In the era of the virus, remote work is a timely solution. But it’s never a perfect one. If you’re not careful, productivity will nosedive when your team is WFH or working from home. While technology provides an answer, the new working front also has its own issues that must be addressed. Or your results will soon tail off. Something that could endanger your company’s very existence.
If you do things right, WFH can be a great cheerleader, a morale booster. And in the process, it can be a great tool to give you the productivity you need. Done haphazardly, WFH can be a nightmare. It can be a breeding ground for laziness and inefficiency. Ultimately, it could wreak havoc on your organization.
Many things have been said about China. But it’s not a secret that the country proved to be a success in remote work. In fact, many American big tech firms that have a foothold in China are also promoting remote work. Taking a page from the most populous nation on the planet should be timely. Check out below for key takeaways from the experts.
Pushing the Envelope
As China’s remote working market skyrocketed, so did the technology to support it ballooned. And we’re talking about enormous numbers in terms of market. China, by the way, is just 1.398 billion people by the last count. When COVID-19 happened, a mad scramble for online technology ensued.
Online working platforms became a fad overnight. We’re talking about Alibaba’s DingTalk and ByteDance’s Feishu, for instance. To note, these platforms serve a similar service to cloud services in America, such as DropBox, Zoom, and Google Drive. A major shift into online working tools happened.
Now, don’t be surprised about the numbers. This is China. DingTalk, which gives you chats, live streaming, and online collaboration, has been phenomenal. It boasts of 200 million daily active users being the go-to app for companies and K-12 learners all over China.
What’s amazing is apps such as DingTalk are pushing the envelope in terms of online collaboration. DingTalk, for one, has automatic translation when you do incoming and outgoing messages via its AI Translation. That way, you don’t have to worry about interacting with someone from another country.
Indeed, the virus has made remote work the new normal for workers all over the world. The good news is even if a vaccine is still trickling, the road to treatment seems bright.
For one, the COVID-19 drug testing service is ready to test possible drugs that can be used to treat or cure a patient infected with the viral disease. It’s a different ball game altogether than prevention, the goal of vaccines. While vaccines prevent infection, a drug can help treat or cure someone already infected.
Better Teamwork Collaboration
What many Chinese remote working teams realize is remote work allows better teamwork compared to traditional reporting work. A classic example is Feishu’s “SamePageMeeting.” Indeed, it’s a classic welcome to the wonders of cloud computing.
As such, SamePageMeeting allows documents to be discussed and reviewed by remote workers at the same time, a feature common to Google Drive’s Google Docs.
The ability of SamPageMeeting to allow instantaneous collaboration has made it a go-to feature for many remote teams. Indeed, it serves to facilitate faster processing of a document.
Even the language barrier has not become a significant obstacle. Many Chinese remote teams are now making the most out of simultaneous translations, such as those featured by Google Translate and Microsoft Translator, akin to DingTalk’s AI Translate.
The Limits of Remote Work
Chinese managers have realized there are limits to remote work. The inability to monitor people can take a toll on the entire dynamics of the working relationship.
Think about it. In traditional work, you can easily monitor people because you see them around in the office. Even when they’re not at their desks, you know they are working. Their desk alone will tell you they’ve been focused on a task. But it’s not so easy to determine things online.
First, there’s the problem of communication. Sometimes, people don’t respond immediately to a chat online. And managers begin to suspect. Many managers resort to cameras and monitoring devices. But the presence of these things serves to only lower job satisfaction and thereby job productivity.
Then there’s the problem with working hours reported by a study first published in Human Resources Management Review. Many Chinese workers are complaining remote work is making them work seven days a week. The thing is, these overtime hours are not reflected in the payslip.
It seems employment contract adjustments should be in order. By the looks of it, Chinese remote working teams share a lot in common with those in America. Making the most of these insights should be spot on.