Matthew Wilson is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Omnipresent. He is based in London, UK, holds a Master’s degree in Theoretical Physics and is an experienced entrepreneur.
2020 has defined how work and life operate in more ways than one. We are fully immersed in digital life and the remote revolution.
We conducted a study to identify a handful of startup companies that are leading the pack by providing tools, systems, and processes to help companies become fully remote. We looked at elements such as employee wellness, online learning, career growth, as well as tools that enable companies to go fully remote.
Below are the highlights of our findings.
Is the concept of “remote” really new?
For tech-based companies, the concept of remote working has been in existence for a long time. It is quite common for staff to work remotely or from home due to the nature of their job role.
For example, employees who work in industries such as digital marketing, programming, digital design, or software development are able to successfully carry out their duties from any location, provided that they have full access to their team and online project management tools.
Not only tech companies but many others are now going remote first and working purely online with frequent team calls, meetings, and online communication. Industry giants such as Shopify, Facebook, and Twitter have adopted a more permanent way of an offsite (remote working) business modes.
Due to this, companies have found that they are able to save on monthly running costs such as office rent, office insurance, and unnecessary costs. In a recent article by Forbes, a “blueprint” of how to build a fully remote business is broken down and explained in detail.
The sheer number of companies shifting and adapting their entire business processes in order to survive is a statement of how much our lives need to evolve in order to embrace the change and continue to be successful.
How have employees had to adjust to the pandemic?
The business world had little time to prepare for the sudden ‘shut down’ that Covid-19 demanded while cases throughout the world grew exponentially.
With schools and companies closing, business owners had to make rapid adjustments to try to keep revenue afloat and staff had to figure out how to get a full day of work in while having their children at home.
Recent data is showing that since certain elements of lockdown have been eased, such as schools reopening and employees being able to return to the office if they would like to, people are starting to prefer remote working rather than being bound to an office all day.
YouGov released a study that shows that most workers want to work from home, even after the pandemic. The study reveals that pre-lockdown, only one in three people worked from home either on a full-time or part-time basis.
If staff can perform equally well while working remotely and companies can continue their upward trend in earnings, then shouldn’t remote working become the go-to choice?
The top three remote working enablers
The criteria for listing remote enablers was focused on companies or start-ups that are truly pioneering the way forward for the remote-first work culture. As there are hundreds of apps or technologies available today for co-working and business integration, we decided not to cover these ones for this roundup.
Our categories focus on the following three companies that are seen as enabling the remote business lifecycle culture. We wanted to cover the entire cycle of the remote revolution which includes companies who are recruiting remote staff for remote work positions, technology, and educational frameworks to improve your learning, skills, and career development as well as tools that help you to maintain and grow healthy company culture and organizational activities.
Recruiting and employing for remote positions
The entire employment process from job advertising, prospecting, interviewing, personality testing, as well as the hiring and onboarding of staff for remote positions, has taken the world by storm. Everything is done online and new team members are able to be fully onboarded using specific apps and technology, connect and engage with new teams, and experience company culture from the comfort of their home office.
LinkedIn has always been one of the “go-to” platforms when it comes to searching for a new job or being headhunted by a recruiter or a company. Over the course of this year, we have seen an increase in alternatives to LinkedIn who offer a different, yet effective way to recruit talent.
A company known as LunchClub enables employees and staff to regain personal engagement and networking opportunities through the use of a highly intuitive AI which learns about your interests, goals, and backgrounds. See LunchClub as a way to meet new people, catch up with employees as well as retain some human interaction.
As remote recruitment has increased so too has the demand for remote employment in other words being able to employ and onboard remote talent anywhere in the world. Using a tech-driven and expert-led approach Omnipresent does just that. It supports small to medium-sized businesses with international employment (payroll, benefits, compliance, taxes, and admin) in over 150 countries so that they can globally expand their company.
Health and wellness
Working in isolation or without being able to speak to your colleagues at any time during the day takes a massive toll on one’s mental state. There are health and safety guidelines which are in place urging employers to pay special attention to the emotional stress and anxiety of the employees by making certain accountability programs, products, and services easily available to enable a balance between work life and personal life as well as a place for staff to have emotional support and guidance.
Vitrue VIDA supports companies and HR teams by helping them meet all of the health and safety regulations. They offer remote desk assessments directly to your team powered by designers and AI to help reduce back problems, improve employee wellness, and to boost productivity and office compliance.
Once the assessment has been completed, employers and employees alike have access to a perfectly designed remote desk and remote work set-up which takes both the physical and emotional success factors of each team member into account.
Self-development, R&D and education
One of the most important topics on our list was companies that are driving ways for staff and teams to continue learning and growing in their careers. In this day and age, there are thousands of websites and apps available for self-learning, career development, and education.
However the following companies stand-out for providing solutions to accelerate the growth and development of your individual employees and company as a whole.
Sharpest offers specialist coaching solutions to help you improve your self-development and employee growth. This is done using a results-driven online learning platform that approaches an individual’s growth, education, and self-development with holistic plans and coaching.
See Hone as an all-in-one suite to improve team performance, leadership, management, and people skills in one scalable platform. You will find peer-to-peer or one- on- one learning, as well as small group training targeted to help you be the best that you can be.
All of the curricula is based on solid research and delivered by world-class coaches, facilitators, and trainers.
In summary
Despite possible teething issues in the process of going fully remote, remote working for companies, both large and small, could soon be the ‘new normal’ and the only way that businesses will continue to thrive.
Be sure to do your research, conduct staff interviews, analyze what the business world is doing regarding remote working, but, most important of all – embrace the remote revolution.
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