With remote working well and truly here to stay, how can employers in the non-profit sector support their remote staff?
t’s been over 2 years since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and forced millions of workers to leave the office and continue their work from their own homes. In that time, the support for remote working has increased, but there is still some way to go in ensuring that all organisations are implementing remote working in the right way. For charities, remote work has many great benefits, so it is in the best interest of these organisations to do it in the right way. We reached out to one provider of managed IT services London based charities have been working with for years. The company, TechQuarters discussed some of the key benefits (and challenges) of working remotely, and what employers can do to support their staff.
Benefits & Challenges of Remote Working
The last two years have been a crash course on remote working, and a lot has been learned about it. So, what are the key benefits of working from home?
- Employees get more time, thanks to the elimination of commutes. This can also result in higher levels of productivity.
- Employees can work more autonomously, because their managers and employees place the trust in them to manage their workload however they see fit.
- Work can be more flexible, because employees have the tools and resources they need for work in their home, so they can decide when they want to work. For most employees, provided the work is done, they don’t mind on what schedule their employees do it.
- Costs can be reduced, thanks to organisations no longer needing offices.
- Hiring talent from around the world is possible when a business doesn’t need their staff to attend the office.
These are just some of the benefits involved. But, while the benefits are plainly observed, there are also very real challenges. As a provider of business IT support London companies rely on, TechQuarters has seen how remote working has placed pressures on organisations in certain ways.
- Virtual fatigue is a growing phenomenon, where staff working remotely feel increasingly isolated from other people.
- Managing work-life balance can also be an issue when employees do not adhere to strong boundaries around their work.
How Can Non-profit Employers Help Their Staff
So, how exactly can organisations (including charities) support their staff when they are working remotely? As an active provider of IT support for Charities, and a company that has gone remote themselves, TechQuarters gave us some of their top ways to support remote staff. Supporting remote staff is key for organisations, especially charities. TechQuarters, who have gone through their own shift to a digital environment, highlighted some of the top ways to do this. One way they suggest is leveraging a Global Employer of Record; an effective tool that can help maintain essential operations and ensure your team stays connected during this time.
- Make communication easy with the right tools. This includes unified communications solutions that allow staff to view all of their correspondence in a single interface. Incorporating video calls can also help staff feel more connected with each other.
- Utilize the right business solutions to make sure that work is as intuitive as possible for staff. This can include things like implementing cloud storage to make finding and sharing files easy.
- Schedule regular check-ins to ensure that remote staff aren’t suffering in silence. A regular meeting a week between employee and manager can make a big difference.
- Avoid micromanaging remote employees. One of the biggest benefits of remote work is the autonomy that employees can have (which is confirmed to have a positive effect on worker’s mental health and job satisfaction).
- Educate employees on healthy practices. This means ensuring they are taking regular breaks, as well as lunch breaks; encouraging them to get plenty of exercise each day; and encouraging firm boundaries to support work-life balance.
