10 Remote Working Issues

Remote working allows employees to have more flexibility with their time since they spend fewer hours commuting to and from work and more time with their family and friends. Organizations are also able to cut back on electrical and equipment costs, saving more money in the long run. However, as with anything, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Remote working presents some challenges of its own.

Most common remote working issues:

1. Lesser learning opportunities

Problem: Since you’re working alone instead of in an office, there are fewer opportunities for you to learn from bosses and colleagues. For example, in office setups, you’re able to observe your colleagues’ working styles, how they solve problems, and their tips and tricks to get the job done faster and better. 

But with remote working, these are a lot more difficult to do since you’re not physically working with other team members. You’re more focused on improving your own working style. There’s also lesser communication and general interaction with other people. 

Solution: Virtual workspaces offer quick meeting rooms or voice chats so you can easily hold discussions with anyone in your team, even with a remote working setup. 

Additionally, you can use elearning software like SC Training (formerly EdApp) to create wonderful enterprise training courses to share tips and tricks with each team member. 

You don’t have to begin your courses with a blank page with SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s template-driven authoring tool. All you have to do is select the responsive design that best fits your learning purpose and fill in the blanks with your material. It takes minutes to create and manage agile eLearning courses, not weeks and months.

2. Weak Wi-Fi signal

Problem: Wi-Fi interruptions happen more often in remote working setups. It causes massive disruptions in the productivity of a lot of employees. Interruptions can mean losing access to documents and files in the cloud or postponed and canceled meetings. It can also cost the organization potential clients and as a consequence, potential revenue opportunities. 

Solution: It’s always better to be safe than sorry. An easy solution to remote working issues like this is to have backup data or Wi-Fi at home so your workflow isn’t interrupted even if your first Wi-Fi connection gets lost. You can also transfer to a different work area such as a cafe to reconnect with the rest of your team.

3. Staying motivated

Problem: Another typical remote working issue identified by remote teleworkers is staying motivated. Without the occasional push from your boss and teammates, it can be easy to feel demotivated to finish your tasks. There’s less urgency to get things done when supervisors and colleagues are not there, and you can miss out on the collective fulfillment of accomplishing objectives as a team.

In effect, this lessens the overall productivity that you and your team could have had if you were working at the office.

Solution: The first step to solving this problem is communicating it with your supervisor. Your manager will then try to provide ways to solve this problem by offering solutions according to your working style. If you’re the type of person who likes being pressured to finish their work, they can set stricter deadlines for you and more regular follow-ups. If you’re the type who needs to have more freedom with their work, you can ask them to give you more space to work on your own.

4. Mental health challenges

Problem: Compared to the more social office setting, WFH can often mean working alone. This can knock employees off their game, especially extroverts who get their energy from social interactions and rely on others to be more productive.

Continuous virtual sessions with no personal connection can also add to the feeling of loneliness. All of this can pose mental health issues for remote teams. 

Solution: Organize fun and collaborative virtual activities and meetups with your team every once in a while. Having monthly catch-up meetings to ask how everyone’s doing and what’s going on in their lives can already relieve some of the loneliness. These catch-ups can also encourage your employees to connect more with each other and discuss things on a personal level. If an employee develops serious mental health issues, assist them in seeking psychological help.

You can also check out working remotely elearning courses online to help manage your mental health in the workplace. SC Training (formerly EdApp) offers 2 wonderful courses you can check out to help your team combat mental health challenges better:

• Mental Health in the Workplace
• Mental Health Resiliency Amidst Global Conflicts

5. Work-life balance

Problem: One of the best things about working remotely is you can start and end your work at any time. However, this also means that you can overwork yourself without meaning to. You start on your work earlier but also end later. You’re also susceptible to rendering lesser hours than you’re supposed to. More often than not, people are tempted to enjoy more of life and do less work when they work remotely. This leads to lesser productivity and overall performance issues.

Solution: Have clear boundaries between work and life. This could range from setting specific times for time in and outs to setting specific areas at home as pure workstations. In that way, you’ll be able to have clearer distinctions both physically and mentally as to when work or life starts and ends. If you’re the type to overwork yourself, you can schedule your notifications to turn off at a certain time so you’re not tempted to do more than you should. If you’re the type to underwork, having a task list with frequent reminders can push you to do more.

6. Collaboration challenges

Problem: Recent studies show that the most prevalent issue reported by remote teams is collaborating with different teams across different locations. How can a product team collaborate on the same project if they are scattered throughout the globe, for example?

When team members are in the same office, they can more freely work on documents and projects with each other. But, remote working teams don’t have that same luxury. They are severely constrained, and simply working on the same document is difficult.

Solution: The good news is that, similar to project management systems, there are several collaboration solutions tailored for various projects and teams that will assist you in breaking down those distant co-working boundaries. Some examples you can check out are Zoho Projects, Teamwork, and Celoxis. Monday.com is another project management app worth looking into. The platform is easily customizable so you can tailor the app to the needs of your team.

7. Micromanagement

Problem: Managers and team leads are often tempted to micromanage their workers when they’re working remotely. This stems from a lack of trust between leaders and their teams since the assumption is that when you work remotely, you’re likely to be less productive – which isn’t true all the time. Some people are more productive when they work from home compared to in the office since they have more time and energy to spend on work. Some people even have problems with overworking themselves at home.

Micromanagement can cause issues within the team such as poor relationships between leaders and team members, increased stress and fatigue, and failure to let employees develop independence with their work, among others.

Solution: Setting clear deadlines and tasks to accomplish within a day can help managers feel more at ease with their teams working from home. They’re able to more easily track what their teams are up to within a day and if there are any signs of performance issues with the remote working setup.

8. Unrecognized work

Problem: Another common issue of working remotely is that your effort can easily go unrecognized since your bosses can’t see the minor tasks that you do to improve your team’s work. Salary increases and career advancements become particularly harder if you’re competing with other team members who’re at the office more frequently.

The worker who comes to work every day has more opportunities to improve their relationships with c-levels with water cooler talk, or become involved in an unexpected work project inspired by a chat in between meetings.

Solution: Take more effort to establish connections and develop relationships online. Maximize socializing opportunities with your upper management when they appear. 

9. Technical difficulties

Problem: One of the many limitations of working remotely is that team members don’t have access to a lot of office equipment. When employees work from the office, they usually don’t have to bother about the equipment suddenly breaking down, bugging out, or needing something and not having it available to them. A request from the IT department, HR, or office manager can get them a replacement or the equipment they need in no time. 

At home, the opposite is true. This can cause many hitches, disruptions, and, in severe circumstances, security breaches since workers are more likely to use personal equipment instead of going through the hassle of getting company-provided ones.

Solution: Allow your technical team to work closely with each staff and review their setup — preferably in person. If that isn’t possible, a video call should be enough. Teach your workers about the importance of cybersecurity. Gather and keep a store of available software tools for staff so shipping the equipment becomes faster. Finally, to prevent data breaches, develop security procedures for remote workers to follow. For example, your employees should be aware that if the camera light is on on a MacBook without using the camera, it could be due to malware. So, please make sure your employees know about cybersecurity.

10. Distractions in your surroundings

Problem: Distractions are yet another productivity crusher that can make remote working a nightmare and threaten team development. In Buffer’s 2019 State of Remote Working study, the fourth most prevalent difficulty reported was distractions at home.

Many remote workers complain about being more distracted than ever. They spend their time doing things like playing video games, listening to music, and shopping online. Additionally, workers who live with relatives or friends have discovered that they frequently come in to bother them at the most inconvenient times.

Solution: Encourage your staff to design and follow a precise task schedule to help them stay on track. Schedule daily productivity checks in the middle of the day. This will make monitoring employees who are struggling or distracted a lot easier. Assist staff in creating a calm WFH workspace where they will be less likely to be distracted. Encourage them to talk to their families and friends to respect their boundaries and their working hours or just offer them a membership at a coworking space opened nearby.

SC Training (formerly EdApp) is a mobile learning management system designed for today’s digital habits, delivering more engaging and effective micro-learning directly to learners anytime and anywhere.

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