Is it time to ditch the office? Remote working is here to stay, and here’s what you need to know.

The year is 2016. I had just moved to Metro Manila, one of the densest metropolitans in the world with a population of just under 13 million in a land area of 619 square kilometers. With this many people, a typical daily commute from Quezon City to the bustling business district of Ortigas meant spending forty minutes in traffic from my house to the closest train station, thirty minutes to fall in line and squeeze myself inside a packed train, twenty minutes to get to the station closest to my work, and another twenty minutes to walk to the office.

By the time I arrived, I would already be exhausted from the mere act of getting there on time, and often drenched in sweat after spending two hours inside packed vehicles under the blinding tropical heat.

This means, a typical workday for me consisted of nine hours at the office and four more hours on the road. This is just a conservative estimate as the 12-hour workday I illustrated operates under three important assumptions: that I don’t spend more of my hours doing extra work, that the weather is being cooperative, and that our often unreliable third world transport system isn’t clunking out.

I was not alone in this predicament. People all over Metro Manila have to deal with the exact same problems, while those in other similarly dense cities around the world like Mumbai and Dhaka have to contend with their own versions of the same harrowing story.

To be able to work remotely cuts back four full hours from my workday and relieves me from the violence and terror that a tedious commute system entails.

With remote working, not only am I able to perform better, but conversely, the companies I work for get to maximise my time and energy better, rendering a mutually beneficial partnership between employer and employee.

Environmental impact of remote work

Of all the things modern society has to contend with, the one thing we cannot deny is the impact of carbon emissions to our climate. With climate justice taking on an increasingly important role in how we shape society, it is important to recalibrate how we operate in our daily lives to better mitigate the effects of climate change.

A recent report from the Carbon Trust found that greater adoption of home working could save around 3 million tons of carbon emissions in the UK alone. Because of our growing knowledge on the impact we have towards the natural environment, it is likely that organisations big and small will continue to push for remote working as a means to reduce our carbon footprint.

In the US, the city of San Antonio, Texas is encouraging businesses to authorise more flexible working arrangements for employees such as getting them to work a four-day week (instead of five) to decrease their time on the road and improve the city’s air quality. On the other hand, the Philippines has passed a recent law that allows employers in the private sector to offer remote working and promote people’s capacity to earn without the need to exhaust their valuable resources and energy in commuting.

These initiatives are mere examples of how institutional change are being enforced across multiple parts of the world to better accommodate the increasingly precarious state that our natural environment finds itself in. Not only is it important for governments to implement these solutions in the labor force framework, but it is becoming increasingly necessary.

As such, we can realistically project that remote working as a solution to this problem will only take on a more prominent role as the decade unfolds. Not just as a trend, but as a norm, remote working coupled with tools and technologies is a viable and impactful solution to the pressing problems that come with climate change.

Business continuity planning in times of crisis

Business continuity planning (BCP) is the process of creating a system of prevention and recovery efforts from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures that personnel and assets are protected and are able to function quickly in the event of a disaster.

These disasters can span from anything between situations of environmental calamity like typhoons, to less common predicaments like concerns surrounding health and other related issues.

With global threats and health risks becoming more and more prominent, there is an acute awareness among big and small companies that preemptive measures and proactive systems must be in place in order to err on the side of caution.

Such is the case in Singapore where, due to certain public health risks, many multinational companies are encouraging remote and flexible working arrangements in order to better protect their employees while still managing the daily grind that comes with operating a business.

Given these developments, business continuity planning is more important than ever as it helps strike a balance between securing the health and safety of employees while at the same time, making sure that the company gets to continue rendering products and services for its consumers.

Remote working is a great way to circumvent these problems and equip companies with a formidable business continuity planning system. Given the right set of tools, a lot of businesses especially in the tech ecosystem will be able to function normally with the help of remote working despite certain public threats.

The right set of tools

There are many technologies out there that can help a company promote business continuity planning and provide ample tools for remote working. One of the greatest markers of a powerful tool when it comes to effective remote working is an integrated system that combines all conversations, documents, and meetings in one seamless platform.

Because remote working means one’s workforce is somewhat scattered and fragmented and often across multiple time zones, the best way for it to work is by streamlining and simplifying operations that can only be achieved in an effective integrated model.

One of the best examples of these technologies is Lark, the new unified communications and collaborations solution for teams of all sizes. With tools such as messaging, calendar, video conferencing, and docs all synced in real-time and under one platform, Lark is a great example of a technology that can help one’s business ease into a remote working environment.

Not only that, but you can also install third-party tools into the platform that you may need in order to function as you would in an office-setting.

Kick-start your remote working journey with a free business subscription valid until 1 May 2020 when you sign up at www.larksuite.com.

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