees and build trust without direct contact. Likewise, they do not have much insight into the daily work of their teams and are required to experiment with different practices to keep the processes going.

Read more: 5 Best Practices To Enable Seamless Communication For Your Remote Workforce

1. No face-to-face supervision

The lack of in-person interaction between managers and employees makes leaders presume that their teams are not working efficiently, especially when they do not achieve the expected results. Though the deficit could be because of many other metrics, managers are likely to think that employees did not meet their targets and failed to perform to their potential due to no face-to-face supervision.

2. Limited access to information

Often, remote teams have to put extra effort into finding the information they need to perform their jobs. Getting even simple answers from their colleagues can take an entire day if they are located in different time zones. At the same time, interpersonal issues and low motivation to collaborate can also create a significant obstacle to keep the teams functional.

3. Lack of office culture

Social isolation, loneliness, and remote working can be stressful and lead to operational inefficiencies in many different ways. For example, without the usual interactions in office settings, employees can feel disconnected and lose their sense of belonging. On the contrary, home distractions and personal responsibilities can also affect remote working practices and impact overall productivity.

Read more: 5 Tips To Effectively Manage Remote Teams During Challenging Times 

Five practical ways to manage remote workforce better

Different enterprises have come up with distinct methods to manage their remote teams and overcome the related challenges. While that is a great way to explore the potential of remote working for your company, there are a few ways to simplify the approach. Here are some tips that will help you to manage your remote workforce in these uncertain times.

1. Set out with a proper plan

Everything should start with a proper plan when it comes to business management. It is significant for creating a healthy remote work culture as well. Therefore, you need to determine the best approach for running the day-to-day operations and communicate effectively with your team.

2. Define the expectations

Clearly define the expectations to your teams, set the targets, and communicate the respective timelines for each target with your employees before the start of the project. This will avoid confusion and allow you to track the performance of your teams.

3. Monitor project progress

Tracking the project’s progress periodically will help you update your teams about what they need to do next. This will also help you ensure that everyone is playing their part as they are supposed to.

4. Keep your team motivated

Do not let social isolation or lack of face-to-face interaction sneak in to affect your team’s productivity and the company’s overall operational efficiency. Instead, use different communication channels to interact with your teams and keep them motivated to ensure that they work to their best potential.

5. Ensure seamless access to data 

You should make sure that your teams have all the data and information accessible at all times to perform their duties efficiently. This will ensure that all employees can complete the tasks without waiting for someone to share the files.

Employ the right productivity apps

This is the golden ticket to seeing success with remote working policies. From planning the process using project management software to providing access to files via cloud-sharing tools, you can tackle all the challenges in adopting a remote workplace culture with the right productivity solutions. With an all-in-one platform like InfinCE, you can combine all the productivity tools for effective communication, collaboration, and performance tracking in a single suite.

Read more: How InfinCE Simplifies Multi-app Management for IT Managers 

Here are some of the most critical productivity apps that you should have to manage remote teams efficiently.

• Project management software helps you plan and sync the different tasks assigned to your remote workforce.
• Instant messenger app ensures that you can communicate important information to your teams in real-time.
• Documents sharing tool facilitates seamless information exchange among your employees so that they can work anytime.
• Video conferencing solution resolves the gap of face-to-face meetings to some extent while allowing effective communication.
• Time tracking app allows you to monitor the performance of your teams and keep everyone motivated to get the job done.

InfinCE gives you all these productivity apps and collaboration tools in a single platform to make remote team management much simpler. Besides, when you have multiple remote desktop tools for different purposes, it can quickly become chaotic to stay on top of everything, not to mention having to bear considerable subscription costs. With all the productivity tools in one platform, InfinCE also helps you avoid juggling different apps to manage your remote teams. Contact us to learn more about InfinCE.