{"id":142901,"date":"2020-09-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qmarkets.net\/innovation-tool-to-overcome-the-limits-of-remote-work\/"},"modified":"2023-10-18T14:59:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T12:59:39","slug":"innovation-tool-to-overcome-the-limits-of-remote-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qmarkets.net\/de\/resources\/article\/innovation-tool-to-overcome-the-limits-of-remote-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowdsourcing: An Innovation Tool to Overcome the Limits of Remote Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The unprecedented shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organizations to change ways they do business. Almost every business operation has been affected: from the manner firms talk to their customers to the logistics of product delivery to maintaining channels of communication between employees.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corporate Innovation: A Victim of Remote Work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Corporate innovation will not be spared the troubles of adjusting to the \u201cnew normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One danger corporate innovation teams may be already facing is quite trivial: reduced R&D\/innovation budgets, a measure that myopic managers routinely resort to in times of economic hardship. Another danger might not be as evident yet, could turn to be much more damaging long-term: the sharp increase in remote work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initial reports painted quite a rosy picture of the remote work experiment. According to data presented by Upwork<\/a> back in April, more than half of the American workforce were working from home, with almost 60% of managers saying that \u201cthe shift to remote work has gone better than expected.\u201d Some big tech companies went as far as to allow willing employees to work from home<\/a> either permanently or for a foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But voices of caution and concern are getting louder, too. To begin with, not every job, however \u201cdigitized,\u201d can be done from home<\/a>. Adding to that, remote work dramatically reduces the level of interaction between employees. As a result, personal relationships suffer, internal networks shrink, and the whole organization becomes less interconnected. Experts warn<\/a> that less connected networks reduce employees\u2019 sense of their commitment to one another and to the organization. They also suggest  that extended online communication may foster more self-serving behavior, and even dishonesty. Besides, less information is known to be shared in online communication, increasing the likelihood of poor decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/strong>It\u2019s highly unlikely that the hastily written Upwork report was capable \u2013 or even attempting \u2013 to consider the long-term effects of massive and prolonged remote work on organizational performance and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Power of Serendipity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And then, there is a feature of innovation that sets it aside from some other corporate activities: its unique dependence on face-to-face interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember Marissa Mayer, who, shortly after becoming the CEO of Yahoo, banned Yahoo\u2019s employees from working from home? Amid the storm of condemnation that followed Mayer\u2019s move, an important line in the memo<\/a> announcing the ban has been completely overlooked:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of the best decisions and insights<\/strong> come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings.<\/strong>“ <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a former Googler, Mayer knew that innovation requires collaboration, and both thrive on serendipity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role that serendipity<\/a> \u2013 generally understood as the process of making an important discovery while looking for something else \u2013 plays in innovation is complex, nuanced, and obviously lies outside the scope of this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, it\u2019s important to remember that the so-called serendipitous encounters<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>unplanned interactions between employees working in close proximity to each other, represent one of the driving forces of innovation<\/a>. They are believed to play a central role in the development of new collaborative partnerships<\/a> that are crucial for sustained corporate innovation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With so many employees working remotely \u2013 and the remote work itself becoming a permanent fixture, not a temporary fix \u2013 how can  the occurrence of serendipitous encounters be preserved? How can you occasionally \u201cbump\u201d into someone in a hallway when all your meetings are scheduled in advance on Zoom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology, of course, can help. Two promising approaches could be considered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Creating a virtual reality office which employees could visit via realistic, high-quality avatars. Spatial<\/a>, a NYC-based startup, allows its clients to share a virtual room using just a web link so that users can \u201cdrop in\u201d with just a web browser and even without a special headset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Enterprise-wide adoption of networking apps <\/a>allowing random matching of the firms\u2019 employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, as organizations  begin to return to the office space<\/a> and adopt \u201chybrid\u2019 approaches of mixing in-office and remote work arrangements, some face-to-face communications will gradually resume easing the pain of extreme isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, firms should not neglect a time-tested approach that by its very nature is designed to let large groups of people innovate together without facing each other – crowdsourcing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n