Cloud-based team collaborations have been a business tool for some time now, but how did it come about and where does its future lie?
The concept of the remote team is not a new one, although it seems new for most of us. Those of us sent out of the office to Work From Home (WFH) have spent much of this year getting to grips with being managed from miles away. There can be no doubt about it: remote working is the new normal. However, to ensure the workflow to go smooth, special attention should be paid to remote recruitment process.
For those of us interested in the history behind this modern enigma, we turned the page back to have a look at where the idea of a remote team first came from. Moreover, where did the software come from that made the remote team as we know it today a possibility?
What is a Remote Team?
A remote team is the term we use to describe those who work together from different areas. They might be in differing countries, or they could be states apart. However they do it, the definition of a remote team is that they are people who work together from different geographical locations. A virtual team is the modern version of a remote team, but it wasn’t always possible to work with people through the power of the internet.
Remote teams are often put together by corporations who have been deemed non-essential. If you are part of a firm that lets you work from home, then you are likely part of a remote team. There are several pros and cons to working this way, as we have identified below. There are also a few opportunities for remote team management training specifically, that might help give you the competitive edge in the hiring process.
The Pros and Cons of the Remote Team
The modern, virtual, remote team has both pros and cons.
The Pros:
- Staff have greater freedom within their working day.
- Commuting and office upkeep costs are minimal.
- Collaboration without international borders is possible. Using technology, the language barrier isn’t as much of a problem as it used to be (see Skype Business).
- Production can still be achieved even in economically uncertain circumstances.
The Cons:
- Production may drop.
- Employees get Working From Home fatigue, which slows them.
- The lines between work and home blur.
- Everyone is still on different time zones, even if we can all understand one another.
The History of the Remote Team
The concept of teams that need to work in harmony with one another has been around for centuries. Before the introduction of the internet and virtual worlds, collaborating on a single project was difficult – but not impossible. Look back as far as the Ancient Romans, for example, who had to work as a team across continents. Armies are skilled at operating as a single unit regardless of the distance between their units. Forbes likens the military unit to an effective remote team.
The modern history of the remote team begins with the eradication of the working from home culture we used to have. In the middle ages, many of us would have spent time in the home all day, tending livestock, growing crops, and weaving their own cloth. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. Working away from home became the new normal… and it hasn’t changed until now.
For more than two hundred years, man left home to go to work. Often, whole families would work to earn enough for rent and food. This was the societal norm right up until the 1970s, when the Clean Air Movement coined the term “Gridlock” and pointed out that we would have much lower carbon emissions if we simply worked from home and cut out that commute.
In 1973, Father of remote work Jack Niles wrote his first paper on how IT would likely eradicate the need for on-site working eventually. Fifty years later, and it has finally become a reality. PCs for the home added to the likelihood of the prediction but didn’t engage in mass rollouts until the mid-90s.
The globalisation of the internet was the final step needed to make the possibility of remote teams a feasible one. Even then, it would take another thirty years before the true takeover of the WFH culture that we see today.
Arguably, the world of the office was always set to head for home. Back in 2018, analysts were already projecting that around half of us would be working from home by 2020[i]. Although they had no way of knowing how right they would be, the tech was always leading us in that direction.
The Future of the Remote Team
So, where does the future of the remote team lie? We can already communicate across borders, language barriers, and time zones. What other avenues of advancement are there to cover? If we are to follow trends in online videos that have gone before, live chats with optional filters, music, and AI additions will be the future of the remote team. All we must worry about now, is living long enough to see it.
Remote team for work from home using the wireless lavalier mics is the hottest trend in the new generation business world. It enables one to have an edge over other companies and stay ahead in the cut-throat competition in today’s growing economy. One of the most effective ways of ensuring success is choosing the right kind of business opportunities.