As online communications continue to close the distance between individuals in different geographical locations, telecommuting is becoming a standard in the business world. This fast-paced growth of the remote employment trend has resulted in an increasing demand for online project management software designed to maximize the connectivity and productivity of team members in separate locales. The advantages of employing an online project management platform are clear. In addition to providing a convenient portal for accessing and exchanging information about a given project, online management software can help individual team members feel connected to one another—reminding them that even though they are far apart, they are collectively part of something bigger.
Certain sectors of corporate America have been slow to embrace this workforce transformation. Tech giant Yahoo, for example, made the news in 2013 when CEO Marissa Mayer altered company policy to require employees work in one of the company’s corporate offices. “Being a Yahoo isn’t just about your day-to-day job,” wrote HR head Jackie Reses in an e-mail to Yahoo employees. “It is about the interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices.” Just a few years later, it is clear that Yahoo’s resistance to remote employment was misguided. A 2015 Huffington Post article reports that some Yahoo employees continue to work from home. Others were so dissatisfied with the new policy that they left the company to work for Yahoo’s competitors. In addition to losing valuable employees, one cannot help but wonder how much talent Yahoo has overlooked by excluding the possibility of remote workers when advertising new positions.
In contrast to Yahoo, a growing number of organizations are embracing telecommuting. A 2015 Gallup Work and Education Poll found that in the U.S. alone, remote workers comprise 37% of the workforce—a 400% increase since 1995. Additionally, 55% of these individuals are college graduates, which suggests that they are knowledge workers such as engineers, scientists, academics, architects, and others whose principal job description is, in a word, to think. Rather than work in the office, telecommuters work remotely from any number of locations—home offices, coffee shops, airports, and professional conventions, to name a few. And for these individuals, strong communication is key to achieving a degree of productivity comparable to that of in-office workers.
Stellar communication is a vital asset to any organization, department, or team, no matter the size of the business or the geographical distribution of its employees. This being the case, selecting a project management tool that facilitates effective, efficient communication should be the top priority for employers.
Online project management software such as ConductorLIVE offers a streamlined approach to project management, enabling remote users to communicate via an easy-to-use dashboard, convenient collaboration tools, online file storage, and more. Moreover, project managers can easily oversee their team members’ efforts, schedule tasks and events, message individuals and groups, and even solicit project feedback from their entire team. One of the biggest advantages of an online project management platform is being able to expand your search for new talent far and wide. Liberated from the location-based hiring practices of the past, you can seek out the best and brightest talent on the planet to take your business to the next level.
Online project management solutions such as ConductorLIVE empower organizations to communicate more effectively than ever before—and without sacrificing time, money, or productivity. If your business has embraced the myriad advantages of telecommuting and is seeking a solution to project management for remote teams, consider leveraging the power of the web and adopting a dynamic yet user-friendly platform for all of your collaboration needs.
