While the remote work trend was already growing every year it was expected that the majority of businesses will go remote for the foreseeable future. As the pandemic keeps speeding up, companies have been forced to go remote earlier than predicted. 

Therefore, companies will be hiring employees who not only have the desired expertise for the vacant job position, but also the core competencies to succeed in a remote role.

To succeed and thrive in a remote work environment, employees need to focus on developing these four crucial skills

Be flexible

Also called adaptability skills, being flexible is the ability to manage the constantly changing in remote work environment.

You have to constantly learn to work with new team members, collaborate with a geographically dispersed team, adapt to new technologies and tools, manage work in case there is any sudden issue, and keep an optimum work-life balance. While many consider adaptability as a natural skill, you can also acquire yourself by understanding the numerous requirements of your job and creating solid work schedules that take into consideration your home and work needs.

Scheduling skills

When you work from home, there are no colleagues to keep you motivated or managers to monitor your progress. You have to maintain discipline yourself by constant organizing, and practice time-management skills to ensure all of your work gets finished on time.

You need to identify your priorities, create a task list for all the work, estimate the total time required to finish the tasks. It can take you some trial and error to figure out how much time it takes to finish a particular task. After all, things that might take a long time in the office may go quicker when you are working from home, and vice versa.

Develop communication by means of written

When teams work remotely, at least half of communication is done via writing rather than speaking. It explains why written communication skill is highly requested at this time. Most people choose to communicate through emails,and texting, even when they are in a video call. You need to be able to communicate no matter what platform you are using.

Always remember to check spelling, grammar, and punctuation and proofread emails before sending them. You might also want to ensure you’re using the right level of formality and the right tone depending on who you’re communicating with. You can get away with less formality when messaging your coworkers than you can with your boss.

Digital skills

The need for employees to have a basic knowledge about digital literacy skills in today’s world is vital. In the middle of the pandemic, companies demand their staff be able to solve problems, create information, or to locate, access and effectively communicate that information to other employees through a long distance, which is going to define the productivity and success of employees and businesses.

Instant messaging, project management, video and web conferencing, and document sharing tools are just some of the skills you have to learn. But you don’t need to have in-depth knowledge about every type of technology and tool, all you need is having the ability to easily access the digital tools that the company uses daily. Besides, you should be flexible, and prepared in case things go sideways like having some problems while using those digital tools.