According to the Census Bureau of the USA, approximately one-third of the workforce in the nation and half of all the information staff can work safely from home. Though the volume of people working part-time or entirely from home has been on the increase for a couple of years now, the coronavirus outbreak has pressed the fast-forward button on the remote workforce trends. More and more people are now working from home and need vast resources.
Data and the Internet of Things (IoT)
In 2021, technology will occupy a pivotal role in the remote workforce arena. The ability to connect it with apps will help companies to survive the aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Internet of Things or IoT has been instrumental since 2020 when connecting workers at home with enterprises. Of course, it did exist before that as well. However, it shot into prominence since the Pandemic outbreak that suddenly brought everything to a halt. Today, it is a vital part of the digital workplace, even if it only is by virtue of the volume of data it gathers.
With the help of IoT-enabled sensors, business enterprises are able to measure the external environment like temperature, flow, the intensity of light, force, and pressure. They can also evaluate physical inputs and transform them into original and raw data. This data is later stored digitally for process analysis. Therefore, the solutions offered by IoT need and generate a continuous flow of data from its surroundings for functioning. To do so, it enables workplaces that are data-driven to function.
Even with the influence of the coronavirus pandemic on the business enterprise and the subsequent slow down of business activities. The market for IoT is anticipated to expand to 5.8 billion or even more by 2021. IoT technologies are paramount for driving the whole remote workforce revolution ahead in key sectors like manufacturing, supply chain, healthcare, and many others.
Work smarter at home
IoT has been transforming the way people work for some time now; however, with the increase in remote workers due to the coronavirus Pandemic, this innovative technology now gets the chance to shine. The biggest advantage of IoT is workers can get a customized space for carrying out enterprise-related tasks for all types of companies.
The technology can make and provide personalized solutions to specific issues that crop up. For example, several variables and options arise in the workspace daily, and people cannot tap into all of them. When smart devices, with the help of IoT, catch obscure or even unique variables, businesses can optimize them to their advantage better.
The remote workforce or work from home was already growing before the coronavirus pandemic broke out. However, it is likely to increase in the future. With the advent and the application of the Internet of Things, workers worldwide can work safely and smartly. With the application of the above technology, remote workers can also work in peace from any desired location in the world.
Data in IoT and the workplace
Experts from the credible name in data management, administration, and consulting, RemoteDBA.com states that when you examine the role of IoT in the remote and digital workplace, it focuses lesser on the edge processes of the devices and more on the information that they collect. For instance, the data they aggregate for analysis, the automation of workflows, and the viewing of dashboards.
Companies that have added software to their enterprise laptops can get insight into their employees’ work patterns and habits. However, employers will give incentives to employees by expanding their data insights from IoT devices like wearables. The company’s value lies in understanding the exercise habits, sleep patterns, hours of activity, and eating habits of their employees.
This sort of insight helps businesses issue work projects to employees best suited to the tasks thanks to the information obtained from the IoT-enabled device. Irrespective of the device, employers can give incentives to employees that optimize the above endpoints and collect data in real-time from smart pens, smart glasses, smart chairs, and a countless list of devices that have IoT embedded in them. The data that the employer gets never ends.
What will become of IoT after the pandemic comes to an end?
Business and tech experts state that three primary areas fall under the category of remote work. They are remote work, itself, telehealth, and remote education; however, all of them are trends about digitalization and not truly remote working as they explain below-
1. Remote work
A majority of remote work needs devices connected to the Internet, like mobile phones, laptops, microphones, and webcams. Companies like Zoom are capitalizing on the current trend of moving away from the physical workspace by permitting an ecosystem of all the devices above to connect with a cloud service. Their performance ever since the Pandemic surfaced displays the confidence of the market in their ability to capitalize on the opportunity effectively.
2. Telehealth
Regulations that revolve around the privacy and security of health have been major barriers before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the emergency, the FDA and other trusted regulators have relaxed the requirements for compliance across the globe. Consultation with doctors can be done thanks to the presence of credible companies like Teledoc. The monitoring of remote vital signs is important, and the FDA has relaxed its requirements as well.
3. Remote education
Here, more or less, the same IoT devices are used like in remote work. There is the same set of businesses catering to the needs of students like Zoom and Logitech for webcams and microphones. In addition, there are new services that are now being deployed for identifying the speaker, enabling improved whiteboards, live transcription, etc.
Visual distractions and background noise are being addressed both for remote work and education. In addition, there are new algorithms that are being created to improve the above. Therefore, IoT technology is here to stay and will increase by the end of 2021 and beyond!
