Remote working culture has reached new heights in 2020, with some companies even giving up their office space, so staff can work from home permanently. But planning shifts isn’t easy if your team is rarely together in the same room.
If your business has made the transition to home working and you’re looking for a long-term shift planning solution, here’s a WhosOffice guide to making your operations run smoothly with a remote staff structure.
A permanent change to working practices
2020 has been a transformational year for the entire business sector, including how and where people work. Prior to the UK going into national lockdown back in March, only 1.7 million of the 32.6 million people in employment worked from home. Government measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic sent remote working figures stratospheric, and this has forced organisations to find a set-up that can work in a virtual world.
In fact, remote working has proven so successful that many of the biggest companies in the world – including Microsoft, Twitter and Slack – are now making permanent changes to their working arrangement. And these companies recognise that a strong digital infrastructure is essential to make working from home operate seamlessly in the long-term.
Upskilling staff for the remote working revolution
Every business has issues to iron-out when transitioning to a remote working culture, but the challenge is even harder for shift-based businesses. With staff members on different schedules, which can change from week-to-week, clear communication is essential. And this can only be achieved with the right shift planning tools in place.
A recent article by Info Security noted that over half (56%) of businesses want to invest more in enhancing people’s digital skills, to sustain the working practices put in place during COVID-19 lockdown. Effective online collaboration relies on the right people being available at the right time – something that can only be managed with complete visibility of everyone’s schedules.
Simplifying virtual shift planning
In order to organise shifts remotely, more and more companies are looking at online scheduling technology to make life easier. Digital tools simplify shift planning, as rotas can be decided at individual, team and company level, with set criteria as to the seniority and skills of people required for each shift.
More importantly, leading online shift planners have in-built features that support home working – such as task planning and management tools, so managers can allocate items to personnel during each shift. Also, schedules can be cross-referenced against the company holiday calendar, to make sure staff haven’t been assigned work when they’ve booked annual leave.
Other useful tools include the ability to highlight gaps in the rota, and send open shift opportunities to relevant staff. This makes it simple to substitute like-for-like team members, while giving hard-working employees the chance to earn overtime or time off in lieu.
Creating open channels for communication
Efficient shift planning isn’t the only element to successful remote working; communication is also critical when teams are working from home. And the right digital technology can support this part of the business too.
With an online shift planner, every person in the company can be given access to their upcoming schedule, at any time. They can see directly when they are required, and plan holiday in a way that doesn’t affect their attendance. Leading platforms like WhosOffice include staff mobile apps, so employees can check the latest schedules and updates from their smartphone as well as their computer.
It’s also nice for team members to know who else will be on-shift with them, which can be viewed instantly through shift planning software. Even if they’re not face-to-face, people still look forward to catching up remotely!
New world, new tools
Shift planning can be a notoriously complex task, and the working from home movement has made life even harder for many business. However, many day-to-day problems can be easily overcome with the right scheduling software – to quickly plan shifts when staff are working remotely.
If your company is serious about making a long-term switch to remote working, you need to invest in the right technologies to enable virtual collaboration. Online shift planners are one of the foundation tools needed to thrive in the new world of permanent working from home, to put every team member on the same page.
Try WhosOffice for free to simplify online shift planning and task management.
Photo by Andrew Neel of Pexels.com
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on Monday, 02nd Nov 2020