Download our Remote Work Toolkit
We are excited to announce the launch of the Remote Work Toolkit! This toolkit is great for any middle or senior managers, small business owners and operators, and entrepreneurs who are interested in:
- Developing a hybrid or fully remote work strategy
- Diagnosing issues with working remotely and looking for solutions
- Identifying business processes that can be made remote or virtual
Included in the Toolkit is over 40 pages of tools, templates, and advice on all aspects of remote working. The Toolkit is split into 3 sections:
- Developing your remote work strategy – for those looking to develop a new or improve your remote work strategy
- Ideating remote work solutions – learn how to develop and test ideas or solutions quickly and at low cost
- Tools – 9 tools to help you with developing and ideating your remote work strategy.
This Toolkit is the result of more than a year-long grant that pointA received from the Future Skills Centre where we worked with diverse small-and-medium-sized businesses operators, owners, and entrepreneurs from across Canada to teach them the strategy and innovation skills to develop a remote work strategy in a five-week course. We’ve been asked about the course since then because there are many businesses who are still trying to overcome the challenges of remote work or want to build businesses that are remote from day 1. Recognizing that not everyone has the time to participate in a course, we developed this Toolkit so that you can work on remote work at your own pace.
What is remote work?
Remote work, also known as work from home, telecommuting, teleworking, or distributed work essentially disconnects work from a particular place. The great thing about remote work is that any business can incorporate remote work aspects, from employees working entirely from home to making a few of your business processes remote or virtual (e.g., using cloud-based inventory systems). Any percentage of remote work or processes can introduce significant cost savings and environmental and health and well-being benefits for you, your team, and your vendors and customers.
The reality is that remote work is here to stay. In fact, pointA developed its own remote work strategy just before the pandemic and we’re sticking to it even after the pandemic. (To read more about our strategy and experiences, read our blog post.)
Many businesses are embracing some form of remote work as a means to expand their talent pool for hiring employees, retaining their employees, or scaling up quickly as they grow without having to grow their workplace footprint.
As businesses start and grow, remote work is a great option to keep overhead costs low, reduce the time, expense, and stress of commuting, and take advantage of the much more transparent, secure, and collaborative digital tools that are available today. More importantly, as the pandemic has disproportionately affected diverse populations (women, BIPOC, and people with disabilities), remote work is an inclusive way to ensure that diverse populations have the flexibility and autonomy to schedule their work hours, balancing their work and life responsibilities.
Reaping the benefits of remote work
As a sustainable commuting organization, remote work is a form of sustainable commuting that we like to promote because it has many environmental, economic, and health and well-being benefits from avoiding the traditional rush hour commute to and from the workplace. To us, the key to fully reaping these benefits is to develop a clear strategy. While strategy can be a very intimidating and confusing word, it outlines where you want to go, why, and what you have to do to get there by answering five key questions and writing them down on one page. Strategy, according to Professor Roger Martin, is a series of choices. We hope that this Toolkit will help you make great choices. If you’re interested in working with us on a remote work strategy or finding out about other ways we can support your employees working from home, please visit pointA’s Services page.
