Technology advancements have brought about effectiveness in service delivery within most organizations globally. The adoption of various technologies by most organizations has enabled productive remote working by most employees within a given institution. Remote working is whereby an employee of a given organization can significantly offer their services to their employers without being present at the workstation. However, some sectors or departments within an entity do not function appropriately when the approach of remote working is being utilized. Remote working requires appropriate training before being implemented by the employees of a firm. This paper strives to highlight the importance of employee training and education to ascertain whether offering some services through remote working within an organization is reasonable.
Remote working is a new approach to most organizations globally since it is an organizational culture embraced by many organizations. To enhance effectiveness in service delivery through remote working, the organization must ensure appropriate training and education for its potential employees (Wulida & Burgess, 2021). Currently, most organizations are embracing remote working as the new norm due to the negative effects of the Covid 19 pandemic (BBC, 2020). The coronavirus outbreak is one of the most devastating global pandemics that affected the economic performance of many organizations across the world (Wulida & Burgess, 2021). Enterprises adopted new measures to help in mitigating the negative impacts of covid-19 on their economic performance. Laying off some employees and encouraging remote working were some of the strategies implemented.
Education and training are important aspects of remote working since it enables the employees to clearly understand what they are supposed to do and how to conduct themselves to meet the organization’s standards of remote service delivery. Education and training also enable the employees to adopt the appropriate measures to mitigate various events that may have a negative impact on the firm (Aczel et al., 2021). The employers also ensure effective training and education for their employees before subjecting them to remote work to assess their mental health. Mental health problems were one of the major negative impacts of the outbreak of covid-19 to most employees (Carnevale & Hatak, 2020). Assessment of the employees’ mental health will enable the employers to determine some of the tasks that an employee can be assigned to perform at home or remotely.
Remote working also entails the change of an employee’s working schedule, which means that the employer will have to review the scope of work being assigned to an employee. Through training and education, the heads of various departments are able to determine some of the tasks that can be assigned to a given worker (Aczel et al., 2021). This is because training enables the managers and the worker to assess the workers’ productivity when implementing the new approach of remote working. For example, an employee who has just given birth to a newborn can be assigned some easy-to-work-on assignments to provide them with more time to attend to their newborn child (Dey et al., 2020). The other employees who are in a position to work on are the ones who will be assigned more complex tasks.
Training and education also enable the workers of a given entity to clearly understand the complexities of various programs offered by the organization. When the employees understand the complexities related to various programs through the online approach, productivity will be boosted, positively impacting the organization’s performance (Cicala, 2020). This will also enable most of them to be more flexible with their working hours to avoid the collision between their working hours and their family time (Sinha et al., 2021). When an employee does not understand the scope and complexity of work through remote working, they may fail to manage their time effectively, which may negatively impact the organization’s performance.
Employees within an organization are also trained and educated before being subjected to a remote working environment to assess their technological skills. The assessment enables them to identify highly skilled and semi-skilled individuals and educate them on various technological aspects to improve their skills (Cicala, 2020). Identifying the technological strengths and weaknesses of the employee’s team will enable the managers of various departments within the organization to effectively assign duties and programs to the workers according to an individual’s qualifications.
The main reason for conducting education and education before adopting the remote working approach within the organization is to ensure the organization’s continuity in service delivery. This also helps in ensuring that their clients continue receiving quality services through the online platform. Education and training also help to enhance effective communication and teamwork within the organization. Working as a team to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives enables the firm to improve its productivity and profitability. Most organizations also use employee remote working education and training to enhance their disaster and risk management by ensuring that their employees can mitigate various risky events through remote working.
References
Aczel, B., Kovacs, M., van der Lippe, T., & Szaszi, B. (2021). Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges. PLOS ONE, 16(3), e0249127. Web.
BBC. (2020). Coronavirus: How the World of Work May Change Forever. BBC. Web.
Carnevale, J. B., & Hatak, I. (2020). Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: Implications for human resource management. Journal of Business Research, 116(116), 183–187. NCBI. Web.
Cicala, S. (2020). Powering Work from Home. Web.
Dey, M., Frazis, H., & Sun, H. (2020). Ability to work from home: evidence from two surveys and implications for the labor market in the COVID-19 pandemic: Monthly Labor Review: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web.
Sinha, R., Cook, D., & Reyt, J.-N. (2021). Working from home News, Research and Analysis. The Conversation. Web.
Wulida, T., & Burgess, J. (2021). Working from home effectiveness during Covid-19: Evidence from university staff in Indonesia. Asia Pacific Management Review. Web.