The Connection, Inc Blog

Smartphones are everywhere. You go to the supermarket, people are on their phones, you go to the gym, people are on their phones. Go into the office? People are constantly on their phones. All that phone use cannot be in the best interest to organizational profitability. The question becomes, do smartphones help or hurt business? Let’s get into it.

Modern office technology is breaking down office barriers left and right. With the proper tools, workers can perform their daily duties anytime, anywhere. This trend is prompting businesses to hire remote workers in order to find the talent they need without being limited by geographical location. Unfortunately, finding a good candidate for a remote worker is easier said than done.

To help you get the best help for your remote needs, we’ve assembled a list of questions that you should consider asking anyone who you’re considering for a remote position.

“Do You Have Remote Work Experience?”
Sometimes one of the easiest ways to judge whether an employee can perform well remotely is if they have experience doing so. If this is their first attempt at working remotely, it’s not necessarily a deal-breaker either. You should consider their qualifications and reliability above all else. Eventually, any remote worker will grow accustomed to the specific demands of their position, and if they can form good remote working habits, it’s likely that they can be counted on to perform with minimal supervision.

“What Tools Do You Have Experience With?”
The remote worker requires a particular skill set in order to succeed. They need to be able to adapt to new technology solutions, and they should have some experience working with online collaboration tools. Solutions like email, cloud computing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and instant messaging should all be first on their list of qualifications.

“What Does Your Home Office Look Like?”
If you’re hiring a remote worker, it’s reasonable to ask them about the environment that they will be working in. After all, you’re responsible for ensuring that it’s cohesive to the overall success of the employee’s remote work experience. The home office should contain minimal distractions, but should include the technology needed to facilitate productivity. You should ask about their Internet connection, minimum technology requirements for the required position, etc.

“Can We Expect Regular Hours From You?”
Remote workers will often be tempted to waste time while out of the office on streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, or they may just get caught up in chores and other everyday occurrences. You should be able to count on remote workers to have a relatively consistent schedule. Ask them about their daily routines, when they take lunch, and what their habits are during the day. You need to ensure that your remote workers will be available when you need them to be.

“How Autonomous Are You in the Face of Conflict?”
If a remote worker runs into trouble somewhere on a project, can they be expected to troubleshoot the issue and properly resolve it? Remote workers don’t have the advantage of being in an office full of people who might have answers for them. Instead, they should have the tools (and be prepared) to contact the person who can help them, whether it’s your in-house IT department or an outsourced IT provider.

If you’re having difficulty managing your remote workers, The Connection can provide you with the tools necessary to ensure their productivity. To learn more, give us a call at (732) 291-5938.

There are plenty of benefits to allowing your employees to work from home, but that doesn’t mean you can just implement it without consideration and planning. You have to have a system in place that allows you to enjoy the benefits of remote capabilities while mitigating some of its potential risks.

In an age when working remotely is a commonly accepted practice, many organizations are still skeptical about letting their employees work from home. They think that doing so will disengage them from the workplace environment and that they’ll be too distracted to perform their work to specification. Yet, businesses that aren’t flexible on this issue could be missing out on several significant cost savings.

The world’s largest terrestrial vehicle is the German-made bucket-wheel excavator known as “Bagger 293.” Used for open-pit mining, Bagger 293 hulks over the landscape at a length of 722 feet, and a height of 310 feet (twice the size of the Statue of Liberty). As a bonus, this beast-of-a-machine is made more ferocious thanks to remote technology.

The majority of employees love the idea of working from home. Its benefits are well-known; saving on commuting expenses, freeing up office space, improving employee satisfaction, the list goes on. Yet, many employers are hesitant to allow their staff to work from home. Why is this?

A lot of people have a car charger for their smartphone, and it’s easy to understand why. A smartphone can be the link between you and your business. But did you know that you have a lot of other, more obscure (and more interesting) choices for phone chargers?