Virtual Labs: Making Remote Work, Work

By investing in the cloud and adding virtual capabilities, you can increase productivity and benefits at the workplace.

Who could have imagined, the majority of your employees would sit in their homes and still be productive while delivering work during a pandemic? The COVID phase has shown many organizations that remote work is not an exception-based choice. They have learned that remote work is the way the world is going to run. It is the new reality.

A recent report from Forrester “The New, Unstable Normal: How COVID-19 Will Change Business And Technology Forever” identifies this workforce changes as one of the five macro shifts that will permanently alter business and technology. As the report explains, the pandemic has revealed people are executing things that once seemed impractical, especially with the shift of entire workforces to remote working. In the short term, the ability to unite humans and build engaged workforces will drive the firm’s competitive advantage.

It is also expected that remote work will boost regions around global economic hubs in the medium term. Brace up for a new scenario where firms shed more than a quarter of their city-center office spaces. Eventually, the redistribution of work will cause further global emptying and repurposing of offices.

However, all this change is far more complex than simply flipping a switch. How can organizations make sure that employees do not suffer from the loss of in-person time? There is a need to remove minimal interaction gaps and create collaborative online workspaces that are both convenient and engaging. If remote work leaves employees feeling isolated or overworked, then it is not being done right. Similarly, if organizations do not gain productivity and ROI from remote work investments, they will fail too.

Here are a few solutions to make remote work possible and productive with virtual labs.

Upload training lessons on the cloud

Remote work cannot solve networking issues and time barriers therefore, delivering training via the cloud allows everyone to be on the same page. Uploading training on the cloud will also enable scalability and elasticity for your training sessions. 

Choose a virtual lab for training

Another solution to a productive workplace is through conducting training by virtual labs.  Training your employees with a virtual lab can deliver endless advantages for both the business teams and employees. When both sides are in the same room, a virtual lab re-creates the same level of interaction, the same feeling of human engagement and excitement by using technology to bridge the distance. Furthermore, virtual training labs allow employees to learn at their own pace. They can embrace new changes and course-correct without causing risks to the organization. 

Virtual labs can also be used to introduce best practices of remote work collaboration and customer delivery. This helps minimize errors and accelerate employees’ adoption of new software applications and the new work mode while mitigating the risk of misunderstanding, doubts, hesitation, and accidents.

Learn from the crisis: The role of training

The COVID-19 crisis has forced companies to reconsider their long-term strategies for flexible working. Forrester analysts have stressed how remote working is now essential for business continuity and talent retention. Therefore organizations need to embrace this big shift with confidence and control by formalizing structures for remote working and affirming employee trust. They need to push business growth, improve the employee experience, and enable continuity of business operations without too many hiccups. 

The need for training is high because merely investing in infrastructure will not be adequate. Trainers and remote workers need to be trained to take full advantage of virtual labs. Correspondingly, long-term thinking should guide these investments. Organizations should think beyond-COVID needs when they plan for virtual lab infrastructure. This means that paying attention to the simplicity of use, access to hands-on activities, interaction with real-world scenarios is very important.  to transform virtual labs from a mid-COVID necessity to a post-COVID choice.  
With good planning and training in place, employers are able to keep remote workers happy, engaged, ready and productive, no matter where they are.