The future could well be remote working for many of us. Here’s how to get your business onboard with this flexible approach to work and benefit from the transformation.
With the worldwide pandemic many companies have been forced to temporarily enable their workforce to work remotely. This temporary change, as the world works to control the pandemic, is now likely to become more of a permanent change for some employees, especially those who have been office-based. Remote working has some distinct advantages: it is better for the environment, for employee mental health, for productivity and staff retention. Employers also know that they have to remain flexible in case another wave of corona virus sends the world into a lockdown again. Remote working could be the future for many businesses because there may simply be no other choice.
If your business is looking to future-proof operations by embracing remote working permanently, there are many different aspects to consider to ensure the new setup works effectively. Although many enterprises responded extremely quickly to the pandemic and the need to set up staff remotely, the fact remains that setting up long-term remote working is an entirely different story.
Key considerations for remote working
Amongst the key considerations to setup remote working capabilities for your workforce are issues such as:
- A need for a larger server area in your brisk-and-mortar premises
- What to do with office furniture that may be needed sometimes, but not others
- How to setup a new IT system that can manage the remote working operations
- Ensuring all staff want to work remotely and accommodating those who don’t
- Working around health and safety changes in having a remote workforce
- Accommodating staff who still need to work in the physical office
Working through and around these issues will be an essential part of comfortably moving towards a permanent remote workforce in the future – if that becomes necessary.
Whilst we can’t resolve all of the potential problems above, we can tell you about one potential solution that could provide you with a cost-effective, flexible solution for some of those issues.
Use self-storage for an easier transition to remote working
Self storage is perhaps a bit of a misnomer as many facilities provide collection and delivery services (even sometimes free) so there is no need to worry about shifting any furniture or equipment. It is not a service many people would necessarily associate with remote working but, in fact, there are many ways it can help both business and employee ease into this new way of working.
Primarily, it affords a business the flexibility to move furniture in and out of storage to accommodate changing staff levels and safe, socially-distanced setups. A business can also switch and change the types of furniture used on any one day, make more room for server space, and store more cleaning and hygiene equipment and stocks for staff that are working in the office. Inexpensive self storage could also be offered to staff who need help making room at home to work, and could benefit from space for their own spare furniture.
Most importantly, self storage units use flexible contracts that can be as short as a week. If you compare self storage prices you will see that costs are affordable (and there are often deals on different packages and products). Even better, you can often get the flexibility to switch to bigger or smaller spaces easily too.
At a time when things are changing by the minute, it seems, businesses can benefit from this flexibility and low cost to store furniture and equipment – or even spare stock – that is not need now but may be needed again in the future.