Working from home can be a positive and productive experience for any employee, if the company provides the tools to support it. In fact, working from home can be much more productive than commuting to an office.
But that requires the right tools. Working from home is most successful when combined with the right technology and procedures in place to monitor performance, track time, and keep everyone accountable.
It’s not just the ability to work remotely that makes a remote work program successful; it’s also having software that supports telework that makes all the difference That’s where Meta Business Suite comes into play.
It is a cloud-based software suite specifically designed for virtual organizations, workflow management, document management and many others. These are some of its key features to support remote workers in your organization.
Virtual Collaboration
A good work-from-home solution starts with seamless virtual collaboration that includes the ability to share documents and schedule online meetings from one central hub. That way, employees can communicate when and where they are most comfortable.
See: Facebook Business Suite: Everything You Need to Know
That will help you keep your remote work program consistent, regardless of the time or day of week when people are working. Most importantly, you want to make sure your collaboration features are secure and don’t intrude on an employee’s privacy.
That’s why many collaboration tools have strict security protocols, such as two-factor authentication, to protect sensitive data and ensure privacy.
Task Management
Remote workers often have to manage multiple tasks, both work-related and personal. A good work-from-home tool will allow you to create task lists and milestones, assign due dates, and keep track of all tasks, including personal to-do lists.
This ensures that you don’t fall behind when working remotely, and it also helps your company track overall performance and productivity.
If you’re using a virtual meeting room for your teleconference, you can also include a task list feature so that attendees can add notes to the discussion. That way, you can keep the conversation on track and capture everything that was discussed.
Document Management
Document management is critical in any virtual work environment because you don’t have the same access to file cabinets or shared drives that you have in an office. With a good work-from-home tool, you can upload documents, including sensitive ones, such as employee contracts and financial records.
You can also set up document alerts that notify you when a new file is added to a specific folder, which is helpful if you have many documents to manage. During teleconferences, you can upload documents to a shared drive so they can be accessed by everyone in the meeting.
That way, you don’t have to send multiple emails with attachments, which can create a lot of clutter and be distracting and disruptive for remote workers.
Time Tracking
Time tracking is another critical component of a successful remote work program. A good work-from-home tool has integrated time-tracking capabilities so that you can record how much time you spend on each project and task.
You can also use timers to track how long it takes you to complete certain tasks. That way, you can keep track of your hours and the value you’re adding to the company. You can also use the time tracking feature to report your hours, and it can be integrated with your payroll system so that you’re accurately compensated for the time you’ve worked.
Weekly status meeting
Many virtual companies conduct weekly status meetings to keep everyone aligned and informed about projects. A good work-from-home tool allows you to host virtual status meetings so that you can keep everyone informed while also protecting your time.
You can use all of the available features, such as the task list, document sharing, and meeting timer, to help keep the meeting focused and keep everyone on track. If you’re hosting the meeting, you can also integrate an online call-scheduling tool so that you can schedule the meeting at a time that is most convenient for everyone who needs to attend.
Communication Tools
Communication, both internal and external, is essential in any office environment. But in a remote work program, it’s even more important because there are fewer opportunities to interact with your coworkers face-to-face and less visual communication.
A good work-from-home solution has tools that allow you to easily communicate with everyone in your organization, as well as clients, vendors, and other people who need to communicate with you. It’s a good idea to use a centralized communication tool, such as a virtual meeting room, for external communication.
Virtual Meeting Room
A virtual meeting room is a centralized communication tool that allows you to communicate with team members, clients, and others who need to reach you. You can use the meeting room to host online video and audio conferences, share presentations and documents, and send text messages.
It’s like having an online meeting room where you can host and attend conference calls, share files and discuss important topics, and send internal messages to your team members. You can also use the meeting room to host virtual team meetings. That way, you can participate in the meeting from the comfort of your home, without having to drive to the office.
You can use all of the communication tools, such as video conferencing and chat, to hold the meeting, and you can also host a screen-sharing session so that everyone can see the information that’s being discussed.
Automated Workflows
In many businesses, certain tasks need to be completed in a certain order. That’s where automated workflows can help. A good work-from-home tool allows you to set up automated workflows so that certain tasks are completed in a specific order, such as approving time sheets.
That way, you don’t have to constantly monitor your employees, and you can be confident that everything is being completed correctly. You can also set up automated tasks for yourself and for your direct reports. That helps keep everyone on track and reduces the amount of time needed to monitor tasks.
Employee Tracking and Time Monitoring
Another important aspect of monitoring performance is tracking how employees spend their time. That way, you can track how much time people spend on tasks and projects, both at the office and at home. A good work-from-home tool allows you to track employees’ time and productivity.
That can help you identify areas of improvement so that you can focus on improving the productivity of your team. You can track time manually or use an automated time-tracking tool to track where time is being spent.
You can then use that information to help improve productivity. For example, if you notice that people spend too much time on administrative tasks, you can coach them to be more efficient.
Real-time communication
Communication is essential in any office environment, but it’s even more important in a virtual office environment. That’s why having real-time communication capabilities is essential in a work-from-home tool.
That way, you can communicate with your employees and peers at any time and know that you’ll receive an immediate response. A good work-from-home solution has real-time communication tools, including a virtual meeting room and online chat.
That way, you can communicate with team members and peers at any time, including evenings and weekends. It also allows you to use different communication tools simultaneously, so you can host a video conference and send text messages to your peers at the same time.
Conclusion
Working from home comes with many perks, such as more flexibility in scheduling work and the ability to avoid a daily commute. But it also comes with some challenges, such as the potential for employees to feel disconnected from the team and lack of accountability.
When these challenges are overcome with the right tools, though, home-based employees can be just as productive as those in an office.
In fact, working remotely can help create more productive employees because they have reduced distractions and can focus on their work. Working from home with Meta Business Suite in place is a positive experience for employees and an effective way to run a small business.
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