New poll of 1,000 SME workers reveals the most common tech and communication challenges that hard-working businesses have overcome due to COVID-19
86 PER CENT of workers at SMEs have successfully overcome significant technology and communications challenges to maintain ‘business as normal’ since the lockdown was first announced despite the significant challenges posed by COVID-19, finds a new report for Onecom, the UK’s largest independent business telecommunications provider.
The study, which investigated the impact of the virus and home working on businesses, surveyed 1,000 workers at UK small and medium sized businesses who have worked from home since the lockdown was announced. Entitled ‘Onecom Reports: How 4 in 5 SMEs are Overcoming the Work From Home Challenge During COVID-19’, the report asked workers about the technology challenges they have successfully addressed in setting up remotely and maintaining ‘business as normal’ as far as possible due to COVID-19.
The survey reveals that facilitating group calls or finding relevant communications platforms for home working has been the most frequent challenge, with 50 per cent of SME workers having overcome this issue. Several other communications issues have been significant for SMEs when working from home, including setting employees up to make and receive calls from home (24 per cent), enabling email access from home (23 per cent), getting to grips with a plethora of different communications platforms (22 per cent) and broader communications issues resulting from a lack of face time (22 per cent). As a result, 31 per cent of workers in the study said that communications errors initially increased in their team since working from home.
Many SMEs have also had team management challenges related to technology, with several workers having overcome initial challenges with managing employees (27 per cent) or motivating staff (21 per cent) remotely. Interestingly, 24 per cent have experienced home-based interruptions such as dealing with childcare, deliveries or being distracted by a partner. Many businesses have also had other significant tech challenges when setting up remotely, such as issues with their broadband connections (21 per cent), finding software that facilitates remote working (20 per cent) and maintaining robust cybersecurity (14 per cent).
| The most common communications and technology challenges that SMEs have overcome since the coronavirus lockdown | ||
| 1 | Facilitating group calls or finding communications platforms that work for your team | 50% |
| 2 | Managing employees remotely | 27% |
| 3 | Home-based interruptions | 25% |
| 4 | Taking and receiving calls | 24% |
| 5 | Responding to and receiving emails | 23% |
| 6 | Getting to grips with too many different communications platforms | 22% |
| 7 | Communication issues due to lack of face-to-face time | 22% |
| 8 | Motivating employees remotely | 21% |
| 9 | Issues with broadband connection | 21% |
| 10 | Finding software that facilitates remote working | 20% |
| 11 | Facilitating client or supplier calls | 18% |
| 12 | Meeting the social needs of the team/staff | 17% |
| 13 | Managing team priorities | 16% |
| 14 | Lack of available hardware (e.g. computers, phones) for staff | 15% |
| 15 | Managing when employees work (e.g. employees working too late or not enough) | 15% |
| 16 | Having to re-engineer work that has traditionally been done in person | 14% |
| 17 | Maintaining robust security | 14% |
| 18 | Getting access to industry or company-specific software applications from home | 13% |
“The virus has posed significant challenges, however it is great to see that many small businesses have acted quickly and overcome them. At Onecom, we are proud of the way that our staff have adapted to working from home. As a business, we have experienced many of the challenges highlighted by small businesses in this report, however we have seen communications within and across teams improve, and for many, productivity has improved. This has been achieved by putting in place the right systems and making sure we still have time for virtual parties, scavenger hunts and other games to keep spirits high! Today’s communications technology offers the perfect arsenal for overcoming many of these issues and we urge businesses to ensure that they have the right systems in place to enable their people continue business as usual,” said Helen Myers, Onecom’s Operations Director.
Since the lockdown was announced, Onecom has helped over 3,500 employees across the UK move to a remote working model.
For more on the study, visit https://onecom.co.uk/onecom-report-working-from-home-during-covid-19/