Introduction
Remote working is one of the recent widely adopted project management trends. It enables employees to perform duties remotely without necessarily having to be present at a central office. The management assigns duties to employees, conducts meetings, monitors feedback and manages operations virtually via the Internet. This trend is becoming increasingly popular going into the future since it presents an endless list of operational benefits for both the employee and the employer. The COVID-19 pandemic revamped attention to remote working since it necessitated drastic changes in the operational strategies of businesses. For the first time, organisations were forced to accept remote working or go out of business because the lockdown ruled out the traditional face-to-face work environment. After the end of the pandemic, most companies did not look back but instead continued to embrace remote working by enabling teams to collaborate on projects virtually. Remote working is becoming a clear trend to help organisations optimise output in project management and therefore become competitive in the agile world.
Discussion
Most organisations learned a thing or two from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic changed how people live and work hence the need for adjustments through digital technologies. Organisations created digital sustainability, which involves trans-disciplinary approaches that enable employees to perform tasks remotely during the pandemic (Pan & Zhang, 2020, p4 (7)). Many organisations that failed to create digital sustainability suffered devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is essential to pick lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and accumulate the necessary knowledge and techniques to tackle economic and operational challenges if they recur in future. Investing more in digital infrastructure and competencies improves sustainability in organisations hence helpful in the long run.
Digital transformation remains the most precarious factor affecting business in the modern corporate world. The fast-changing digital innovations are disrupting already established business models and strategies. Digital innovation and transformation come in the form of improvisation, emergence, and affordance of newer digital products at operations and managerial levels of project management (Baiyere, Salmela & Topanainen, 2020, p241 (5)). Digital transformation enables organisations to create and deliver digital value propositions by leveraging technological innovations to make operational processes more efficient and seamless. In this regard, there is a need for more preparation to equip the organisation with the necessary infrastructure and know-how to cope with digital transformation.
Digital transformation is critical to effective project implementation and monitoring since it simplifies intersectoral interaction and stakeholder collaboration. Through a well manages remote collaboration, it becomes relatively less strenuous for teams on the ground to implement the theoretical aspects of the project. The success in the implementation of projects is anchored on the existing degree of automation regarding monitoring (Tsurkan, Mironova, & Pilipchuk, 2019, p80 (5)). Every step is vital towards attaining project goals hence the need to monitor each process execution, task duration and quality control. With digital transformation, it becomes easier to monitor and supervise the project implementation process remotely. Therefore, reengineering project implementation processes using digital tools crucially improves conditions enabling better productivity of teams.
Organisations must adjust their strategies, models and practices to seize the full potential gains from remote working. Having realised what is to become of organisations that are sluggish to adopt digital transformation, it is prudent for organisations to phase out old models and practices and embrace new ones. The ability to work remotely depends on digital infrastructure and specialised equipment suiting the task (Lund et al., 2020, p8 (3)). Some jobs require more specialised equipment; hence harder to complete tasks remotely, while others require less specialised equipment. Organisations must invest more in digital infrastructure and specialised equipment to ensure effective remote working and advanced economies.
Organisations looking to leverage remote working to increase competitive advantage by increasing worker mobility and flexibility must embrace remote working. Remote working is also the best strategy for reducing costs since it enables organisations to hire workers from cheaper geographies and eliminates employee travel expenses. Workers become better trained to utilise their time and organise their day better with remote working, enabling them to accomplish work goals and personal affairs (Ferreira et al., 2021, p19 (2)). Giving the employee a chance to organise their work life and personal life goes a long way in increasing worker motivation hence optimisation of productivity. Any organisation aiming to increase its competitive advantage in the agile world may promote cost reduction through the adoption of remote working.
Remote working presents an immense potential that organisations can tap into in managing individual teams or departments. It is because remote working brings the valuable capacity to enhance collaboration between multiple parties. Remote collaboration among team members in project management is becoming more common. Remote working is already augmenting the quality of many collaborative projects (Hunter, 2015, p3 (5)). Creating the capacity of more people to work remotely on projects broadens the pool of those employees who are better qualified to deliver results by eliminating the factor of their geographical position. By becoming more valuable in creating and sustaining team collaborations in projects, remote learning optimises productivity and maximises the organisations’ potential.
Any organisation should maintain agility to leverage opportunities and mitigate threats in its operational space. The digital transformation that facilitates remote working allows companies to maximise competitive advantage. Firms should maintain agility by promoting agility, notwithstanding the cost of purchasing digital tools and infrastructure (Tallon et al.’; 2019, p21 (3)). Although the cost of maintaining agility is high, the price of failing to embrace digital innovation is exceedingly high and punitive. The management should apply prudence in balancing the stability and dynamism of the firm since there is a price to pay for both. Proposing excellent digital opportunities such as remote working will give the firm the competitive advantage of quickly and easily adapting to changes in the operational environment.
Performance management is a critical aspect of remote working due to the close ties between the firm’s strategic goals and employee performance. Firms need to equip themselves with the necessary digital tools to monitor the performances of individuals and workgroups remotely. Both financial and non-financial compensation contributed significantly to the sustenance and improvement of employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic (Hamouche, 2021, p6 (3)). However, regular communication of relevant information strengthens the performance management process. With practical digital tools in remote working, HRM can effectively monitor employee performance if the managers understand how and what is required to monitor remote teams.
Digital transformation strategies are business-centric and tailored to meet the needs of different organisational stakeholders. Remote working should be structured to make employees and management better suitable for their tasks. Digital transformation strategies have wide-ranging implications for the organisation compared to traditional information system strategies (Chanias et al., 2019, p14 (9)). Remote working, as an example of a digital transformation strategy, applies both bottom-up and top-down approaches. The employees are responsible for informing the management of project progress, while the management is responsible for any significant decision that needs to be made concerning the project.
Remote working is the source of organisational and economic resilience during crises such as pandemics. Building and maintaining social connections in the workplace is the panacea to collaboration and coordination problems in firms. Project management trends such as remote working are typically approached from the perception of how technologies can assist in breaking existing technical barriers (Hafermalz & Riemer, 2021, p90 (2)). Remote working is instrumental to a firm’s ability to leverage social connections to optimise workforce productivity. Through remote working, HRM can effectively manage personnel while allowing them to work in flexible environments to meet organisational strategic goals.
Conclusion
Overall, there is sufficient evidence supporting the point that remote working has a positive impact on project management through work-life balance. Work-life balance and flexibility with remote working improve job satisfaction and motivate employees to be more productive. More research in information systems, such as remote learning, is set to prepare organisations well in advance to tackle future grand challenges. Although remote working provides teams with flexible environments, the HRM must do extra to monitor and evaluate employee performance. With the right tools, training and infrastructure, remote learning can be effective for collaborations and joint execution of duties by teams in projects.
References
Baiyere, A., Salmela, H. and Tapanainen, T., 2020. Digital transformation and the new logic of business process management. European Journal of Information Systems, 29(3), pp.238-259. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2020.1718007
Chanias, S., Myers, M.D. and Hess, T., 2019. Digital transformation strategy making in pre-digital organisations: The case of a financial services provider. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(1), pp.17-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2018.11.003
Ferreira, R., Pereira, R., Bianchi, I.S. and da Silva, M.M., 2021. Decision factors for remote work adoption: advantages, disadvantages, driving forces and challenges. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 7(1), p.70. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc7010070
Hafermalz, E. and Riemer, K., 2021. Productive and connected while working from home: what client-facing remote workers can learn from telenurses about ‘belonging through technology’. European Journal of Information Systems, 30(1), pp.89-99.. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2020.1841572
Hamouche, S., 2021. Human resource management and the COVID-19 crisis: Implications, challenges, opportunities, and future organisational directions. Journal of Management & Organization, pp.1-16. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/6857481FD64558659EE4C17C6DAE9AB9/S1833367221000158a.pdf
Hunter, P., 2019. Remote working in research: An increasing usage of flexible work arrangements can improve productivity and creativity. EMBO reports, 20(1), p.e47435. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201847435
Lund, S., Madgavkar, A., Manyika, J. and Smit, S., 2020. What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries. McKinsey Global Institute, pp.1-13. http://thebusinessleadership.academy/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MGI-Whats-next-for-remote-work-v3.pdf
Pan, S.L. and Zhang, S., 2020. From fighting the COVID-19 pandemic to tackling sustainable development goals: An opportunity for responsible information systems research. International journal of information management, 55, p.102196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102196
Tallon, P.P., Queiroz, M., Coltman, T. and Sharma, R., 2019. Information technology and the search for organisational agility: A systematic review with future research possibilities. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(2), pp.218-237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2018.12.002
Tsurkan, M.V., Mironova, S.M. and Pilipchuk, N.V., 2019, May. Digital transformation of project implementation monitoring in the regional public management. In 1st International Scientific Conference” Modern Management Trends and the Digital Economy: From Regional Development to Global Economic Growth”(MTDE 2019) (pp. 80-85). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/mtde-19.2019.15
write