Remote work was a “nice-to-have” over the past 10 to 15 years, allowing workers with certain skill sets the ability to work from home. It also provided enterprises of all sizes the opportunity to capitalize on the expertise of those skilled workers, no matter where they were located.
The distributed workforce became a necessity during the pandemic, with office buildings shuttering to avoid spreading Covid-19. Remote work allowed businesses to continue business as usual, not without growing pains, and keep its workforce engaged and contributing to their bottom lines.
Cloud services platforms were the cog in the proverbial wheel of enterprise, allowing teams to work from home and continue to provide value. As the world has come out of the worst of the pandemic, many companies are keeping their remote workforces, well, remote.
Enterprises derive several benefits from remote work by leveraging cloud services platforms. See below for several key advantages.
Benefits of Leveraging Clouds Services for Remote Work: Improved Productivity
Cloud services platforms enable employees to access their work resources and applications from anywhere. This flexibility allows them to work at their preferred time and location, resulting in increased productivity. Remote work eliminates time spent commuting and provides employees with a comfortable and personalized work environment, leading to enhanced focus and efficiency.
Let’s dive into increased productivity a bit further.
- Seamless Access: Cloud platforms offer remote workers seamless access to company resources, including documents, files, applications, and databases. Remote employees can retrieve the required information and tools from the cloud, eliminating the need for physical presence or dependence on on-premises infrastructure. This quick and convenient access enhances efficiency and eliminates time wasted searching for files or waiting for colleagues to share information.
- Real-time Collaboration: Cloud services provide real-time collaboration features that enable remote workers to work together seamlessly. With cloud-based productivity tools such as document sharing, simultaneous editing, and version control, team members can collaborate on projects, review and provide feedback, and make edits in real time. This eliminates the delays and inefficiencies associated with email exchanges or physical document sharing, leading to faster decision-making and accelerated project timelines.
- Communication and Collaboration Tools: Cloud services platforms often include communication and collaboration tools such as messaging apps, video conferencing, and project management software. These tools facilitate instant and effective communication among remote team members, allowing for quick exchanges of ideas, progress updates, and clarification of tasks. By enabling virtual face-to-face interactions, cloud-based communication tools foster better teamwork, problem-solving, and knowledge sharing.
- Task and Project Management: Cloud services offer robust task and project management capabilities that enhance productivity for remote workers. These platforms provide centralized dashboards, task tracking, shared calendars, and milestone tracking, allowing remote employees to stay organized and prioritize their work effectively. Clear visibility into project progress and deadlines ensures that everyone is aligned and accountable, reducing miscommunication and bottlenecks.
- Integrated Automation Tools and Workflows: Cloud services platforms often integrate with various automation tools and workflows. This integration enables remote workers to automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and eliminate manual processes. By reducing time spent on administrative tasks, employees can focus on high-value work, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.
- Mobile Apps and Devices Support: Cloud services platforms typically offer mobile applications and support various devices and operating systems. This flexibility allows remote workers to access work-related resources and applications from their preferred devices, such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones. The ability to work seamlessly across multiple devices enhances productivity by enabling employees to choose the most convenient and efficient method for completing tasks.
- Centralized Knowledge Base: Cloud-based platforms often provide centralized knowledge bases and training resources that can be accessed by remote workers. This ensures that employees have easy access to updated information, guidelines, and training materials. Remote workers can quickly onboard new processes, acquire necessary skills, and find solutions to common problems, minimizing the time spent searching for information and enhancing productivity.
- Integrated Productivity Tools: Cloud services integrate with a wide range of productivity tools, such as project management software, time tracking applications, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and more. This integration allows remote workers to have a unified workspace and avoid switching between multiple applications. By having all relevant information and tools in one place, productivity is enhanced, and the potential for errors or miscommunication is reduced.
Additional Benefits of Leveraging Clouds Services for Remote Work
- Cost Savings: Cloud services platforms offer cost-saving opportunities for enterprises. By adopting remote work models, companies can reduce expenses associated with office space, utilities, and infrastructure maintenance. With the cloud, there is no need for on-premises data centers, servers, or extensive IT hardware, leading to significant cost reductions.
- Access to Global Talent: Remote work facilitated by cloud services platforms opens up a global talent pool for enterprises. With geographical barriers removed, companies can hire top talent from around the world without requiring employees to relocate. This access to a diverse talent pool brings in fresh perspectives, expertise, and innovative ideas, contributing to the overall growth and success of the organization.
- Business Continuity: Cloud services platforms ensure business continuity during unforeseen events or disruptions. With a remote work setup powered by the cloud, enterprises can maintain their operations and access critical data and applications even in the face of natural disasters, power outages, or other crises. This resilience helps businesses stay operational and minimizes potential revenue losses.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Cloud services provide enterprises with the ability to scale their resources up or down based on demand. This scalability is particularly advantageous for businesses with fluctuating workloads or seasonal peaks. Remote work supported by the cloud allows organizations to adapt quickly and efficiently to changing workforce requirements, ensuring optimal resource allocation.
- Data Security and Compliance: Cloud services platforms prioritize robust security measures to protect enterprise data. They employ encryption, access controls, data backups, and monitoring to ensure data integrity and confidentiality. Centralized data storage and security mechanisms provided by cloud platforms reduce the risk of data breaches and enhance compliance with industry regulations and data protection standards.
Top Enterprises Leveraging Remote Work to its Fullest
A plethora of enterprises leverage remote work, but here are three that take remote work to the Nth degree to capitalize today’s global, distributed workforce via cloud services platforms. Interestly enough, all three offer tools that help the distributed workforce and are often add-on tools to cloud services platforms to further enable collaboration.
- GitLab: GitLab is a software development company that is fully remote. All of their employees work from home or from co-working spaces around the world. GitLab has been using remote work since its inception in 2014, and they have a well-established remote work culture.
- Zapier: Zapier is an automation company that helps businesses connect different apps and services. Zapier is also fully remote, and they have over 1,000 employees working from all over the world. Zapier has a strong focus on collaboration and communication, and they use a variety of tools to help their team stay connected.
- Atlassian: Atlassian is a software company that develops collaboration tools. Atlassian has over 7,000 employees, and about half of them work remotely. Atlassian has a long history of supporting remote work, and they have a number of policies and procedures in place to help their remote employees succeed.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, expect to see even more enterprises adopt remote work as a way to attract and retain top talent, reduce costs, and improve productivity.
