Director of Human Resources at Vodafone Ghana, Hannah Ashiokai Akrong, has reiterated the need to strike the right balance between the human factor and technology in order to achieve maximum employee productivity while working remotely.

According to her, empirical evidence from a variety of recently conducted surveys have shown that most companies that adopted a remote working policy recorded a significant increase in productivity through the savvy use of technology.

She, however, added that the notable successes chalked could not have been achieved without the contribution of an adequately skilled human workforce.

“Technology is a wonderful thing that enables us to work remotely but at the end of the day, the role of the team leader is still very key in employee productivity.

"Undoubtedly, some responsibilities of team leaders such as mentoring and evaluating employees, as well as the provision of needed support, play a very critical role in achieving maximum productivity whiles working remotely,” she said.

Hannah Ashiokai Akrong disclosed this while speaking at the 2021 HR Focus Conference, on the theme “Leveraging digital technology to achieve productivity remotely.”

While enumerating the advantages of remote working, she also noted that in spite of its many benefits, the practice has significant downsides as well and encouraged employers to pay attention in this regard.

She pointed out distractions on the home front as well as threats to employees physical and mental health as some key disadvantages of remote working and admonished employees to leverage the technological tools at their disposal and exercise prudence in order to manage these inherent challenges.

“Remote working just like any other activity has its downsides which may affect employees physically or mentally. Fortunately, technology presents us with a variety of tools to choose from to deal with such situations and the best part is most of these tools are free to download and use,” she said.

She added “It is interesting to note that there are even Chat Bots and AI tools which could calm you down, improve your mood and set you off on the next programme you have to attend”.

To round off her presentation, Hannah Ashiokai Akrong charged employers to review their company policies to support remote working and also to establish some rules to regulate the conduct of remote working employees in order to ensure maximum employee productivity.