Many professionals desire to work remotely.
For example, in the period between 2021 and 2022, searches for remote work jumped by 300%.
But do you really understand what remote working entails? Working from home is more than merely transferring your job to your home office or taking calls and meetings from your dining room.
Remote work requires a new or updated skill set, and to have a thriving remote career and make more money in your remote job, you need to have a balanced combination of technical, interpersonal, and self-management skills. This makes you attractive to employers, to work with, and enables you to progress up the ladder and ultimately achieve your career goals.
With remote work, comes a heavy emphasis on flexibility, digital proficiency, and communication. Here are the skills you will need to build this year so that you can meet these demands and succeed:
1. Digital Literacy and Technical Skills
When working remotely, you should develop familiarity with remote collaboration tools for work such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom, and project management software such as Trello or Monday.com. You should also learn about the different capabilities of shared workspace platforms such as Google Workspace, and Microsoft Office 365.
Another essential factor to consider when preparing to work remotely, is your understanding and awareness of cybersecurity best practices. At the very basic level, you should be able to independently recognize phishing attempts, know how to use VPNs, and know about how to form strong passwords to protect confidential company and customer data.
Although, of course, this will be reiterated and taught in your onboarding and initial training, a prior knowledge of this will be helpful and make it easier for you to pass your onboarding tests.
2. Self-Discipline And Time Management Skills
The next essential skill set you need when working remotely is self-discipline. Although working for an employer, you are not under their direct supervision. Therefore, even if you are usually well-motivated, it can be more appealing to slack and fall behind in the quality of your work.
Organization and time management skills are needed so that you can stay on track—and this includes figuring out what parts of your schedule need to be adjusted so that work can fit around your life and responsibilities as comfortably as possible.
You can also make use of time management and wellbeing apps to help you stay focused during work and to keep you going when you’re executing a task or achieving work goals on your own.
3. Communication Skills
Communication skills have been in demand in the global workplace for a long time. But with the prevalence of remote and hybrid working, this need has swelled. One of the most common ways that miscommunication and misunderstandings occur is through emails and work chat messages. These can easily be misinterpreted due to cultural and personal nuances, and due to not being able to see or physically hear the other person.
Since you will be relying on remote communication while working from home, you need to focus on developing your communication skills so that you can engage with your manager, co-workers, clients, and stakeholders, in a meaningful, empathetic, way that shows you value their collaboration and sincerely want to understand them.
Think about all the different ways you will be communicating when working remotely: delivering reports via a video conference call, chatting in group or team chats, and facilitating or participating in virtual meetings. Develop competency in specific areas such as how to articulate your thoughts and multiple ideas concisely, how to provide high-level overviews, and how to present in virtual meetings.
These three skills form the foundation of a successful career. Whether in a hybrid or fully remote job, digital literacy, self-discipline, and communication skills will make you a valuable asset to any team and minimize disruptions to your work.
Forbes
