How can you help drive productivity among your remote workforce?

Chris Shanks, Head of Technology at First Digital offers some top tips:

Working from home, people have learned how to balance their work and family commitments in ways that are easiest and most productive for them. Without the commute, some start and finish early, while others prefer the regime of office hours. But if the work is good and the

2. Prioritise what matters

Without the need to drive, we all have more ‘space’ in our diaries for meetings. Some find this ability to go ‘back to back’ extremely ‘productive’, but another argument is that we now have too many Teams meetings because it’s so easy to pull people in.

3. Build trust through transparency

Over the past 18 months, as the realisation came that remote employees could be trusted, businesses have opted for more honest and authentic styles of communications. This transparency is valued by employees and shows them that they’re part of a trusted team. It’s

4. Create a Hub

We used to say all roads lead to Rome, now all roads lead to home. But if you build the right tech stack, your people will come running back. It’s human nature to take the path of least resistance, so use something like SharePoint to create a single hub

5. Create your Hybrid working policies

Without precedent, so few employee handbooks had effective working from home policies. Everyone is familiar with an IT Misuse policy; ‘don’t do anything illegal on a computer we give you’ is pretty standard fare. But by now businesses should have implemented

teams are happy, that’s the most important thing. So, instead of micromanaging how an employee gets their work done, focus on quality, and whether they still contribute fully to the collective business aims. Providing flexibility empowers teams and builds trust.

www.firstdigital.co.uk important that remote workers feel connected to an organisation’s goals and have a clear understanding of where they fit into its mission. In turn they will feel less detached, share the common goals and be productive members of your organisation. that enables your workforce to get what they need quickly. If they can get the files they need and the answers to their key questions, then you won’t have to force their behaviour - it will happen organically.

Teams meetings can run really efficiently if you make them, you can even set a timer to finish the video call early to give you time back to decompress. Being productive is about setting agendas, prioritising and doing the important things.

In the past year, rightly so, we have focused on people’s physical and mental health and what they needed in order to work from home successfully. But we also mustn’t lose sight of what a business needs to remain competitive. Remote or hybrid working challenges long-held beliefs about how employees perform well, but it takes strategic planning and the right technology to scale in a way that drives performance while maintaining employee culture and wellbeing. Read

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Collaboration is at the heart of how the University of Gloucestershire’s C11 Cyber Security and Digital Innovation Centre continues to advance the work of its member and o ce clients from its base in the Gloucestershire Science and Technology Park (GSTP) at Berkeley Green.

C11 offers easy access from the M5 and M4, free parking, and a 16,000sq ft workspace overlooking the tranquil River Severn. The Centre provides firms with a secure environment, including purposebuilt conference and networking facilities, incubation offices and cyber-forensic labs with high-spec PCs.

Now, C11 is turning to its clients to share the benefits of its partnership-driven environment…

Simon McWhirter, Head of Engagement for Active Building Centre (www.activebuildingcentre.com)

“We aim to revolutionise the construction of the UK’s buildings so that they intelligently capture energy from solar or wind, and then can decide whether to use, retain or trade that power back into the market.

“C11 fosters many partnership opportunities and we’re already looking into biofuels with another company here, and working on upgrading existing buildings on site to net zero standards.”

Patrick Goodenough, Director of CamEra Group (www.cameragroup.co.uk)

“We developed a handheld thermal camera product in 2003 for SARS to measure and record body temperature,” explains Patrick.

“The system was mothballed, but then COVID-19 happened and it turned into an incredibly busy year for us. Our products are currently monitoring up to 27,500 people every day. We’re particularly passionate about C11’s collaborative environment and are working with Aetek on potential aviation-links and Active Building Centre on facilities monitoring. Everyone here wants to help you succeed.”

Phil Curzon, Director of Aetek Aetek, a specialist consultancy providing interior design services to global aerospace companies is starting to see signs of market recovery post-Pandemic.

“Our focus is primarily on Korean military applications, but we’re gradually pushing into the civil market. It costs upwards of $10m to develop and certify a new commercial economy seat and we’ve done a lot of learning to develop our own and other products. C11 has some very interesting companies. We’re working with Active Building Centre to identify items in the UK that could be exported to Korea.”

Gavin Powell, Technical Director at CGTech Ltd (www.cgtech.co.uk)

“CGTech Ltd is the UK office of the global CNC-simulation software company, and we focus on providing technical support for our UK and overseas customers. We’ve been based at C11 for two and a half years and are always keen to collaborate with other organisations here. We also have access to potential apprentices.”

Pete Barrett, Group Property Manager at SGS College Group (www.scitechglos.co.uk)

With five and a half years at GSTP, Pete was involved in the original conception of C11.

He explains: “C11 provides an essential working space, allowing organisations to come together, and the University of Gloucestershire’s cyber skills link to all of the park’s activities. We’re envisaging the continued expansion of the park and are working with Active Building Centre to grow the low carbon cluster here.”

Rayelle Pentland-Smith, Business Development Director at the C11 Cyber Security and Digital Innovation Centre, concludes: “It’s thrilling to see the collaboration between C11 clients and other GSTP residents.”

“We’re now planning student internships with companies on site, network development links between engineers and University specialists, and also using C11’s super computing capabilities to support high volume data storage and analysis.”

Stratford-upon-Avon now has 5G coverage