COVID-19 has drastically reshuffled the priority deck for the entire world. It has introduced us to a world where productivity does not come at the cost of physical presence. The way we do, look at, and think about business has also changed.

Remote operations are no longer a pipe dream, they are a reality. To that end, we scoured the internet and found some COVID remote work statistics and how Folderit can help address these concerns.

Managers’ concerns with COVID Remote Working Statistics 

The biggest concern faced by most businesses was the idea that productivity would plummet. Managers who were handling remote teams presented the following observations:

• 82% suggested that employees would not be able to focus, the same percentage believed employee productivity would plummet.
• 75% believed that team cohesiveness would drop.
• 70% had concerns about maintain company culture.
• 67% were concerned that lack of office hours might cause employees to be overworked.
• 65% suspected employees’ careers would be affected in some way.
• 57% senior leadership would prefer the traditional way of working.
• 55% suggested not being able to communicate in person would be a challenge.
• Four in five HR managers think working from home has encouraged e-presenteeism.

Employees working in remote teams presented the following concerns

On the other end of the spectrum, employees had the following observations:

• 63% of the global workforce surveyed were of the opinion that they were more productive when working from home than they were remotely.
• 54% parents, however, admit to significant difficulty finding a work-life balance while working from home.
• Weekends are fast becoming extinct. Microsoft Team chats on Saturday and Sunday are up by 200%.
• 86% employees express the need to prove to their superiors that they are working hard, this is manifesting in 4-days of accumulated overtime. 
• 37% companies that were already working remotely (before COVID) indicated that they are actually seeing increased employee productivity.
• 52% Employees believe that their employers need to invest in better technologies.
• 37% IT leaders said that employees were under equipped to transition to remote work.
• 3- major complaints received by IT during the pandemic were: 
  • 38% had VPN access issues
  • 37% had Wi-Fi connectivity and reliability issues 
  • 35% struggled with video conferencing app issues

Realistically, working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted productivity by a measly 1%. This is remarkable, despite the fact that 31% of the workforce used this new technology for the first time in their careers.

• 86% of remote workers rate their productivity as excellent, or good while 81% of them rate their communication as excellent, or good. 
• An average employee around the world has spent $273 of their own money to upgrade their hardware during the pandemic, while US workforce spent an average of $348 on their upgrades.
• 86% parents are now of the opinion that they want to work flexibly. This number was 46% before coronavirus.
• 59% employees felt they were more cyber secure from home.

Solution

Some of the concerns highlighted through this data suggest that some companies and professionals still need to come to terms with the new world and how business is done from now on. Hoping thing could just snap back to normal is not a viable solution. Worrying about one’s career, or simply not trusting technology to keep things as streamlined as ever is a concern that can only be alleviated through experience.

However, for all other concerns, technology like Folderit can solve problems. Folderit is just as accessible from a mobile device in Peru as it is from a supercomputer in New Zealand, as long as you have access to a web-enabled device. Folderit’s 256-bit bank-level encryption ensures that your content is safe from unauthorized access. 

Folderit lets teams take the form of users or user groups that have varying degrees of access to various files and folders. All files maintain an access-log containing data on which user accessed which file and when. Team members can collaborate with each other on documents live, or one at a time, especially in collaboration with Microsoft Office 365 (separate subscription required).  This would improve team cohesion, accelerate focus, and simplify communication and managers can keep track of ePresenteeism by comparing hours online vs work done. 

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