How Remote Workforces are Enabling Business Continuity in the Face of COVID19
Date: 17/06/2020
COVID19 is novel, but pandemics are not. Businesses have suffered through pandemics before, transformed business strategy & operation, and moved forward. It happened during and after the 1918 Spanish Flu, the 2004 SARS, and it is happening now in the times of COVID19 too. In many ways, CEOs and business owners will find strategizing at this uncertain time confusing, overwhelming, and difficult. However, today’s businesses have a resource that their counterparts braving the earlier pandemics did not – Remote Technology.
Remote technology has to become a cornerstone of the business strategy under the ‘new normal’. This is especially true for sectors that depend heavily on skilled workforce like the Information Technology industry.
Impact on the IT Sector
The IT industry is heavily reliant on skilled talent. Restriction on workforce movement is resulting in increased risk to security, rise in downtime, and potential loss of projects. This translates to higher costs and loss of revenue for businesses. However, the pandemic is now impacting every major economy and there is nowhere to go for those projects. Consequently, IT businesses must fulfil their project commitments by leveraging remote workforce, while simultaneously empowering the workforce with a new set of tools and resources.
Going Remote
At Mazzatech, we are seeing a steadily increasing flow of requests for highly skilled IT professionals. We have over 40,000 professionals in our talent pool and over 12 years of experience in IT outsourcing. Businesses disrupted by the pandemic do not have the time to create in-houses policies, processes, and systems necessary for hiring remote employees. Therefore, they are relying on Mazzatech’s vast experience, unmatched expertise, and proven track record of results, to find
Busting the Myths
Companies have their own set of reasons to make employees work from an office instead of a remote location. Some of them are:
Workflow Disturbances
At the workplace, businesses have complete control over the workplace environment. They design it to minimize disruptions and maximize their workforce’s productivity. When the workforce is working from home, business have no control over their environment and are worried that this can result in a reduction of productivity. Although their fears are not unfounded, the reality of the situation is more promising. According to an ongoing bi-weekly survey by Salesforce Research, working from home during COVID19 has only led to a reduction in work productivity by 1%. This is the reduction recorded during the stressful time of a global pandemic, which is negligible.
Reduced Efficiency
There is an unsaid desire among managers to bring people and teams together in-person for projects. They believe that physical presence improves team efficiency substantially because of increased collaboration. However, time and again, businesses have witnessed an increase in productivity among remote workers due to the greater autonomy accorded to them. At Mazzatech, we bring onboard highly experienced professionals with excellent work ethics and a proven track record. We offer business self-starters who appreciate the greater autonomy accorded to them and return the favor with high-performance.
Why Is Remote Leading the Way?
An increasing number of organizations are realizing the multitude of benefits to be gained from employing a remote workforce. These benefits are spread across the spectrum, including cultural, operational, and financial dimensions of an organization. As the world recovers from the COVID paralyses, remote workforce is emerging as the default choice for businesses. Here’s why:
The need of the Hour
Almost every country is hit by the lockdown. There is no vaccine or treatment on the horizon. The number of virus-infected is rising at an alarming rate. The situation is not going to change over the next few months, which means that IT organizations must tackle the new reality. They must find ways to ensure business continuity without compromising security, employee productivity, or customer satisfaction. With restrictions on workforce movement in effect, these businesses must turn to remote workforce to thrive.
Variable Workforce
A remote workforce reduces the cost to the company as well. In case they choose to outsource their projects, they can change the size of their workforce depending on the size of the project they are working on. A project-based workforce size helps in minimizing overhead costs. At this time, companies should not leave out any room for cost optimization. Also, you choose the best talent available for a particular project, which ultimately results in the delivery of superior results to customers.
No Infrastructure Costs
Opting for an outsourced remote workforce also eliminates the need for human resource management. You are hiring talent on an as-needed basis, which means that you are not responsible for the training and management of the talent. They work, get the project done, and then get paid. Period.
Businesses do not incur any costs towards staffing management, salary calculations, and other HR activities.
Increased Efficiency
Remote professionals typically work with predetermined milestones and timelines. More importantly, they operate as contract-based hires, which gives businesses complete flexibility when hiring them. Companies can monitor the productivity and quality of work of the remote workforce and act quickly based on them. They can terminate the laggards and continue working with the best-performing talent — no fuss, whatsoever.
Conducting Business As Usual
Disruptive events like COVID19 challenge business continuity. However, technology and availability of remote workforce can help businesses to take such challenges head-on. Our unique experience and enormous talent pool together make us a powerful enabler of business continuity for organizations during these times.
