The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many employees to transition to remote work and rely heavily on technology for their paychecks. But technical difficulties while working remotely – in addition to adjusting to remote working has impacted staff and managers in many different ways.
The team at San Francisco, CA-based app design firm Fluxon surveyed 1,005 employees working during the height of the pandemic who had shifted from in-office to remote work in 2020. It wanted to explore changes in work behavior since transitioning to remote work.
It discovered that working from home has significant benefits for some employees. Generally, people were satisfied with going remote.
Nearly one in four (23.3%) employees report feeling more disciplined, and almost one in three (29.6%) employees report feeling more creative since transitioning to remote work.
However almost three out of four (72.4%) reported that they had some difficulty in making the transition to switch to remote working. And technology has a large part to play in these difficulties.
Fluxon
Over half (50.6%) said that they have faced technology issues whilst working from home. Almost two out of five (39.6%), and over one in three (34.4%) had issues around virtual meetings.
One in three employees reported feeling less disciplined and efficient since working from home, struggling with a lack of social interaction (32.5%) and boredom (31%).
Almost one in seven (14%) of remote workers experienced difficulty stepping away from work, while 12% admitted to having issues with colleagues contacting them outside of work hours
Although a majority of employees want to continue working remotely once the pandemic passes, it will take some time to shift business processes and pivot to the features that enable remote work and technology to be successful.
Having efficient collaboration tools in place to streamline work and allowing for differences in the creative process for people to have the time – without intrusions – to do their best work are both necessary.
Pop up chats are great for some workers – but massively intrusive for others. Adopting a sensitive approach, and adopting these changes to flexibly suit all ways of working could take time.
But, when completed, you might find that your business is well positioned to succeed – wherever your workers happen to be.
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