The covid-19 pandemic has decreased but not over completely and it seems like it will its traces in 2021 too. The adjustments we all made for temporary work from home is turning into long term changes at our places. However, the changes in work and culture is going to make an impact on the way of work.
A study conducted for CSS insights discovered that 60% of businesses in North America and western Europe expect 25% of their employees to stay at home and work remotely. In addition to this, many big companies in the market have already given their consent for homeworking for their staff. Twitter has allowed its workforce to stay at home while working remotely for the company. Dropbox has given the same policy in their company. Facebook and Microsoft have also shown leniency in this matter as their staff member can permanently work from home.
This situation has brought many positive changes along with the severity at the moment. Yes, due to the work-from-home scenario, many leaders have started to implement the available technology after the Covid-19 emergency. In the past, there was some resistance to the technological implementation. Due to the ongoing situation, many people were able to overcome this resistance to cover the necessary gap. However, the larger the skill gap is, the more training and support is required to meet the digital transformation requiremnets with the speed of change.
Work From Home May Upgrade Into Work From Anywhere
As soon as the covid-19 proves its audacity in the workplaces, more and more companies are accepting the work-from-home change. This change has made them realized that some teams could be more productive while working from home. In some cases, working from home can reduce the team budget to a considerable extent.
For the said reasons, companies are allowing their staff to continue working from home even after the travel restrictions and social distancing practices are over. As a result, after things get back to normal, employees will have an opportunity to work from anywhere as they will not be bound to attend the office for work. It could help them spend more time with family or participating in remote opportunities that they couldn’t do earlier.
Since many companies have invested this year in making virtual collaboration easy, they would want to make use of that technology in the upcoming years as well. This can also make the transition for many of these employees seamless and unnoticed by employers.
Despite these improvemnts, a decline in engagement can be marked as a drawback of remote working. Engagement denotes the enthusiasm employees possess for their jobs and the association they feel with their workspaces and the teams. The accountability is increased, and it’s difficult more difficult to show your dedication through your body language, attitude, and relationships. In an office setting, it’s easy to express the way you are perceived through genuine enthusiasm, energy, and passion.
On the other hand, while working from home where the team collaborates mostly with text, it’s difficult for employees to convey such energy and passion. At the same time, it is harder for employers to identify the enthusiasm in the employees. In 2021, employees might need to put extra effort into strengthening their engagement virtually to make sure they perceived the right way in their virtual team and find better opportunities. In this regard, some mobile app development companies have contributed their efforts and built really useful collaboration apps that can improve engagements among teams.
Apps Supporting Work From Home
Murals
It is an app specially designed to help companies and teams working remotely. The app offers features to help teams collaborate while working from home. The app works like a digital whiteboard where the teams can discuss and share their ideas and concerns. This is the reason why these apps are constantly getting popular among working teams. Mural has seen more than a million active users, too. The app allows users to have a visual representation of a project that can be seen and added by all the members of the team.
Miro
Miro is another collaborative whiteboard platform to make it easy for teams to collaborate, regardless of time and place. The app claims to make collaborations as easy as in the same room. The app enables teams to better engage distributed and remote teams in brainstorming, processes, workshops, and decision making with digital workspaces that enable both asynchronous and synchronous collaboration. The following are some of the features of Miro:
- Ideation and Brainstorming
- Meetings and Workshops
- Strategy and Planning
- Research and Design
- Agile Workflows
- Mapping and Diagramming
Asana
Asana is a popular project management app that can be used equally for managing a project from home. The app allows the team to handle their tasks in a list-based board and then track the task accordingly. The List-based boards are designed as a simple to-do list. The app also features Kanban-based boards that are consisted of tasks that track the progress by moving along the columns to monitor progress.
It is quite simple for users to handle and manage projects with Asana. For instance, you can add and give titles to different tasks and columns in the Kanban-based boards. It helps you track your progress with tasks and easily monitor the workflow. You can simply create three columns, including “To do,” “working,” and “completed,” and then move cards across columns as their progress status is upgraded.
