The remote work come to stay, this trend for work in house, it accelerates with the Covid-19, but even with a vaccine remote work is far from disappearing. According to the Global State of Remote Work Report 2020, 70% of the work force in the United States worked remotely, and before 2020 the 80% of respondents expect to work from home at least 3 times a week.

Remote work has great advantages, but there are 5 fears that we must  overcome to make the most of all its benefits.

Fear #1: Remote work is work 24/7

This is one or the most important fears for the new remote workers and the most common mistake is not knowing how to differentiate the time between personal life and work.

The best way to deal with this fear is to set limits, to yourself and for your manager. Set an alarm for wake up and for stopping work, make your availability hours clear, and politely let your boss know that you will not respond outside these hours.

Solution

• Set limits
• Plan leisure activities after work hours

Fear #2: Remote work affects productivity.

This is one of the biggest myths around productivity, and the Global State of Remote Work shows us that 75% of remote workers are equally or more productive working face-to-face. Remote work is very productive, but you must get used to measuring yourself by results and not by the amount of hours you spend in front of your computer.

Solution

• Measure productivity by objectives
• Learn to lead asynchronously

Fear # 3: remote meetings are ineffective

A very common mistake is to fall into long cycles of unproductive meetings that do not solve anything and are designed to supervise and not to reach a specific point.

These types of meetings reveal the inability of the company to asynchronously lead its employees and applications such as Workep,
allow to understand the status of all the activities that are assigned to a team at work without having to hold surveillance meetings.

Solution

• Have a monthly activity plan
• Make a board with the list of activities to do, pending and completed per month

Fear # 4: information is not secure working remotely

If your employees handle sensitive information, this is something you should be concerned about.

There are many solutions to maintain information security. Intranets, VPN connections, control of digital assets, restrict a time slot and in which your employees can transfer information and use company equipment (PC, laptops or smartphones), these solutions are affordable and if your company handles confidential information they will pay for themselves.

Solution:

• VPN
• Intranet for sensitive information
• Active management applications

Fear # 5: Remote work drives up costs

This is one of the biggest fears of employers looking to keep company expenses in check in times of uncertainty.

The good news is that by having remote employees you avoid investing in costs such as rent, office, cafeteria and other administrative expenses. Your real challenge in remote work is to keep the pace of work and the company culture intact even from home with the help of tools that allow you to organize and communicate with your team to stay aligned.

Solution:

• Workep
• Slack
   

Remote work is here to stay, knowing how to do it can skyrocket your productivity and the happiness of your employees. But if you don’t get it right, it can become a source of anxiety for you and your team.