Opening to the Realities of a Remote Workforce

The pandemic forced a lot of “employees must be in person” believers into a new reality. From sales to services and beyond, the “had to be done in person mentality” fell by the wayside in the wake of the global pandemic. The forcing of this issue—requiring nearly everyone to go virtual for some part of their business for some time—will have a lasting impact on all industries, print included.

You run a factory, so of course the press operators and finishing and shipping staff must be in person to move the physical aspects of print custom manufacturing. This group of people will continue to show up on factory floors. The real transition is going to hit all the people who work in your company on both sides of the manufacturing process—sales, customer service, prepress in front of the press, and accounting and finance behind the press. 

Traditionally, this group of employees also worked “on-site” in offices and cubicles, typically in what I like to refer to as the “carpeted area” of your plant. For many printers, the idea of moving these staff members off-site seemed impossible before the pandemic. These people were constantly away from their computers talking to schedulers, on the press floor, advising on last-minute customer changes to jobs. How could they possibly be remote? Collaboration was required to move jobs through the process. A team effort was the name of the game. This has been the core belief and reality in most print businesses forever.

If you look at each functional area individually you can start to consider how a permanent remote workforce is a possibility. I’ll start with an example that doesn’t freak people out because, for a business that has never had a remote workforce, implementing one could feel very risky. This is what I’m seeing happen to real print businesses employing real people in the pandemic era.

Your best CSR wants to move geographical locations. She doesn’t want to leave her job. She has been with you for more than a decade, she literally knows your customers better than you do. In this instance, do you insist that she can’t continue to be employed simply because she can’t be physically in the building every day? Most owners would say "yes" to this situation, allowing their loyal employee to continue to work for them remotely. Who wants to go through the pain of replacing her in this tight labor market? 

This is an ideal situation because a key member of your staff would pave the way for you to develop processes for supporting a permanent remote working staff. I’m not talking about all people, and I’m not talking about immediately. I’m talking about opening your business up to the prospect of recruiting and hiring talent outside your geographical region.

Presumably, for the life of your business, personnel recruitment has been restricted by geography. For virtually all businesses, this is a constraint worth exploring.

What if you’re looking for a new print MIS/ERP administrator and you could search nationwide for someone with specific experience with your current print MIS/ERP? What if you could recruit college graduates who wanted to return to their rural communities but didn’t see employment opportunities there? What if you could recruit stay-at-home parents to work part-time from home?

Opening this door up even a crack in your business can change a lot about how you look at staffing and recruiting in the future. The other aspect of having even a few remote workers is how it forces you to tighten up your processes on-site. You can no longer rely on paper-based notes scribbled on a job jacket for reliable communication. Remote workers force you to start really using your ERP as a system of record that is dynamic, up-to-date, and visible by the right people in all locations, always. Just think about the impact that would have on all aspects of your business. What if the data in your Print MIS/ERP was accurate, up-to-date, and accessible to your entire team—no matter where they live and work—24/7?

I think one of the most revolutionary concepts in business efficiency is a trusted system of record that your whole business runs on. When your business runs on stranded data in non-connected systems (just think email, paper, spreadsheet files on desktop computers, notes on white boards, physical scheduling boards, etc.). Non-connected, static, information dead ends vs. a system that has the correct permissions, is constantly being updated, and managed as the trusted system of record makes a world of difference. Sometimes we don’t make the changes until we must. Once you have one employee move remote, they can be the instigator for one source of truth that is accessible to all.

When you really think about the functional areas of your business, most employees are coming into your office and working on a phone and a computer exclusively. These tools along with an internet connection are precisely what they need to do their job. Working from home is a desirable recruiting tool. Working from home can allow you to downsize your commercial footprint. Working from home saves your employees tremendous amounts of time and money.

I have been working from home for most of my career. The efficiency cannot be overrated. I have control of every single aspect of my working environment. I have tweaked it to be optimal for my working preferences. Without a commute, without the need to procure lunch, without the need to be dressed up every day, I have more time for work.