The Mystical Unicorn — A Highly Productive Remote Team

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Can You Make RPI’s Efficient Tech Outsourcing Work For You?

What Makes Outsourcing & Remote-working Effective in 2020?

For a long time, most thought a productive remote team was unattainable, like a mystical unicorn. But the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that employees can be productive at home.Teams can be managed from distant locations. Remote working is possible.

Pre-pandemic, businesses were largely skeptical of outsourcing their software development to a remote team in say, India. Then, the pandemic triggered a shift in work systems, one that showed this method can in fact be implemented.Remote working, or telecommuting, is working out-of-office, part or full-time, from home or abroad, in the name of flexibility, technological progress, and productivity¹.It sounds like a too-good-to-be-true dream, doesn’t it?However, due to a lack of supervision at home, employers are often wary of remote-working.

Yet, in 2020 as most employees are being compelled to work from home, the problems associated with it are turning out to be myths. The fast growing faith in remote-working has now also turned the spotlight towards outsourcing — especially for businesses who are looking for cost-effective software development and maintenance.

With fast-growing faith in remote-working, outsourcing too has scored points with businesses.

Remote-Working Before 2020

Just a few months back, asking for permission to work from home meant asking to be fired for trying to slack off. Remote-working was definitely not something that employers were keen on. One of their biggest fears was the unreliability of employees working at home. How could they trust their employees not to dawdle off to the beach instead? How could they be sure that their employees wouldn’t sleep 9am to 5pm away? How could they ensure that work is getting done as it should be, when it should be? Not being able to supervise how much attention their employees would give to work scared many companies away from remote-working.

Other than internal unreliability, remote-working also instigated the notion of external unreliability. Many B2B companies were afraid that having a team that is working from home, not visible at the office all day, would put off their external clients or partners — thus, losing face credibility and prestige. These reasons have for the longest time stigmatised ‘remote-working’. But, things drastically changed within the first few months of 2020.

Remote-working often sounds too good to be true and the problems associated with it are being de-mythified in the face of a global pandemic.

Emerging Benefits of Remote-Working

As country-wide lockdowns forced companies to enforce work-from-home policies, the hidden benefits of telecommuting began emerging. And suddenly, the myth that employees are unproductive and distracted at home became debunked. Access to digital tools — including email, video conferences, cloud collaboration softwares — have in fact made remote-working greatly sophisticated. So much so that in March, a California-based company tracked a 47% increase in worker productivity when working-from-home, using non-invasive data². This is likely due to fewer distractions — like meetings, conversations and noisy coworkers — as reported by a ConnectSolutions study.

Obviously, these stats are not a given for every company that turns towards a virtual workplace. The Association for Psychological Science found that the effectiveness of a work-from-home company is closely linked to its program execution³. For example, having a goal-management system and ascertaining the best times for meetings. Having experienced and learned over the past few months, it has become easier for business owners to mold both their mindset and offices — towards achieving a highly-suitable telecommuting configuration, without added cost or complications.

Telecommuting can result in increased productivity and fewer employees taking fewer sick days and less vacation time.

Leading a Productive Team

In this manner, RPI has built a dynamic remote teamwell-connected even in unexpected scenarios with a vision resonating with that of PropertyGuru’s CPO⁵— “If you look after your employees in a crisis, then they are going to look after you in the good times as well”. By outsourcing, RPI is able to integrate the latest tech into client softwares, because its remotely-working developers gain flexibility to learn new skills. At the same time, RPI’s managerial staff can dedicate more attention to client relations, not only saving thousands of dollars, but also thrusting many startups towards success by building solutions of the highest-quality. The mystical unicorn, that was once deemed unattainable, has in fact been in RPI’s backyard all this time — in the form of a highly productive remote-working team.

The mystical unicorn has been in RPI’s backyard all this time — in the form of a highly productive remote-working team.

References:

  1. https://skillcrush.com/blog/what-is-remote-work/
  2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2020/05/20/new-survey-shows-47-increase-in-productivity-3-things-you-must-do-when-working-from-home/#63cd65880dc8
  3. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/telecommuting.html#.WLiBpDvys2w
  4. https://asana.com/homepage-ui?utm_expid=.KKGLiuEBR-mZfMbPRJfp0Q.1&utm_referrer=
  5. https://e27.co/propertygurus-cpo-shares-the-secret-sauce-of-building-a-highly-productive-remote-team-20200622/
  6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelfarrer/2019/02/28/remote-reservations-why-managers-are-afraid-to-let-employees-work-virtually/#77d6f80b335f