With the recent outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, organisations and institutions have started adopting new ways of working for their employees remotely. Remote working has not been the popular norm for businesses in Nigeria; the traditional way, i.e. coming to work and sitting 9-5 hours on the job has been the standard. Although the millennial generation, which represents the largest percentage of the workforce, are being steered towards remote working in their career compared to the older age due to their technical savvy nature. The millennial generation has instant and constant access to technology.
Indeed, the pandemic has hit businesses and have forced people to stay inside their homes. However, because business must still go on, organisations who have never experienced remote working are forced to start adopting it to remain relevant.
Some tools and essentials are a must-have to enable your employees to have a smooth experience while working from home.
Essentials for Remote Working in Nigeria.
- Good Computer: A good computer with all the features intact is like the basis of remote working, otherwise how else will you be able to send in your deliverables, respond to emails, track reports etc.
- Functional Network connectivity: Having decent connectivity cannot be overemphasised while working remotely. Bad network connectivity can be so frustrating and harmful for work and business, so you must ensure that you choose a network provider whose connectivity is quite suitable for remote working.
- Adequate Power Supply: Power supply is a serious problem in Nigeria. To ensure work productivity, ensure that all your device batteries are fully charged for work. Also, make provision for alternative electricity supply.
- The organisation should use efficient Resource software tools: As a firm undertaking remote working, you must use the best tools if you want your employees to be productive while working from home. Use excellent communication and collaboration tools, task management tools, time tracking tools, video tools and cloud storage. Examples of some of these tools are:
a. Zoom: Zoom must be one of the best communications and video conferencing tools that is used in remote working. Its consistency can even work well for conducting virtual meetings for over 65 people or more. It takes away the memories of frustrating technical glitches, frozen videos and no sound from using unreliable video conferencing tools. Zoom can be used for voice and video conferencing, real-time chat, document collaboration, file sharing and webinars on multiple platforms such as mobiles, desktops etc.
b. Microsoft Teams: Teams is also a perfect communication tool. It lets you host audio-video and web conferences internally and with other organisation. This platform helps you to upload files, schedule deadlines or bookings, take notes, screen share etc. The unique feature that Teams have is that it enables you to hold webinars for up to 10,000 attendees. Another relevant feature is its compatibility with Office 365; therefore if your team uses Office regularly, then you will enjoy how they both work efficiently together.
c. Google Drive: This serves as a repository for managing your organisation’s contents. It is inherently collaborative, instantly searchable, and easily arranged. It helps in storing organisation documents and content so that everyone can be on the same page for day to day operations. A useful feature google drive has is that it can be synced across all your devices so that documents, spreadsheets, a presentation can be viewed anywhere at any time.
d. Trello: One software tool an organisation can use to manage its projects is Trello. It helps teams increase their productivity. An excellent feature of Trello is the Boards, and these boards can further be divided into Lists which stands for different phases in a project and populated with cards. Cards stand for a task which can contain chats, dates, documents etc. Trello can be used to track every employee and their assigned task to keep things from slipping through the cracks.
In conclusion, with these tools, remote working is much easier than what people perceive. Having the right tools and essentials will make employees productive. Organisations need to take the necessary step to equip their employees with these tools for business continuity.
Written by:
Ogonna Okorie
Analyst
