Now, more than ever, remote working and working from home is becoming a huge factor in many businesses. With lots of government advice in the UK to work from home in 2020, it is important that we see how you can actually benefit from this, and we are going to discover how remote working can help business agility.
Agility in business is essentially how well a business adapts to change. It is the ability to be able to react to changes quickly and efficiently. Market changes happen fast, so an agile business will be able to overcome this and react to these changes – making sure that they do not lose quality whilst doing so. This will mean that they are constantly at a competitive advantage. It is a lot to do with the adoption of values and change in behaviours and capabilities. Doing these things helps businesses and individuals in the company to be more adaptive, creative and understanding when dealing with uncertain situations that the business may face. Fractal Systems provide business agility training courses and they specialise in business transformations through training, mentoring, coaching and consulting with business leaders and teams to consistently deliver success through close collaboration.
What Is Remote Working?
Remote working is a system where businesses employ people that do not have to attend a physical location to work from. Remote workers will be able to complete their day to day jobs from wherever they please, without having to commute to an office or place of work. A recent example of this would be the masses of people working from home in the UK under current government guidelines.
More commonly, remote working means that companies can choose to hire anybody that they want, without having to worry about where this person has to commute to and from. This allows companies to handpick staff and create their perfect workforce, if they are in a position where remote working is possible.
How Do Remote Working And Business Agility Go Together
Firstly, remote working challenges the typical 9-5 working hours that many people are accustomed to. This means that a lot of people that engage in remote working are able to work flexible hours that suit them. Therefore, when market changes happen and businesses and individuals need to respond to the changes, working at all hours can be hugely beneficial. Things are going to need to be done outside of the typical 9-5 hours, so having individuals to use throughout different days and different hours can help you adjust and adapt to changes quicker and more efficiently. This of course will not apply to all businesses, but in some situations, businesses that employ people remotely, across the world, are able to operate all hours, which really increases business agility.
Managing a remote team, as opposed to an office based team is a different ball game, and will require a different skill set and some training. However, if you are successful in learning to manage a remote team then you will reap the benefits and it will be fantastic for your business agility. Some benefits for individuals in a remote team are:
- Increased motivation
- Boosting productivity
- Increased business resilience
If your workforce has all of these fantastic benefits then your business agility will be amazing. You need your staff to be quick and on the ball to react and adapt when needed and things such as increased motivation and productivity will give you exactly that.
Another point that I briefly mentioned previously that will benefit your business agility is the fact that you can hand pick your workforce when you work remotely. The fact that you do not need your remote workforce to attend a physical location means that you are able to hire anybody that you want without implications of travel. In a normal situation, you may find the perfect candidate for the job, somebody that you know would align with your processes and help increase your business agility – but they are not willing to commute 2 hours every day to your office, so you have to hire somebody that doesn’t quite fit the bill. This would of course negatively impact your working processes – so leaning towards a remote workforce would benefit you in this situation.
Remote working is a great way to improve business agility, and if you are taking part in it then you will see the benefits for your workforce. We are part of a working generation that has the ability to harness conference calls, video calls, instant messaging, collaborative working tools and much more to do all the things that we would do in an office – so you should make the most of it!
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