Remote Work As The New Normal?

Many businesses are planning to continue with remote work initiatives after the pandemic concludes – it’s more cost-effective and more convenient. Is your business prepared for this new normal?

Ever since the Internet was adopted worldwide, remote work has been a possibility. A reliable phone line, a well-maintained business email account, and remote access to business data mean that an employee could be anywhere with an Internet connection and still get their work done.

But, for most of the professional world, remote work hasn’t been seriously considered until now. This global crisis has forced businesses to send their employees home and figure out how to keep them productive while they’re there.

According to 317 CFOs recently surveyed by Gartner, the business world may not change back when the pandemic is over – 74% of CFOs say they expect to move previously on-site employees remote post-COVID-19.

Why Should You Consider A Permanent Remote Work Model?

Like all remote models supported by the cloud, hosting your data remotely and having your staff access it remotely delivers several key advantages when compared to the conventional in-office working model.

Advantages include:

Reduced Maintenance: By hosting a user’s software, applications, and data externally in another organization’s server room or data center, the onus of maintenance is shifted to that organization. Instead of having to maintain server space, execute updates and patches, address and eliminate issues, replace failed hardware, and other tasks associated with maintenance, someone else takes care of it all.

Easy Access: A hallmark of cloud solutions, one of the key advantages of utilizing remotely hosted solutions is that it allows for easy, anywhere access to software, applications, and data.

More Cost-Effective: Accessing software via a remote hosting service is undeniably more affordable because it allows the user to avoid costly software licenses that are based on a concurrent user model.

If remote work is this popular and this cost-effective, why has it taken a crisis of this magnitude to reveal its potential?

Primary Challenges To Overcome With Remote Work

Conventional Working Culture: Many people still feel that work has to get done in an office, or at least, not at home. The assumption is that remote employees aren’t productive and take advantage of the lack of supervision.

Security & Compliance: For highly regulated industries like healthcare, finance, and government, the prospect of providing remote access to sensitive data is too much trouble. It’s one thing to keep an office secure and compliant – doing the same for multiple private residences is much more difficult.

Only time will tell how many businesses continue with a remote work model in some form once the pandemic concludes. If nothing else, this has been a valuable opportunity to test the potential of the remote work for businesses that never would have otherwise.

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