The advancement of technologies and the invention of new devices have made remote work more practical & popular, today. Around seventy percent of the workers spread across the globe are now spending at least some of their week working remotely. Therefore, there are more remote technologies that are being adopted by static, office-bound teams, which has led to the opening of more businesses. Here are the 5 remote technologies that have helped in changing the way we work:

5G technology

5G technology is going to make remote work a lot easier as it is designed to render speeds that are up to 100 times faster when compared to 4G. Designed for handling several devices now 5G will make it practical for employees to work from anywhere they get a signal and both video & audio calls in HD are now possible due to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband. This will be highly essential to optimize productivity as well as collaboration when employees are working from home. 5G Ultra Wideband with its latest expansion, employees can gain access to the huge capacity of the network & low latency. This allows it to operate with a low lag time.

The bandwidth that is available with 5G technology has few other significant implications and this would give rise to innovations that include BlueJeans by Verizon. The BlueJeans platform lets users perform various activities that include having real-time conversations, whiteboard & brainstorm ‘in-person’ & have spontaneous interactions, and also building a 3D avatar which is much like a real office. The next generation of the BlueJeans platform will combine these abilities with HQ audio, HD video as well as web-conferencing capabilities which would help in integrating seamlessly into important and popular collaboration tools from Microsoft and Google such as Office 365, Google Calendar, etc.

Video Conferencing tools & Instant Messaging tools

Video conferencing tools & business instant messenger apps like Zoom and Slack, respectively are aiding employees to enable team collaboration in a remote setting. These tools render a cheap as well as an easy solution for distributed teams that are looking to replicate an in-person synchronous experience. While Slack has become a wide choice for corporate communications, Flock is the other go-to message app as it is easy to use and comprises various features that are needed for sharing information faster with teams.

Administrative automation

While remote work renders employees unprecedented autonomy in how they structure work as well as manage their environment, relying on self-reporting & self-organization, remote work displays a complex new layer of admin into the lives of employees. Therefore, in order to ensure collaboration, performance management as well as accounting all stay fluid, organizations have to make sure their work activities, work schedules as well as expenses all are visible.

While a large number of smart technology apps have already solved these issues, Artificial Intelligence scheduling apps such as Dewo can intelligently book meetings around remote team schedules. Also smart expensing apps such as Expensify help in documenting company receipts instantly through a quick scan using a mobile phone camera.

Cloud Storage

Most organizations and their in-house teams to a larger extent rely upon cloud storage for creating quick backups, storing important documents in a single shared space & enable access from multiple devices to Google Docs & DropBox. Although cloud computing & cloud-based tools are now becoming the norm, there is now a cloud-based version or alternative which can be accessed from anywhere anytime. And, as several in-office teams have started using these virtual tools, a myriad of businesses are already on the basic means for geographically untethered working- all they need is the culture for supporting it.

Remote training tools

Remote training tools today are a must-have for several organizations. This is because these tools help organizations to train their employees effectively from anywhere. As per a recent report from global workplace analytics, seventy-six percent of employees spread across the globe want to continue working from home and this shows the importance of leveraging efficient remote training tools for effective training and team development.

One such remote training tool that helps organizations to optimize employee productivity is Apty. Apty also helps in lowering remote employee onboarding and training costs and increases the software ROI. As the fastest-growing remote training tool, it facilitates organizations to increase digital adoption.

The road ahead

Another important technology that is already promising to take remote working to the next level is Virtual Reality. While several VR meeting tools are still in the beta phase, these tools render a good idea of what a virtualized meeting environment would look like. For teams that are working for fully-remote companies who are looking for an authentic conference call experience, Virtual Reality is set to be a powerful new development.

Fast Company predicts that remote work software that includes mobile work tools & VR conferencing will become the preferred form of communication even over face-to-face meetings and Artificial Intelligence will also play a significant role in managing remote staff.