Work from home: A technology enabled collaboration

Offices across the globe are shut, yet many companies remain productive. When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, most companies wanted to take employee health and safety seriously, but hitting the pause button on office work was too costly an option for most. While some organizations of course require physical or in-person work, industries like IT services, legal and auditing firms, and marketing agencies found working from home to be the solution. Today, thousands of teams, across organizations, are telecommuting and staying productive.

Many companies running on SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) collaboration tools could mobilize their entire workforce and make remote employees in a short amount of time. If your organization is one of those working to ensure business continuity during this crisis, we’ve got some tips on using technology to collaborate remotely.

Moving over from a legacy system

Traditional business software requires organization-wide deployment with manual downloads onto each work device, and files and folders often cannot be shared across systems and teams. Such legacy software tools are fit only for on-premise usage. To enable work from home, you need a smarter alternative. You need software apps that are user-friendly, flexible, and low-investment in terms of both cost and time. Cloud-based productivity tools facilitate this sort of workplace transition without any compromise on team collaboration. For SaaS apps to work, all you need is an internet connection.

Solving the distance problem

There’s nothing like walking up to a colleague and getting your work reviewed right away. The close-door meeting with your peers for brainstorming ideas is an effective form of teamwork. But who said that all this cannot be replicated in a virtual set up? Online content collaboration tools like Zoho WorkDrive come in handy during times like these. Your associates sitting in different places can work on a sales proposal document, at the same time, for an urgent deliverable. Marketing staff working remotely can collaborate on a presentation and roll out a campaign with the same efficiency as if they’re at office. The argument of the isolation barrier gets thrown out of the window when you are using virtual collaboration tools.

Designing a digital workplace

The common saying, “a place for everything and everything in its place” could be used to describe an organized workplace. Every employee has their own system for managing files and folders. This works all fine when everybody is based in one office block. However, when you decide to move to remote work, an organizational team structure should be set. An online file storage platform that is built for teams is designed to solve this very need. With WorkDrive, you can create different team folders, define individual roles, and create dedicated workspaces. Our unified file storage system helps teams to access files and manage their work from wherever they are.

Apart from the solutions discussed, there are other means to collaborate remotely. Tools like integrated messaging apps, video-conferencing platforms, and project management solutions take your work to where you are. As working from home becomes a new normal, products like WorkDrive are here to help your business adapt too.