Many companies have permanently changed their remote work policies to allow more flexibility. Here's what they're doing, and how your company can do the same.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many businesses to close their offices and quickly adopt a remote work model. Despite the challenges, business leaders and workers have discovered several benefits that work from home offers. Because of this, many companies have changed their remote work policies to provide employees with more opportunities to work remotely.
So what is the new normal going to look like? Is remote work really the future? Are companies going to shift to a full remote work model? Or some kind of a hybrid model?
Let’s take a look at how some of the world’s leading companies have permanently changed their remote work policies:
On May 21, 2020, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that up to half of the company’s 48,000-person workforce could be working remotely permanently over the next 5 to 10 years. The decision came after surveying employees and executives on their thoughts of working from home, and from discovering several benefits of having a remote workforce.
Salesforce
Salesforce recently made headlines when President and Chief People Officer Brent Hyder stated that, “the 9-to-5 workday is dead”. The company has changed its remote work policy with the belief that by enabling employees to better balance work and home life, they will see increased innovation and better business outcomes. Depending on their roles, employees will be able to choose between working remotely full time, working in the office, or “flex” working - meaning they’ll only be in the office a few days per week.
Microsoft
Computing giant Microsoft is allowing employees to work from home for around 50% of their work week, with some employees being able to have full-time remote work approved. This is part of Microsoft’s initiative to create a hybrid workplace which gives employees more flexibility while allowing them to enjoy the benefits of both working remotely and in the office.
Siemens
Unlike the other companies on this list, Siemens is not a tech company. Rather, they are a global electrical engineering firm with over 300,000 employees. Still, the company sees the value of remote work and is now allowing around 140,000 of their employees to work from home for two or three days during the week.
Twitter was the first major US company to announce their new work from home policy. The company is allowing employees to choose to permanently work from home, or work in the office if they want to. This decision was made after discovering several advantages to remote working.
Why are companies embracing remote work?
The companies listed above and many others have changed their remote work policies due to positive benefits enjoyed by both employees and the company as a whole as a result of remote work. Employees are able to better manage their work and life and aren’t wasting time commuting each day. Employees love the flexibility that work from home offers.
Companies are able to tap into a larger network of employees as remote work removes the barriers imposed by the physical location of offices. Distributed workforces give companies access to more workers with diverse skillsets.
How can your company embrace remote work?
As more companies adopt new remote work policies, job seekers are beginning to target companies that offer more flexible work environments. So, if you’re thinking about allowing employees to work outside of the office, what can you do to set yourself up for success?
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you want your operations to continue running smoothly as if employees were in the office, therefore, you need to ensure your employees have access to all the resources they’d get in the office even while working remotely.
Leverage remote access to connect remote workers to office computers
Remote access software enables employees to use their own personal devices to remotely access and control their work computers as if they were sitting directly in front of it! This means they can access any file, and run any application on their office workstation.
In fact, with a tool like Splashtop remote access, employees can run applications such as Adobe Creative tools and 3D modeling programs such as AutoCAD while accessing work computers from any other computer, tablet, or mobile device. This makes Splashtop an ideal tool that companies can use to set themselves up for success when allowing more remote work opportunities.
Interested in learning more? Check out how Splashtop has helped thousands of companies embrace remote work with remote access software, and try it for free to test the platform yourself!
