During the last 2 years, organisations of every size and in every sector have had to adopt remote working at short notice. Achieving this has been a major logistical feat, even for those who had remote working processes or plans in place. However, as conditions begin to stabilise, forward-thinking leaders recognise that resting on their laurels is not an option.
On the one hand, only the most optimistic are counting on a rapid return to business-as-usual. It’s much more realistic to plan for continued disruption to normal working. On the other, many organisations have witnessed the benefits of remote working, and want to embed these benefits for the long term, while minimising attendant disruptions.
Both groups recognise that the infrastructure, culture and processes developed in rapid response to an emergency situation can only hamper them going forward. Instead, they’re looking to optimise for a remote or hybrid future.
Most organisations—and indeed most workers—are aware of the main areas where adaptation is required. Teamwork, meetings, company culture, maintaining a work-life balance, and the personal and creative benefits of office socialising are the major concerns for most.
The next challenge is to identify best practice in these areas and facilitate appropriate training for all employees. Training is critical not only for setting out remote working best practice and helping employees to feel supported. Targeted and effective training shows employees that their leaders are serious about making remote and hybrid working sustainable. Training is one of an organisation’s most powerful weapons for effecting cultural change, which many researchers and leaders have flagged as the key to successful remote working.
Just as remote work itself requires an openness to new technologies and new approaches, training employees in the best approach to it may require a break with tradition. At root, most of the challenges of remote working stem from a single difference: while traditional office work involves a lot of face-to-face interaction, remote work involves interaction through a digital interface. Obvious though this difference may seem, too often training for remote workers doesn’t take it into account.
In crisis mode, many companies have simply moved their training onto Zoom or into training documents. In the process, they’ve foregone a key component of effective training: responsiveness and interactivity.
This is why progressive organizations increasingly favour elearning approaches. Elearning is training through a digital interface, which makes it a natural way to deliver training in remote working. It makes use of gamified interactivity, animated video, and other digital resources to compensate for the back-and-forth of in-person training.
At Real Projects, we’ve developed training courses in remote working best practice for organisations of every size, calibrated for employees at every level. Using an engaging variety of tools and formats, our courses deliver best practice across a range of topics from information security to running remote meetings. We can also help you to adapt your own training materials as elearning courses. To find out more, email us at hello@realprojects.co.uk or call us on 01603 273918
