With the evolution of modern technologies, when employees can use cloud-based SaaS software to connect and collaborate with colleagues, more and more people get an opportunity to work remotely. In fact, the number of people working from home has risen by 400% since 2010. Today, 3.9 million people work from home.

Remote work has many benefits for employers and employees. Workers get flexibility, increased productivity, and better work-life balance while employers have lower business expenses, improved employee satisfaction, and reduced employee turnover.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted the growth of remote work as companies have allowed their employees to work from home.

Although many businesses were skeptical about remote work, most of them saw an increase in employee productivity. As a result, 74% of companies plan to shift to remote work permanently and 70% of the existing workforce will work remotely by 2025.

Remote work is the future of the workforce. Here’s what business owners and employees can expect of remote work in 2021.

1. The Growing Number of Fully or Semi-Remote Roles

The global pandemic has affected the growth of remote workforce. According to Reuters, the permanent remote working opportunities are expected to double up in 2021.

Modern employees want to work remotely. One report has found that 99% of people would like to work remotely at least some of the time for the rest of their careers.

If your workers can transition to online work with ease, that’s great. But if your employees are unable to complete their job duties from home, semi-remote roles suit them best as these people can balance working from home and office.

Moreover, there is a great variety of tools that help companies of all sizes and niches manage their remote employees who need assistance.

For example, if your employees work in shifts, it’s a good idea to use a time clock app for small businesses that helps managers and employees enjoy the balance between in-house sociability and telecommuting flexibility.

In short, the number of fully or semi-remote roles is predicted to grow, so companies should adapt to remote work as it’s here to stay.

2. Increased Number of Freelance Gigs

People are ready to take freelance gigs and the modern workforce offers these opportunities.

According to one research, 52% of the U.S. workforce has worked as an independent contributor while 55% of freelancers still have other full-time jobs.

In 2021, businesses will also move towards the more agile form of recruitment and job allocation. Based on the insights presented by Adam Ozimek, who is currently listed as Upwork’s Chief Economist, remote work can disrupt the geographical distribution of the remote workforce which would then bring in more freelancers and outsourced gigs into the mix.

Remote work allows people to take freelance gigs and therefore make more money that can give people flexibility and freedom. Moreover, the demand for freelancers is on the rise.

3. Advanced Teamwork and Collaboration

It’s no secret that most corporations were skeptical about remote work due to the lack of professional collaboration, erratic shifts in productivity, and depleted teamwork.

In 2021, we can expect remote workforce management to see positive changes. Why? Modern society is constantly changing, so the market offers a great number of remote working tools so that every business can find the right solution for their needs and wants.

Today, more and more companies invest in collaboration software:

Let’s take Fleep, for example. This tool allows users to share files and tasks which helps to coordinate the team’s work with ease.

But when your team members face a problem and they need assistance, companies can rely on  remote access apps that allow people to get virtual help.

All in all, the growth of remote work software leads to advanced teamwork and collaboration which help team members communicate with their co-workers, no matter where they work from. As a result, remote work leads to higher productivity and a better work-life balance. Moreover, we can expect to see more tools and apps for remote work in 2021.

4. The Growth of Outsourcing

In addition to setting the highest possible remote working standards, 2021 will also see massive growth in the outsourcing demands.

Smaller businesses will look to get a major chunk of their work done by independent, outsourced vendors to minimize reliance on in-hour labor. For instance, it seems to be a smarter idea to outsource your extended software team for a project instead of hiring in-house employees.

Outsourced jobs will find their way back into the employment sector, either as smaller freelancing gigs or contractual services. This approach will also pave the way for a chain reaction, eventually resulting in a lesser requirement for office spaces, inclination on co-working arenas, and better organization security.

However, the growth of outsourcing has its impact, too.  For now, organizations should keep a closer eye on the cybersecurity threats. Every business should invest time and effort in remote cybersecurity as the majority of work comes into the organizational server from the remote and alienated arenas. This is the reason why we are expecting the 2021 remote work scenario to be more inclined towards end-point security and other measures for keeping cyber threats at bay.

5. Better Work-Life Balance

Remote work is flourishing. Organizations provide their remote workers with various tools and apps to make their workflows easier. For example, digital marketing agencies who help companies build social media presence on various platforms use social media management tools to put some duties on autopilot and make it easier for their workers to concentrate on creative tasks.

Many companies also outsource tasks that can be outsourced. For example, organizations can use content marketing service provides, like essay writer pro experts or some other relative content specialists.

Since collaboration and teamwork become easier, both employers and remote workers get an opportunity to manage their workflow better and therefore become more productive.

During the pandemic, companies have started sharing productivity tips with their employees to help them overcome social isolation. What is more, businesses spend less on managing remote teams, so companies have budgets to invest in employees’ development and health.

Not only does it lead to an emotional bond between employees and organizations, but it also positively affects employee satisfaction that helps your team members keep a better work-life balance.

The Bottom Line: The New Normal of Remote Work in 2021

In the last decade, when more people got an opportunity to work from anywhere, the idea of working remotely had been lucrative for workers from all over the world. In 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has impacted many organizations and office workers have adjusted to different forms of remote work.

Today, a great number of people work outside the office and remote work is likely to persist long after the pandemic. Obviously, remote work requires companies to reinvent many processes and policies, but many professionals believe that remote work is the future of the workforce.

So, are you ready to make the most out of this new reality?

The post The Future of Remote Work in 2021 appeared first on Fleep Blog.

It’s now easier than ever to create a chatbot, and approximately 5 to 10% of companies actively use them.

The most common use case of chatbots is customer communications and support. In fact, the best CRMs come with chatbots built in. However, chatbots have many features and talents that are underutilized and can be used to help a company internally.

In this brief article, we’ll look at the top ways chatbots improve team productivity and communication.

1. Automating Routine Tasks & Freeing Talent

Employees in a company always have plenty of questions to ask. While there’s no such thing as a stupid question, there is such a thing as a simple question. Chatbots can be used to take care of routine tasks such as booking appointments, answering frequently asked questions, requesting tools and materials, and so on.

Furthermore, this isn’t limited to internal staff, but also external users. In fact, you’ve probably already booked an appointment using a chatbot or had some basic questions answered by one.

Thereby, using a chatbot allows you to free up time from all levels of employees, improving team productivity and hopefully profit.

2. Eliminating Time-Consuming Searches for Information

Most companies have thousands of files taking up terabytes of space, and there is nothing wrong with this. Unfortunately, most search utilities are slow, and finding the required files can be time-consuming and even problematic, especially if a deep-search is required.

A chatbot can be used to create a directory of the company’s IT systems. This way, if someone is looking for a specific file they will be able to ask the chatbot where they find this file. This is also useful if the employee doesn’t know the file naming convention for the type of file they are looking for.

3. Create a Consistent Experience Between Departments

In large companies, there are always distinct differences between different departments. Especially if you manage different shifts of your workforce, it’s a good idea to use various employee scheduling software to make sure all of your employees know about their schedule changes or get shift reminders.

Often, you’ll find that a manufacturing team has a completely different feeling than a PR team. Now, this is, of course, to be expected as they use completely different tools, software, and serve different purposes. Often, information gets lost or left behind “in transit”.

With advancements in technology and artificial intelligence, it’s now easier than ever to create a working chatbot that can learn and pull everything into a single unified system. While it would take a long time to set up a system such as this, the performance and communications improvements would be well worth it in a large company.

A centralized chatbot with access to all key data across the whole company will give employees instant access to information when necessary. For instance, managers and A-level executives will be able to access operations, production, and sales data in their as well as other branches by simply asking the chatbot. It can seriously improve and speed up strategic decision making. Similarly, chatbots can be used to send updates and messages to all the employees, specific teams, or individual staff.

Here at Fleep, we’ve created a tool that combines team communication, file sharing, and tasks. Thereby if you use Fleep you’ll be able to immediately get rid of some of the tools that you’re already using and move towards a more unified system.

However, data accuracy and consistency at a company helps managers and executives get a clearer picture of what’s happening and therefore make more informed decisions more quickly and more efficiently.

If workflow and productivity is one of your biggest pain points, then you should look into ways of improving your productivity using technology.

4. Improving Training/Onboarding

We’ve all been the new kid at a company, and truth be told it’s not exactly an exciting experience. There are endless meetings, introduction talks, software and hardware orientation, and so on.

However, did you know that you could use a chatbot to automate a lot of an employee onboarding process? This way you would free up employee time and if done right you’ll also make the onboarding process more exciting for the newbie.

Before I continue, let me state that a chatbot shouldn’t be used to automate everything. The whole task of onboarding is to get a new employee integrated into the company. If you were to remove all social interaction from this process not only would they end up disliking your company, they probably wouldn’t want to work there for long either.

Chatbots improve team productivity by helping new employees set up their accounts, quickly access learning materials,, or schedule meeting times with different employees. It can also help them get introduced and acquainted with the systems and processes used within the company. On the whole, this should save your HR team plenty of time, without sacrificing important human interaction.

5. Providing Access to Ongoing HR Support

In most companies, it’s impossible to give individual attention to every single employee on a regular basis. However, all employees will need constant support and help. This is where a chatbot can step in. It will be able to regularly check in on a person, gather feedback, and if required get human interaction going.

Additionally, as discussed above, it will be able to help with any commonly asked questions such as “what if I’m ill” or “policy in case of pregnancy”, etc. This way your HR team will be more productive, effective, and able to provide attention to the employees who really need it.

6. Serving as an Instant Knowledge Base

Knowledge bases can boost team productivity. They can be an internal or external pool important documents and files.

It may come as a surprise, but a chatbot can also be used to create an instant knowledge base for sales and support calls.

Let’s say an employee is on a support call and they get an unusual question. If you use an interactive voice response (IVR), you can redirect your employees to the right customer support representatives. But if you want to save time, they can also use an internal chatbot system which should be able to answer the question.

Understandably, this system can be built up over time as more and more questions get asked by users. The advantage of such a system is that with some minor changes it can also be used as a support chatbot on the company website if that’s what they wish to use instead of calling a support member.

For sales members, a similar system can be used. While sales members will have an in-depth knowledge of the product they are selling, unfortunately, they won’t always have all the answers a possible client may ask. An internal chatbot system will help them answer unfamiliar questions. This means that your sales team will have a higher success rate and thereby provide you with a larger profit.

The above two combined will mean a significantly higher customer lifetime value which, of course, is the aim of any company.

Conclusion: Chatbots Improve Team Productivity & Communication

So there you have it. Just some of the ways that chatbots can improve team productivity and communication within your company.

Of course, these are just some ideas, and if you let your mind flow we’re sure you’ll be able to come up with plenty more creative ideas on how you can use a chatbot to benefit your company.

The post 6 Ways Chatbots Improve Team Productivity & Communication appeared first on Fleep Blog.

However, remote workforce management isn’t the only aspect that the organizations need to worry about; it’s also important to pay close attention to cybersecurity as a data breach can damage the reputation and cause financial losses. Plus, the remote work culture has extrapolated the data breach management budget by a staggering $137,000, as per IBM.

When working from home, most employees fail to adhere to cybersecurity standards and guidelines, making the system, data, information products, and every other organizational asset vulnerable to threats.

The proliferation of cyber-crimes is slowly but steadily impairing the remote workspace, as most employees find it hard to maintain the highest possible security standards. Working out of brick-and-mortar offices is all about using secured machines, patched collaborative software, and automated protective layers against DDoS, phishing, and any other cyber-attacks.

How to Approach Remote Cyber Security?

Before we move any further into this detailed discussion regarding airtight online security standards for the remote workforce, it is necessary to take a closer look at the inherent organizational approach towards the same. The first and foremost step, regardless of the nature of the organization, is to establish policies related to cybersecurity and cyber threats.

Employee Obligations vs. Company Obligations

Maintaining top-of-the-line cybersecurity standards is a responsibility that needs to be shared by the companies and employees alike. While the companies are primarily responsible for shelling out system updates, patches, secured, and SaaS-driven software modules like the invoice maker and spreadsheets, employees need to implement the same theme stat.

Although the policies are expected to work, no matter where your employees are, remote workers should emphasize strengthening the home network and using separate subnetworks for more sensitive discussions.

Whether you want to build a great small business team or manage a team of freelance remote workers, it’s important to keep remote working threats at bay. Now let’s take a look at top 7 underrated and easy cybersecurity tips.

1. Secure Your Devices

For remote employees, it can be hard to ensure that the work-centric devices are safe. Not only should employees analyze the working conditions, but they also need to  keep the gadgets out of the malicious network. Most importantly, securing the machines, mostly laptops, and networks require a workforce to install the latest security patches when proposed by the concerned business.

A good way to adhere to this tip is by expecting threats and creating an operational telework policy. Most importantly, the OS in play needs to be upgraded as any form of redundancy can be exploited by the unscrupulous sources for accessing data and sensitive information.

Another line of defense is to consider using a VPN with high-end encryption standards and protocols, capable of keeping the network threats at bay. Last but not least, if employees believe that their devices are loaded with confidential organizational information, it is necessary to restrict usage only when connected to a secured sub-network.

Thus, it can be a good idea for organizations to create information products that contain all relevant information about device security and send them when employees move to remote working.

2. Create Strong Passwords

With the rise of data thefts and unwanted hacks, most people know about the importance of strong passwords. But not all people think about using various passwords on different devices. In fact, ¾ of Millennials claim using the same password for more than ten different devices, apps, and accounts. In terms of cybersecurity, secure passwords provide employees with essential protection from identity theft and data breach.

In other words, this tip might be considered an extension to gadget security. Regardless of the on-premise resources, cloud-centric managed services, or the typical SaaS software modules, setting a strong password is more like securing the premise with an additional line of defense.

In case an employee finds it hard to create a strong password, it’s important to help your remote workers connect with the organizational support or the IT team and provide employees with relevant information and strong password ideas.

3. Invest in Virus Protection Software

Endpoint security tools and top-of-the-line antivirus or antimalware tools work well, especially if an organization plans to take cyber threat proliferation seriously enough. Many attackers try injecting viruses or malware into the system, precisely gaining access or initiating DDoS attacks on systems and servers.

For instance, when organizations provide a total security plan, it can keep Chikdos Malware at bay, especially if the threat concerns MySQL servers. Similarly, endpoint solutions come in handy for keeping every gadget on the network safe against the threats. However, phishing attacks require specialized email gateways which are mostly provided by the company itself. If you have a great number of workers and you send bulk emails for your staff, these gateways are capable of keeping malicious emails, attachments, and links safe.

4. Use a Secure Connection

A secure connection is the most important aspect of cybersecurity compliance. In case employees don’t have the technical expertise to implement secured networks all by themselves, starting off with a VPN is a reliable option. However, encryption and decryption protocols and VPN keys need to be shared within the network for creating a collaborative working environment. Another way of securing the connection is by refraining from using free Wi-Fi access points and hotspots, in any circumstance.

Another nifty technique is to ensure that every gadget in the workspace inventory is accessible over a sub-network. A powerful router can help serve this purpose by offering several virtual networks and channels to choose from. As this is more of a technical step, connect with the IT team to get the requisite assistance or use trustworthy document management software where your IT department can send the right files to your remote workers without any thread.

Apart from that, it is advisable to shun public Wi-Fi networks, especially when remote workers do company work or use the office-specific gadget. Finally, a good way to secure the connection is by opting for additional layers of security, including authentication techniques. The likes of 2FA come in as utilitarian security enhancements, making it harder for hackers to access files and information.

5. Choose Trustworthy Collaboration Software

For most companies, it comes as a surprise that remote work can positively affect employee productivity. Since most organizations fear drop in productivity, they are more likely to tell their remote employees about the best productivity apps and choose collaborative software that allows employees, management trainees, and team members to work on the same project simultaneously.

While most businesses prefer using collaborative tools like Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet, some companies give new solutions a try. Thus, it’s important to choose trustworthy collaborative software for practicing safe, secure, and virtual associations.

One of the most important things is to check for terms, conditions, and permissions for understanding the nature of the accessed resources. Therefore, it is necessary to pair the trustworthiness of the collaborative tools with the highest form of network security standard.

Most importantly, even if employees and organizations zero in on select tools, apps, and resources for collaborating with the team members, it is necessary to keep installing updates, create unique IDs and passwords, lock meetings and interactions, and be careful with access permissions. To make your life easier, consider using Fleep.

6. Use a Remote Working eBook

Besides the mentioned technical strategies for strengthening the online exclusivity, relying on dependable resources for better understanding is equally important. To procure the latest information and stay updated with the changing times and threats, it is necessary to rely on a resourceful eBook.

As a rule of thumb, it is necessary to rely on an ebook with all the bases covered when cybersecurity standards and implementations are concerned. EBooks, newsletters, and webinars mostly serve as the cybersecurity training modules. What is more, it’s a good idea to build an internal knowledge base so that your employees can find answers to their questions fast. These resources can help employees become more vigilant and empower them to fix minor issues with ease.

Furthermore, a cybersecurity training regime should be made mandatory for the employees, especially when an IT firm is concerned. We need to understand that these cyber threats evolve with time and, therefore, employees must consider learning continuously and keep the skills and security standards updated at all times.

7. Avoid Sharing Personal Data

When people take their personal laptop and work from home, the line between professional and personal can blur, especially for newly remote workers. This means workers may still share personal information once their workday is over: from uploading social media posts to making payments online, people may share personal data without realizing it.

No matter how hard you try to secure your employees, a phishing email or link can find its way to reach your staff. Thus, your employees should meet data privacy standards and it’s important to explain that sharing personal details is a strict no-no. When the attackers get access to the personal details over a secured network, it becomes easier to breach, even the most airtight firewalls. Therefore, work emails, connections, and numbers should be separate to maintain anonymity.

Work from home has always been a forbidden fruit for the organizations in general. Despite the widespread reluctance, the COVID-19 era has made remote working a part of the new normal. This is why strategizing the perfect cybersecurity blueprint becomes necessary as cyber attacks have increased in number. Therefore, companies must secure every endpoint and fix every possible loose end by following the tips mentioned above, before adopting remote working on a larger scale.

The post 7 Cybersecurity Tips for Remote Workers appeared first on Fleep Blog.