The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the practice of social distancing have forced companies everywhere to introduce telework as a way to respond to the global health threat we faced in 2020 and are still facing now.
The coronavirus telework circumstances may introduce a wider adoption of remote work practices even after the crisis has passed.
In this article, we will discuss how the global pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital workplaces and remote working that may be here to stay, even post-COVID-19. We’ll also explain how your business can navigate the pandemic and post-pandemic to ensure productivity and success with doForms.
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How Coronavirus Telework Accelerated The Era Of Digital Workplaces
In order to demonstrate social responsibility and maintain the safety and health of their employees, business of all sizes gradually transitioned to remote work amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
This shift helped many businesses flourish and survive the worst of the pandemic, while quite possibly also marking the end of traditional office structures and working environments that separated jobs from private lives.
Coronavirus work from home has put the notions of company culture and traditional workplaces to the test. While we move toward the long-awaited post-COVID-19 era, the way many companies operate may be changed for good – possibly without ever returning to the old “normal.”
What will this economic and cultural reorganization of work bring to the table?
On the positive side:
- Worker satisfaction may be increased
- Office costs and emissions may be reduced
- Family and work roles may be better balanced
The challenges of telecommuting can include:
- Higher difficulty managing staff remotely
- Negative effects of professional isolation on well-being and career development
- Possible loss of productivity in the long run, without the proper changes
The possible challenges of coronavirus telework can be overcome with the use of contactless solutions that help employees work more efficiently out of the office and keep them safe.
By contactless solutions, we mean of course, doForms.
Our electronic forms can help your business adapt to the new telecommuting era, while keeping productivity levels as good as before or even better.
Discover our mobile form features. Try doForms for free!
Telework & Productivity: A Breakdown Of How Mobile Forms Facilitate Coronavirus Work From Home
Much of the world has adopted coronavirus telework as the safest and most secure workplace.
The 2020 shift shed light on some pain points as well as benefits companies can experience with telecommuting.
Greater coronavirus telework productivity is possible if there are mechanisms in place that will keep all systems running smoothly and all employees on board.
To understand your own business’s perspective in the situation of employees working remotely for an indefinite period of time, answer these questions:
- Are you having difficulties managing employees?
- Is your business struggling with reporting, delivery, timesheets and data collection?
- Do you still need to mobilize some of your employees and have them interact with clients?
- Are your current processes for managing teleworking staff a mix of texting, emails and spreadsheets?
Answering these questions will provide you with a better understanding of your need for doForms’ solutions that can help you boost your work productivity.
How doForms Can Help Your Company’s Coronavirus Telework Productivity And Remote Work Adoption
doForms supports all industries that experience their own set of issues where coronavirus telework is required.
The advent of telecommuting since the outbreak of COVID-19 has brought about these pain points common to employees and business managers:
- Poorer employee visibility, which causes difficulties in work distribution
- Deficit of supervision that results in sub-standard work quality and deliverables
- Incapacity to report to management in a timely manner
- Centralized processing and storage required by paper forms
doForms provides for companies working remotely by making coronavirus telework flow easier, faster and ultimately, more productive. Our forms also enable complete visibility of employees telecommuting to management.
With doForms’ mobile and electronic forms, teleworking businesses can:
- Create educational forms that update employees on new processes and procedures
- Use the built-in automated workflow engine for creating approval process forms
- Replace paperwork tickets with digital work tickets
- Dispatch employees remotely
- Manage employees that set their own schedules for working remotely
One of the stand-out doForms features are the contactless signatures – particularly useful in the times of global pandemic and social distancing.
The doForms version of this feature is unique as it allows work documents to transfer safely among employees and between employees and management.
Without hampering the workflow, the feature enables document transactions while keeping all parties in the safety and comfort of their own homes. It collects important work data and digitizes documents efficiently without any direct human interaction.
Contactless signatures improve coronavirus telework productivity because they are not people-intensive and do not need centralized processing like paper forms do. doForms electronic forms take less time to execute and are more secure.
Take a look at our video training on using doForms for collecting contactless signatures.
doForms | Contactless Signature Training – COVID 19 Feature | Mobile Forms
Telecommuting Statistics: The Changing Face Of Work Culture
According to the most recent stats, about half of Americans are now working from home, which is more than double the figure from 2018.
The use of telework also varies across different sectors, with knowledge intensive services leading the way, while manufacturing services are still very much workplace reliant.
Occupational skill intensity is also a factor when it comes to coronavirus telework opportunities. Highly skilled workers are the group that works from home the most.
It is also of note that higher-income employees were more likely to telecommute during the pandemic.
In general, over the last several years, working remotely has been the fastest growing mode of work.
The coronavirus outbreak further accelerated this trend of coronavirus telework cultures: one in five CFOs and other managerial figures  they plan to keep at least one fifth of their staff working from home in order to cut down expenses.
Will Coronavirus Remote Work Lead To An Increase In Productivity And Other Business Benefits?
From the perspective of a business organization, the main question is whether teleworking will remain an emergency measure or if it will become a new standard for workplaces everywhere.
For now, it is evident that those teleworking are already facing some very specific challenges – and opportunities.
One of the challenges of teleworking and working remotely – during and after COVID-19 – is accepting that the boundaries between private and professional life may become obscured.
Teleworking also comes with the requirement for greater personal responsibility from employees, while navigating their newfound flexibility and freedom.
The biggest challenge company managers face in this regard is examining how to balance workers’ private needs with professional obligations.
For the company, as well as for the employees, teleworking comes with certain attachments and obstacles to overcome. But it also comes with hidden perks: companies that allow their employees to decide on when and where they work achieve higher productivity, lower costs and reduced turnover.
Company performance will improve through workers’ efficiency that rises from their work satisfaction – better work-life balance, less commuting and fewer distractions that lead to more focused work.
In turn, these worker satisfaction factors come with beneficial side-effects such as reduced carbon emissions and lowered traffic congestions.
However, company productivity may also be badly affected by teleworking’s negative effects, such as hidden overtime, fusing of private and work live, poor working environment at home, solitude and other factors.
One study has confirmed that companies that allow self-managed work times and trust-based work practices lead to greater teleworking efficiency. In Germany, this approach led to more intensive worker effort, stronger product innovation and higher overall productivity.
Another way in which coronavirus telework can improve performance is enabling cost reductions: it can reduce capital expenses cutting down equipment and office space required by the company.
Also, as remote work enlarges the total pool of potential workers companies can recruit, the skill supply is increased, which improves the match between the hire and the job, which reduces labor costs.
Finally, companies that offer coronavirus telework options are also able to attract workers at lower salaries than would be the case with domestic workers in well-developed nations who work from office.
This particularly applies to instances in which flexible hours further improve work-life balance, so that hires are willing to exchange a higher salary for such amenities.
Coronavirus Telework Takeaways
The pandemic and post-pandemic business world has shifted toward teleworking as a necessary way of life. However, this change came with a very specific set of challenges and benefits.
doForms can help your business tap into these benefits and thrive in productivity by:
- Reducing office costs
- Keeping everyone within your organization on the same page
- Managing staff more effectively
- Replacing paperwork transfer with faster electronic forms
- Accelerating reporting and data collection
