The world is facing a public health crisis of monstrous proportions. The outbreak of Coronavirus has not just posed a grave threat to the health and wellbeing of people but has also wreaked havoc in the business world. With health authorities advising people to stay indoors, businesses are being faced with an unprecedented challenge of keeping their employees safe and, at the same time, ensuring that work timelines are met while working from home.
While the offices cannot be shut down indefinitely, there is a pressing need to make sure that work continues without putting the health of employees in jeopardy. Most of the big companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Deloitte, have risen to the occasion and have allowed their employees to work remotely.
However, when it comes to asking their employees in working from home, there are many challenges that businesses need to overcome. They need to ensure that the teams remain connected and there is no drop in productivity or efficiency.
Here are the five most effective ways to ensure the smooth functioning of a business in such a scenario.
Well-documented processes
Well-documented and easily accessible business processes are critical to keeping remote teams working smoothly. A business needs to outline the steps needed to complete a task. It does not just help in identifying the present state of a process but also makes it easier for a business to maintain operational consistency and bring transparency. If the processes are documented in detail, it becomes easier for the business to manage its employees working remotely.
Easy access to processes
While the documenting process is crucial, it is equally important to make these processes easily accessible to employees working from home. Investing in technology is one of the easiest ways to do so. A business can consider using a cloud-based business process management software that makes business process information and supporting procedures centrally available, thereby, making it easier for its employees to gain access to businesses from anywhere and employees can refer to these documents whenever they want to make sure that they are executing the process right.
Clearly-defined roles and responsibilities
It’s a well-known fact that team members perform better when their role is clearly defined. The tasks and responsibilities of each employee should be defined in a clear and unambiguous manner. Lack of role clarity will result in a lack of commitment. Therefore, it is the job of every business to ensure that each member understands what is expected of him/her.
Clearly assigned tasks
The only way a remote team can function effectively is when you ensure that the tasks within business processes have been clearly assigned to the roles. With the help of a business process management software, an organization can ensure that each task is displayed transparently and is visible to the assigned person.
Easy access to documents and relevant systems
With staff members working from different locations, making business documents and relevant systems easily accessible to employees is a challenging task. This is where a cloud-based software can prove to be really handy as it makes documents centrally available, with access from anywhere and anytime. Along with the document’s easy access and availability, it is important for an employee to get clarity on where and when those documents and systems need to be used in the business processes.
With scientists warning that the situation may get worse in the coming days, it is high time organizations started investing in useful technologies to ensure the smooth functioning of their businesses.
How PRIME BPM can help your organization in these challenging times:
PRIME BPM enables staff to perform their day-to-day activities as per the organisation’s goals. PRIME BPM enables this by providing the who, what, when and how of process information. It does this by making business process information and the supporting procedures centrally available, with access from anywhere and anytime.
PRIME BPM uses the RACI matrix in order to ensure that staff members are clear on their roles and responsibility. The RACI matrix lists out the (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed (RACI)) against each task of the process and/or the business process
With its simple inbuilt training videos, instant chat function and other features, PRIME BPM makes it easier for employees to work collaboratively from a remote location and improves their productivity.