When South Africa and the rest of the world went into lockdown, it was clear for organisations that they had to reinforce the way they work and do business. Crucial to the current situation was realising that having remote employees and policies in addition to technology was going to be the solution to keep the doors open.
However, working remote may be isolated now and then with nobody nearby that you can immediately ask help. Also, some employees will not openly admit to needing help to finish a task nor reach out if they have issues with technology compared to a conventional office setting. On the opposite hand, employers face the dilemma of how to successfully support remote working and ensure business continuity through increased productivity and effectivity.
It is against this backdrop that Altron People Solutions recently launched the Virtual Business Academy, a strategic programme geared toward providing key tools and skills to transform employees into the Virtual Business World. The programme modules include communication, collaboration, customer culture, safe online and employee culture delivered via our innovative Virtual Instructor-led Training platform that enables employees to attend the sessions in the comfort and safety of their own home.
“The best trait for a remote employee is discipline. Not a lot of us can handle working from home. There are many things on the go and that we easily get distracted, slack off, etc. Your employees must be able to get on with tasks without the watchful eye of managers and coworkers. This type of accountability is not for everyone and therefore, the Academy equips employees with the tools and attitude to be disciplined enough to do their work regardless of the obstacles they may face,” says Pieter Nel, Executive: Digital Adoption Learning Solutions.
“The Academy allows employees to grasp skills such as punctuality and responsibility and not being afraid to admit that you need help for a given task. Since remote working makes it harder to manage someone, the person must show a powerful commitment to a task. With revenue being a crucial factor for organisations, we equip employees with the tools to learn how to create engaging and successful sales presentations virtually to potential customers.”
Remote working can bring many benefits to either side, but it takes a special set of skills to have a successful remote employee that contributes to your organisation. The Academy emphasises that organisations reinvent the employee culture to ensure that remote working doesn’t compromise overall business professionalism and productivity by upskilling employees and managers to do virtual business with virtual businesses.
For employee culture, the programme focuses on managing the change, coaching and mentoring, delivering internal training virtually, emotional intelligence, employee wellness, facilitation skills, goal setting and virtual leadership skills.
“Remote employees must be organised and mature. They need to work well without a lot of supervision and be able to complete projects by assigned deadlines. It also runs on effective communication, without it, teams lose two important components of success: collaboration and efficiency,” says Dinah Coetzer, Virtual Business Academy Project Manager.
Remote employees are not as accessible as the rest of your day-to-day employees. Without a manager there to push them and watch to make sure they are working, it can be difficult for those without the proper work mindset to keep them on task.
“A good remote employee has to be inherently self-directed – someone who does best setting their own deadlines, working times, and goals, given feedback from others. They have to be conscientious, able to manage their own time and focused on attaining goals and delivering great work instead of doing the bare minimum. The most effective remote employees are independent-minded problem solvers. When questions come up their first instinct is to come up with a solution on their own. They’ll maintain detailed notes of their activities to allow others to understand the status of their projects,” adds Coetzer.
Let Altron People Solutions help you upskill your employees and managers to do virtual business with virtual businesses today. Contact Dinah Coetzer to sign up now: Dinah.Coetzer@altron.com or book a course: https://www.altronbps.co.za/introducing-our-new-virtual…/
Staff writer
