As per the results of a survey conducted by the Predictive Index, the majority of Chief Executive Officers (76%) are looking forward to facilitating full-time remote work for their employees, with a targeted year of 2023. However, there is a challenge ahead, as over half of the CEOs (51%) have identified effective remote work as their primary obstacle.
For Growth and Innovation
As we move towards 2023, it is crucial for companies to adopt a more strategic and effective approach towards remote work in order to stay competitive and ensure growth. This will allow them to harness the potential for innovation and advancement, instead of just maintaining the current situation.
At the start of 2022, InformationWeek emphasized the significance of CTOs and IT executives swiftly adapting their operations to support the sudden shift to remote work for employees. Taking proactive and long-term measures is imperative for businesses to not only survive the existing economic crisis, but to also emerge stronger from it.
Hire Engineers for Remote Work
Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) can improve the efficiency of remote development by recruiting experienced remote developers and managers. This approach has a dual benefit – firstly, it leads to increased productivity by implementing proven best practices, and secondly, it provides an opportunity to establish an effective mix of office and remote work model for the future.
During the peak of the pandemic, 2U, an educational technology company, was successful in adapting to the new circumstances. According to CTO Justin Johnson, the team of fifty-plus engineers in software development questioned every aspect of their work. He remarked, “Both team leaders and individual members asked the same questions – what steps should we take? How can we maintain our standup meetings? What is the best approach for pair programming? How can we efficiently carry out code reviews? Most importantly, how do we preserve the culture and practices that make our team so unique?”
Attain Improved Efficiency
Johnson and Company recently engaged Works, a staff augmentation organization specializing in placing long-term remote engineers on permanent teams for corporations. This type of outsourced software development provides significant cost and time savings, as it enables businesses to access highly skilled professionals without having to handle the administrative tasks that come with traditional recruitment. Some of Johnson and Company’s teams have already integrated the remote developers hired through Works and have found them to be a valuable resource.
By learning from the experience of the engineers at Works and their associated teams, 2U was able to swiftly adopt the best practices for distributed software development across their organization.
Nafisa Chowdhury, the Engineering Director, commended Works for their collaboration and mentioned that “it has set new standards for the potential of remote teams’ capabilities, and has allowed us to maintain high productivity levels even with the shift to a fully remote workplace.” She also added, “Thanks to Works, we had a framework that could be implemented with teams that were unfamiliar with remote operations.
As a result of the standardized approaches to teamwork, documentation, and communication adopted by the 2U technology team, the development cycle was significantly reduced. The engineers from Works have brought invaluable expertise in remote engineering, which has allowed us to accomplish much more despite the communication barriers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reaching Our Objectives
Due to the unexpected shift to remote work triggered by the pandemic, it can be challenging to restore the same level of productive work environment that in-house engineering teams previously enjoyed. To enhance and increase productivity, it could be advantageous to hire experienced remote engineers who are skilled in the methods and strategies of distributed software development. Although many companies now have a basic understanding of how to use instant messaging, video conferencing and other forms of online collaboration, there are still opportunities for further improving their efficiency and effectiveness.
With the growing trend of remote work, numerous companies are exploring remote solutions to establish and manage high-performing software teams. Two years back, 2U focused on refining their collaboration methods of their product, Works. Today, they are leveraging that knowledge to provide fully remote software development services to their clients.
Article on Remote: The Process of Becoming a Remote Developer at Works Jobs
