Top Five Strategies to Keep Remote Employees Engaged Revealed in New Report

From Millennials to Boomers, How to Successfully Address the Mindset of Today’s Workforce

San Jose, CA | Dec. 15, 2016

Prysm, Inc., the creator of cloud-based visual workplaces, today announced the release of a new report, “Dissolving the Distance: a playbook for distributed, global teams.” The playbook – the fourth installment in Prysm’s “Six Realities Disrupting the Workplace” report series – reveals how companies can optimize innovation, win the war for talent, and keep employees happy. The report does so by disclosing how to solve the five most common obstacles that interfere with the success of remote workers and distributed teams:

• time zone barriers
• lack of proper tools and clear communication goals
• isolation and social barriers
• limited access to critical information and expertise
• misuse of technology

Considering the explosion of mobile device use, along with audio and video conferencing technologies, it shouldn’t be surprising that a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Prysm found that more than 60 percent of enterprise knowledge workers typically work from home at least once a week.(1) Free from distractions, more than two-thirds of employers report increased productivity among their telecommuters.(2) However, one area still needs improvement: group interactions. Group interactions are the cornerstone to innovation, as they are the bedrock of effective processes and productivity.(3)

Obstacles for Remote Workers and Distributed Teams, and How to Overcome Them

The Forrester study found a large majority of information workers – 83 percent – said that if they had modern collaboration tools, they could be productive regardless of time or location. Companies and organizations that commit to remote work, supported by modern technologies, can expect more efficient teams and happier employees. Those employers who do not make that commitment put their ability to attract and retain the next generation of workers at risk.

To enable the highest rates of productivity among employees, the Prysm Report found that enterprises must overcome these five obstacles and provides strategies to address them:

1. Neutralize the time zone issue: View the time difference as more “man-hours” on a project, not a hindrance to productivity. For example, have a team in Europe or Asia begin a project and have your North American team pick up the project when they arrive at work.
2. Provide proper tools and clear communication goals: Recognize that email is not enough. Set communication standards for your team(s) and offer them the right communication tools to make this possible. For example, provide your team with technologies that support virtual conferencing and real-time collaborative updates.
3. Overcome Isolation and social barriers: Provide your remote teams with a visual collaboration solution to eliminate isolation and social barriers.
4. Provide full access to critical information and expertise: Utilize a cloud-based workspace to offer distributed teams a convenient repository to upload, review and annotate files and documents.
5. Recognize that technology is not the answer; the right technology is the answer: Provide technology that works intuitively and makes collaboration easy. Find a software solution that can integrate into existing technology to provide a better, more well-rounded collaboration environment.

“For a company to succeed today, it must accept that the traditional 9-to-5 in-office work day is a thing of the past. To thrive, companies must provide the right collaboration technologies to support teleworkers, mobile workers and distributed teams,” said Paige O’Neill, CMO, Prysm. “As the Forrester Consulting study finds, to keep employees happy and flourishing, businesses need to integrate collaboration tools that help their employees feel fully engaged whether at the office, at home or on the go. It’s a collaborate or perish kind of world today.”

Additional related content can be found here:

• E-book: Dissolving the distance: a playbook for distributed, global teams
• Infographic: History of telework

About Prysm, Inc.

Prysm is helping companies define a new way of work. One where applications, content, video conferencing and the Web can all be easily combined into a visual workspace where teams can create, edit and share. These interactive workspaces are stored in the cloud and available on any sized screen. Prysm’s Visual Workplace solutions span from executive briefing center to home office — and every size workplace in between. Today, Prysm powers many companies in the Fortune 1000 and our customers are leaders in all industries including technology, energy, finance, healthcare, media and universities. To define your company’s new way of work, visit prysm.com.