The evolution of work
Today’s world is constantly evolving and every company and person tries to implement strategies and activities to try to achieve the pre-established objectives in an advantageous way. Digitization has brought numerous changes to the daily life of each of us: from communication, to school, to reading and so on. Precisely for this reason, since everything is changing, why shouldn’t the way of working change and evolve too?
Agile working or Smart Working is a mode that allows you to work remotely from wherever you are in a quick and easy way. Obviously, in order to take advantage of this mode, it is necessary to have a device (preferably a desktop or laptop computer) and an Internet connection in order to access the various services.
This method has existed for some time, but in Italy it became “popular” following COVID19, the health emergency we encountered at the beginning of 2020. From this moment on, small, medium-large companies, institutions and other entities have started to use the technologies available to us to allow people to work remotely, but also to allow students to attend lessons through videoconferencing platforms.
All this has led to a big news that until a few years ago was not allowed: people were forced to travel several kilometers every day to reach the office / university or any other workplace, they had to go to the store to solve problems related to one’s own infrastructures and, at times, waiting long times for one’s shift. All this involved the expenditure of large sums of money by individuals, but also a waste of time. Now, however, with remote work everything is easier and more comfortable, both for workers and for companies. In the next paragraph we will go into detail to analyze what are the strengths, but also the criticalities of this mode.
The advantages of Smart Working
At this point, you may be wondering what are the advantages of this way of working. First of all, work is certainly more flexible and usable to everyone: flexible because a person who works remotely has the ability to manage working hours in a different way than at work traditional (obviously it is necessary to agree on the time with your employer in case you are an employee); usable because this way of working is accessible to everyone. The consequence, as mentioned above, is that in this way users can reduce the costs associated with transport, bringing savings both from an economic point of view and in terms of time. These are in effect great strengths for workers.
On the other hand, agile work also brings benefits to customers and to the companies that provide services. For any problem or to give assistance to their consumers, it is no longer necessary to physically move. On the network there are software that can be downloaded directly to your device, through which you can remotely connect to your customer’s computer and make certain changes in real time. In this way, both parties can express their doubts, ask each other questions and solve the problems that have arisen, observing in real time what the other is doing on the device. In summary, these applications allow you to shorten distances, making you hardly perceive the distance. These platforms have “saved” numerous situations, especially in a pandemic period: since it was not possible to move, except in case of necessity, the work had to continue to be enjoyed.
Furthermore, another advantage of Smart Working is that some companies have given the possibility to carry out collaborations with them exclusively at a distance: in this way some people have never physically visited the company or place. of work, but they managed to carry out the work remotely directly from their workstation.
Working remotely is also a plus for the environmental impact, an element very often underestimated by people: if people do not have to move to reach the workplace, then they do not use means of transport and, consequently, do not pollute. the surrounding environment.
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Smart working problems
If so far we have spoken positively about this way of working, we must also be aware of the difficulties and problems we face.
First of all, people who work remotely must have a safe and accessible location and must have a device and a fast internet network in order to access the various services. Furthermore, the home environment is not always as peaceful as the office or shop. For example, if you have small children running around the house, pets, noisy neighbors, the intercom or home phone ringing, it is difficult to stay focused on what is happening. The worker could therefore have difficulty separating the time dedicated to work from those to private life, not always being able to find a balance between the two.
Another problem concerns the management of commitments and appointments: people may have difficulties in this management precisely because they do not have direct contact/comparison with other team members or with the owner of the company. To solve this problem, however, there are many applications that you can use to better organize your work and to stay in touch with your colleagues. For example, in the last article we wrote, you can view a series of tools for communicating with your work team. Just download one of the platforms mentioned in the article to always stay in touch with other individuals. For more information, I recommend that you read what tools for internal company communication are.
On the other hand, if we put ourselves on the side of the customers, we can detect two problems.
- Lack of contact with people: for example it may happen that individuals are unable to explain a problem by telephone and prefer to go to the store to have direct contact with the employees of a company or with telephone operators. This difficulty, however, can be easily overcome thanks to the competence and training of the work team.
- Trusting what we find on the net: This is another problem that can be found by being online. Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to trust the people or what certain companies convey. If you don’t already know that product or service, very often you have the fear of being deceived.
For these types of problems, there are small tricks that can help you understand if the company you are facing is more or less reliable. First of all, I recommend that you check that the company has a website and above all, that it is well maintained. If the company works well and cares about its online presence, it will take a lot of attention to the appearance of its website:
- must be visually appealing and attractive;
- must be quick to use;
- the contents must be laid out in a clear and easy to understand manner;
- users must be guided within the pages of the site in a simple way: for example, if it is an online sale of a certain product, the consumer must be guided in all phases of the purchase of that good;
- constantly updated: especially if there is a section dedicated to news or the blog.
Another suggestion we can give you is to try to see the companies it collaborates with and the jobs it has done, if it has many customers or important partnerships it tends to mean that that company is valid and reliable.
So to clarify, why prefer to work remotely and find companies willing to do it?
If you have read this far, it means that you are interested in this way of working.
In summary, we can therefore deduce that agile work is advantageous because:
- saves time and money;
- flexible and accessible to all;
- allows you to work comfortably remotely;
- allows you to develop collaborations exclusively at a distance;
- does not pollute the surrounding environment: in fact, with the Smart Working mode there are great benefits such as reducing CO2 emissions and reducing traffic.
To conclude, we can say that, despite all the advantages just presented, the Smart Working modality is well accepted and supported by many people, especially by young people, but it is still difficult to understand for older people or for those who have difficulty approaching technology. Precisely for this reason, many people are still not convinced that this mode can work and doubt its potential.
We are confident that all doubts and difficulties that people find in this modality will be overcome with time and they will understand how much this modality will bring advantages in our daily way of life.
