A long time ago, in a land far far away, aka before coronavirus, many businesses hadn’t embraced remote employment as a viable option. But, serious health concerns became a priority and mandatory shutdowns went into effect. Traditional businesses abandoned norms. Strict eight-to-five offices found themselves sending their employees home to work. For some, this move toward a digital workplace fed their longing for a better work/life balance. Not only that but greater use of technology benefitted and satisfied many millennials. For others, the move to remote employment was challenging and isolating.
The Challenges of Remote Employment
The most common problem reported or associated with remote employment is employee engagement. Without face-to-face interactions, it is easy for team members to feel isolated. Isolation leads to detachment, which turns into a lack of fulfillment. No one wants employee turnover due to a simple problem like disconnection!
Companies need to maintain connections with their employees who are no longer within arms reach. It is critical to establish convenient and reliable means of communication. With so much still unknown about the virus, employers will have to rely on a remote workforce for the moment. hubley™ is an intranet solution that works within Sharepoint/Office365. It facilitates seamless operations regardless of the distance between you and your team members.
The Benefits of an Intranet System
Teams must stay connected even when they aren’t in physical proximity. With a dependable intranet, team members can communicate and collaborate on their projects. Establishing consistent communication restores a sense of connection and community. The ability to co-author and collaborate in real-time reinforces those feelings. There are several benefits that intranet solutions bring when trying to manage your teams working remotely.
1. Restores the Company Mission: Employees who remember and can identify with their company’s mission remain more productive and engaged than employees who feel like they are a number. It is easy to feel the company culture and mission in on-site interactions and through visuals or graphics around the office. It is much harder to remain constant when trying to adapt to the challenges of remote employment. With our intranet, you can create a space devoted to sharing information that fulfills the company mission.
2. Fosters Collaboration: Many industries have figured out how to increase productivity through team-based projects. Yet, there is a valid fear that productivity will fade away as remote employees struggle to collaborate. There isn’t an option currently to drop down the hall to check in with a coworker. Waiting on information by email or phone calls can be time-consuming and unproductive. Collaborative portals and integrated document management are two ways to unite employees again.
With hubley™, everyone can stay on track and focused on each product. Information is only a few clicks away. Forget about waiting for a coworker to respond to an informational inquiry. Working together simultaneously with collaborative functionality and communication helps the entire team. Employees remain more optimistic about their work conditions and productivity. Despite employee isolation from coworkers, teamwork has evolved to meet those needs.
3. Encourages Transparency: There are many challenges one faces when managing remote employees. One of the more challenging aspects is keeping up with all the various departments and teams. It can be a burden to merge all the individual pieces of information and progress into a single report. It is even more time-consuming to have to email that information to other company departments and employees. Don’t leave your different departments buried under heaps of information without real knowledge of what other groups are doing. A SharePoint intranet can open the doors to full transparency and communication across the company.
There is more than enough space to post videos or provide updates on each department. Better yet—our social intranet tools allow each employee to have a voice within the digital workplace. Add comments or feedback to posts! Give your employees an equal opportunity to engage with others in their department, those that had been down the hall not too long ago. Social interaction, even if it originates through discussions about a project or overlap in tasks, is vital to keeping employees engaged. Encourage employees to engage with the company through contests, forums, or newsletters!
