Tech opportunities emerge in remote work culture

Are most institutions prepared for the growing trend of remote work culture? Do they have the technology to facilitate such a shift? Some institutions are already well ahead with remote working capabilities and have a strong system in place, whilst others, are not fully equipped for the change. The sudden switch to telecommuting en masse will no doubt, prompt a shift in our perception of work and how it is conducted.

“The virus could act as a game-changer for remote work,” says Prithwiraj Choudhury, a professor at Harvard Business School.

According to Smartsheet’s Mark Mader the “challenge of remote work isn’t just about physical location, it is also about the need for people to feel connected and stay informed.” That means intelligent tooling, and smart workplaces and practices. This period is seen by many experts as a time to leverage both tech and tools to facilitate productivity and performance in context to remote work settings. Some experts view this as a profound cultural shift and stress the importance for resources, appropriate support and mentoring to be in place for successful transition.

The current work from home arrangements has enabled office employees to see things from the perspective of those working full-time from home. Amid the virus outbreak, there is no longer a perceived divide or segregation between great minds that work in their own personal space and those who belong to the office community. Whilst the remote work design might create anxiety or concern, some are yielding opportunity in these challenging times.

Established tech giants, Google and Microsoft are offering tools for free, in the hope that more people will use them once daily activities have resumed. According to a spokesperson from Slack – a company that provides business chat software – they are helping the world adjust to remote work. Slack is also hosting free consultations for companies that are adapting to remote work for the first time. It seems that a work cultural shift means exploring new ways to create and collaborate with tools to empower, not disarm our capabilities. The successful transition in work culture will not happen overnight but our technologically advanced society and the resources we have access to, will no doubt, facilitate the changes and may even create new channels of team collaboration. This may strengthen a different aspect of our work ethic that we could not have otherwise achieved in the conventional work space.