Remote work has taken center stage in 2020 and 2021 as companies adjusted to the pandemic. Do you want to know what qualities employers are looking for in this climate? We’ve reviewed some key articles and studies that reveal some key insights about what employers look for in their employees and examine some key features of Kiwi that will help you work more effectively.
Flexibility shifts from location to time. Harvard Business Review (HBR) noted a research study (Gartner’s 2020 ReimagineHR Employee Survey), which revealed the most ideal conditions for high performance in employees. In organizations that offer employees flexibility over when, where, and how much they work, employers consider 55% of their workforce as high performers. In contrast, only 36% of employees were considered high performers by the same metrics at organizations with a standard 40-hour workweek. The next wave of flexibility in work will shift from location to time. HBR predicts that there will be a rise in new jobs where employees will be measured by their output instead of an agreed-upon set of hours. We will need to increase our productivity and efficiency in work to stay more marketable rather than simply showing an effort by showing up early and leaving work late.
Fewer Conference Calls, More Asynchronous Communication. Forbes explained that companies that acclimated well to the changing work climate were organizations that mastered the art of asynchronous (async) communication. Async communication happens when information can be exchanged independent of time, such as emails, online forums, and collaborative documents. Many companies overcompensated for decreased in-person meetings with a seemingly unending barrage of conference calls, which were intrusive, draining, and often unnecessary to achieve the desired goal. This trend suggests we need better tools that help us be more effective in communicating through email, through shared documents, or hopping on a brief call only if a quick sync up is needed.
Greater Need for Better Cybersecurity. Forbes emphasized that cybersecurity will become a growing concern around how data is accessed remotely and how well it can stay secure. According to Cisco’s "Future of Secure Remote Work Report," 82% of employers felt that "cybersecurity is now extremely important or more important than before COVID-19." We need to be more discerning about which browser and software we use to keep our company’s data more secure.
New Remote Work Habits with Kiwi
Keeping all these trends in mind, how can we improve our remote setup and increase our productivity, leveraging the best tools for async communication in a more secure digital environment?
Rock an Awesome Remote Work Setup. A New York Times and Business.com articles discuss increasing productivity by 20-30 percent by using a second monitor. Getting the most out of this setup requires you to have multiple windows. In terms of Kiwi, the application enables better productivity by allowing you to use all of your screen space as efficiently as possible. You can have your Gmail accounts in one window, your calendar in another, documents and slides all side-by-side. We have great blogs on Increasing Productivity with Multiple Monitors and Cool Hidden Features in Google Workspace to make you even more productive.
Leverage the Best Tools for Async. Kiwi's key features help you stay up to date and organized to communicate effectively through email, share documents, and make conference calls more accessible.
Email is just easier. Kiwi helps you find the emails you need through the Focus Filter feature. You can filter your emails by date, importance, stars/tags, and attachments. Kiwi’s Gmail Filters help you narrow down your inbox influx to only today’s email, or search for that hard-to-find email you need with an attachment. Kiwi supports Reverse Conversation, so the newest email is on top and also supports Grammarly to add more professionalism to your emails.
Search Tools at your fingertips. Kiwi gives you access to all of Google’s power features for Google Workspace accounts like Google Cloud Search with a click of a button. The contact panel is similarly accessible - just one click. Your recent documents are easily accessed from your menu bar - you can work on several of them in separate windows so you can keep focused on one task at a time.
Powerful conference apps. Kiwi supports Zoom and Bluejeans. You can become a power scheduler by using Kiwi’s easy access to your Google Calendar, Emails, and your favorite conference app all side-by-side in multiple windows. It’s a game-changer! Check out this great blog on Using Gmail and Google Calendar Together.
Secure Your Digital Workspace. Every website and application has ads, which are third parties that are covertly accessing information from your computer; or downloading and running code in your browser (think of all those animated ads on nytimes.com). Accessing your email from that same browser or app means mixing it with innumerable third parties behind those ads. In contrast, Kiwi is a specialized browser for Gmail and Workspace only. So by design, Kiwi has enhanced security. It is isolated from the browser, doesn't allow third-parties access, and doesn't mix something as sensitive as your email with hundreds of other websites like other web-based software. Additionally, Kiwi supports a favorite Gmail encryption tool, Virtru.