With the spread of coronavirus forcing people to work from home for their safety and health, there are many challenges when operating a business remotely. Not all employers recognise this transformation as positive, while managers oppose this verdict due to the difficulties in controlling remote workers and their productivity. At UVeye, they are in a unique position to see the practical impact in real-time.
As working from home can be complicated and even further stressful than working at the office, UVeye has decided to provide its employees with the technical tools and support needed to produce a remarkable boost in productivity while working remotely.
Productive work methods
UVeye has managed a flexible policy advising most of the HQ staff to work from home
To match the productivity stats and even beat them, a few changes were required to be made to assist the employees in making an impact from their office at home. Nevertheless, individuals who work from home report completing more tasks, higher accomplishments, and even discovering better productive work methods.
Since the safety of the employees and customers come before anything else, UVeye has managed a flexible policy advising most of the HQ staff to work from home.
Using right technology
Ohad Hever, Chief Operations Officer: “At UVeye, we adapted quickly to the COVID-19 challenges and ensured our clients and employees are safe and also continue delivering while meeting all deadlines. Our workspaces have been adapted accordingly, and we encourage employees and consultants that can work off-site to do so by providing all the necessary tools.”
“One of the things we also moved quickly with was the capabilities to install and maintain some of our systems all around the world using the right technology. We have conducted several online installations guiding local teams and partners with great satisfaction.”
Video conferencing session
Coronavirus has dramatically changed the industry landscape worldwide. Nevertheless, thanks to the enhanced technological adjustments and employees’ versatility, the number of remote workers at UVeye increases day by day. To help the team stay focused during this work-from-home period while maintaining a good work-life balance, they have grown proper work from home routines, habits, processes, and have together relearned the rules of efficient communication.
They have practiced a bi-weekly based video conferencing session on the company level
They have practiced a bi-weekly based video conferencing session on the company level, so the employees sense their connection to the organisation, in addition to two daily core team meetings to provide the platform to share knowledge, inquire incidents, and raise technical errors. Some of the meetings and internal interrogations occur and are recorded for future implementation on digital tools like Tandem & Zoom.
Risk management communicating
The operational coordination is conducted via Slack, Salesforce, and Jira. Concerning risk management communicating remotely, they have developed tailored cybersecurity awareness messaging among all of UVeye’s employees while ensuring that all remote access capabilities are tested and secure.
While taking into account employee welfare UVeye has sent out several packages and treats to make everyone’s life sweeter and easier during these times. Some of the hardware related employees still need to work in the laboratory and show-room during these times. UVeye’s operation and hardware related employees are required to follow clear safety instructions to avoid the virus from spreading at work and ensure their own safety.
Minimising physical contact
COVID-19 has created an unforeseen need for entire workforces to be moved out of their work facilities
They have created flexible worksites, minimising physical contact, and directed everyone to wear face masks while conducting workshops, product maintenance and seminars. UVeye has equipped all working areas and floors in the office with dedicated hand sanitising stations and have instructed only essential staff to come on-site, in order to decrease the number of people entering the facilities and potentially risking others.
COVID-19 has created an unforeseen need for entire workforces to be moved out of their work facilities and into virtual environments. This includes a significant barrier in delivering and the requirement for long-term operations transformation.
Regional installation team
Work at installation sites must be organised along with the same guidelines that apply to other work environments. While many organisations are reconfiguring interfaces and methods to answer the needs of fully remote workforces, the success of these transformations is often limited by less-than-optimal technologies.
The regional installation team needs to be provided with the most accurate guidance possible
As safety and technical protocols have to be followed before the system is installed and activated, the regional installation team needs to be provided with the most accurate guidance possible. As a result of this epidemic ‘social distancing’ practices, UVeye has adjusted its operations team to adapt to remote work to complete installations by training the partners’ local teams in the US and Japan.
Remote communication applications
The major challenge was to identify and predict tasks required due to the physical conditions of the facilities where remote work may be a challenge and develop ways to complete them. To overcome this challenge, they have created reliable and comprehensive methods to nurture the clients’ self-installation abilities, while taking into consideration all of the possible hurdles on site.
Shifting from in-person installations to know-how photos, video tutorials, Google Hangouts or Zoom meetings, and other remote communication applications utilised by UVeye to support local supervisors in managing the inspection systems’ installations remotely due to the global crisis. These tools ensure a seamless installation for the field operators who can witness each step via visual guides, live videos, or recordings while managing these remote procedures.