Technology, human factor can ensure success in remote working – Vodafone Director

Madam Hannah Ashiokai Akrong, the Director of Human Resources (HR) at Vodafone Ghana, has called on companies to strike the right balance between the human factor and technology to achieve maximum employee productivity while working remotely.

She said empirical evidence from a variety of recently conducted surveys had shown that most companies that adopted a remote working policy recorded a significant increase in productivity through the savvy use of technology.

She explained that the notable successes chalked could not have been achieved without the contribution of an adequately skilled human workforce.

“Technology is a wonderful thing that enables us to work remotely but at the end of the day, the role of the team leader is still very key in employee productivity.

“Undoubtedly, some responsibilities of team leaders such as mentoring and evaluating employees, as well as the provision of needed support, play a very critical role in achieving maximum productivity whiles working remotely,” she added.

Madam Akrong said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after speaking at the 2021 HR Focus Conference, on the theme “Leveraging Digital Technology to Achieve Productivity Remotely.”

She said despite the benefits of remote working, the practice had significant downsides as well and encouraged employers to pay attention in that regard.

She pointed out distractions on the home front as well as threats to employees' physical and mental health as some key disadvantages of remote working and admonished employees to leverage the technological tools at their disposal and exercise prudence to manage the inherent challenges.

“Remote working just like any other activity has its downsides which may affect employees physically or mentally. Fortunately, technology presents us with a variety of tools to choose from to deal with such situations and the best part is most of these tools are free to download and use,” she said.

The HR Director drew the attention of all organisations to Chat Bots and AI tools which could calm them down, improve their mood, and set them off on the next programme they had to attend.

Madam Akrong charged employers to review their company policies to support remote working and establish rules to regulate the conduct of remote working employees to ensure maximum employee productivity.