3 tips to unify your dispersed business
From completely remote workers to on-the-go consultants and sales teams, today’s workforce is more mobile than ever before. Cloud-based technologies, mobile-enabled apps and interfaces, and 24/7/365 connectivity are introducing a new level of flexibility that is allowing businesses to become more agile than ever.
Having a remote and mobile workforce offers many advantages, ranging from tapping into a wider talent pool to saving money on office space to reducing environmental impact. However, there are challenges that come with a dispersed business. Many workers have trouble staying engaged, and productivity can suffer due to disjointed groups and ineffective processes.
Does your business have the technology and tools in place to make sure your dispersed workforce is an advantage and not a barrier? Here are a few tips to get you there.
Tip #1: Keep employees fully engaged
Remote workers often report feeling isolated and detached from the teams they work with. This can lead to breakdowns in communication, job dissatisfaction, lower productivity, and lower morale for everyone on the team.
Combat this by making collaboration easy and providing a centralized hub or group virtual workspace for your employees. Keep information, chats, files, apps, and workflows together in one interface. Your team should be able to use a single application to host virtual meetings, send messages, and work together in real time. Applications like Microsoft Teams are designed specifically to boost teamwork and communication for businesses like yours while integrating with other Microsoft business applications.
Tip #2: Help employees be more efficient and effective
We’ve all been there – you know you need to do something before end of day, but you can’t quite remember the details, or you’ve lost the email you need. That information must be around somewhere – how can it be so hard to find?
Integrated systems and efficient workflows are key in any situation, but they’re especially helpful for remote workers who don’t have access to office files and employees. Mobile work can make it more difficult to manage time-sensitive approvals and processes, leading to frustration and wasted time.
Make sure your business applications are integrated so all employees can easily communicate and work together whether they are in the office, in the field or at home. Use workflows to connect processes like budgeting, invoicing, time and expenses, client onboarding, and more. Eliminate delays and roadblocks caused by doing everything via multiple emails or phone calls.
Tip #3: Give managers a one-stop task management platform
Managers and signers can have a hard time keeping up with approvals, budgeting, and other recurring, time-sensitive tasks. This is especially true when they’re working remotely or while traveling. Managers should be able to see all their tasks in one place and get their work done within one platform. Keep everything running smoothly and help increase efficiency by making workflows and approvals easy to see and complete.
Ready to connect your business?
Arbela is a leading Microsoft Gold partner committed to helping our clients achieve strategic goals. We enable businesses to succeed with solutions across the Microsoft technology stack and services to help you connect, automate, and grow.
To help you overcome some of the challenges of managing a dispersed business and workforce, we developed Arbela Workflow Manager to provide a powerful, unified interface to manage people and processes across your organization. Contact us today to talk to an expert about how we can help your business thrive.