In July this year, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) released a brief revealing evidence on working from home productivity. This information is significantly beneficial, given the new norm and the importance of the survival of businesses.

The evidence found two main channels that help ensure your employees will be productive remote working.

The direct channel impacts performance by altering the motivation, efficiency, and knowledge creation of the workplace. While the indirect channel facilitates cost reductions that free up resources to reorganize as well as innovate your employees.

Within these channels, there are 4 aspects that will help enable a more efficient performance within your team.

Satisfaction

It’s proven when a worker is satisfied with their workload and type or work, they will be more productive. Think about it like this – if you enjoy surfing, then you’re going to spend more time surfing, and you’re going to be more engaged and catch more waves than you would spend doing another activity you simply didn’t enjoy. When it comes to work, there are multiple aspects that contribute to satisfaction. These include work-life balance, fewer distractions, and a variety of work. When there minimal distractions, you can stay focused, and with this comes less frustration and less stress. By improving your employee satisfaction, it will enable a more efficient overall workplace performance.

Cost Reductions

What exactly does this involve and how will it affect performance? Well, by the ability to lower costs through implementing remote working, you can invest that money into increasing workplace performance. Makes sense, right? Here’s how…

Reduce office space and equipment

Decrease labor costs by increasing the pool of workers you can choose from. For instance, workers in smaller towns will no doubt charge a lower rate, due to cheaper living costs

An increase in worker satisfaction will reduce the number of people quitting, which reduces hiring and training costs

Attract lower wages by increasing work-life balance and flexible hours. People will be willing to sacrifice a higher salary

Communication

Coming from someone who did a Communications Degree, communication really is key. And it’s more important now than ever. The report found the decrease in face-to-face communication can inhibit productivity. Meetings and personal communication have proven to be more effective, engaging, convincing, and easier to pick up social cues. Consequently, remote working requires forms of communication that disrupt workflow, such as emails and video or phone calls.

There’s no need to worry though. This is where we adapt. Incorporate forms of communication that enable less disruption, such as Slack. Slack allows for more normal conversations – it’s less serious like emails and allows you to quickly message back and forth, like that of a conversation - even seeing when the other person is typing. And only when there are important meetings, utilise video calls to pick up on social cues.

Information Management

If information isn’t managed efficiently, workers will collectively waste hours upon hours searching for certain information and waiting to hear back from colleagues who can access it. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as asking your colleague who sits in front of you for access and the request being received within a matter of seconds. Here are some ways for an efficient management solution:

Put in place a process which enables information to be shared with colleagues

Allow colleagues to easily access and discover crucial and helpful resources

Implement a flow between departments, individuals and external parties

The importance of information flow is reinforced in the report, “Innovation depends importantly on the sharing of knowledge: ‘What each individual knows is less important. What counts is collective knowledge.’”

The utmost efficient way to manage information and therefore increase productivity is by incorporating document management tools. This is essentially a secure iCloud, collating all your information, regardless of platform, into one space, so employees can easily access information from wherever, whenever.

Now you have this information on hand, go out there and smash it!