In a time where health concerns are spiking, the thought of remote working is something more and more businesses are starting to consider. In many locations, businesses are closing, trade shows are being canceled and various employees are quarantined to their homes. And as businesses are prioritizing the health of their workers, the world’s largest work-from-home experiment has started.

Fortunately, a remote-friendly environment is something most employees are already looking for - health concerns or not. A study by Owl Labs found that 83% of full-time employees agree that the ability to work remotely would make them happier and 34% of full-time survey respondents would take a pay cut of up to 5% in order to work remotely. So, what factors should you consider when it comes to enabling your remote workforce?

Remote Accessibility.

If your business messages are hard to access, it will be harder for remote workers to stay motivated and aligned with the remainder of the organization. And with information moving at lightning speed, you want to be sure your remote workers are receiving important updates just as fast as anyone else. Private podcasting helps geographically dispersed employees stay up-to-date with what’s happening at HQ while providing flexibility around when they consume business content. Through a private podcast, employees can listen and watch company updates anytime, at their convenience - no matter their time zone, location, network bandwidth and more.

Remote Security.

As individuals work less and less from an office and more on mobile technologies, keeping data secure can become more challenging. However, through a private podcast, business messages will stay secure even if content is consumed at home or on an airplane. uStudio goes beyond the password protection that many of our competitors offer, to protect the embedded media players, as well as the stream itself, to ensure podcasts are only playable when initialized inside of the location for which they were intended.

Remote Relationships.

For many remote workers, their leaders and fellow co-workers can seem out of reach. Not only can storytelling and audio help to solve this issue, but video podcasting can as well. If you are looking to better relationships between remote workers, implementing video within your private podcasts enables C-suite executives and internal champions to show face. This helps to humanize their business messages and allow remote employees feel closer to those leaders who might otherwise seem distant - something that can be a recurring feeling for those who are far from HQ.

Remote Engagement.

Audio is extremely engaging. Data shows that when we read text, we can only decode 7% of the author’s intended meaning, but in an auditory setting, that comprehension increases to 38%. This means that when you switch from an email culture to an audio-based culture, understanding increases 500%.

Remote Accountability.

Holding individual employees accountable for their work can be more challenging when they are remote. And internal communications in general has been one of the most challenging things to measure for many businesses. With named-user analytics available through uStudio, not only can you keep your employees responsible for listening to important messages, but you can identify knowledge gaps and behavioral trends in how your workplace prefers to learn. Group analytics based on location can also give you a straightforward view of data for those in your organization who are remote. This helps you to create the most effective type of training and communication material targeted towards your remote workers.

Coronavirus concerns or not, remote working is something that isn’t going away anytime soon. According to Upwork’s “Future Workforce Report,” 73% of all teams will have remote workers by the year 2028. Taking remote enablement into consideration isn’t just preparing yourself for the challenges of today, but the challenges of tomorrow as well.