Will Businesses Still Have Departments Going Forward?

Sales. HR. Customer Service. IT. Accounting. Management. These different business departments have (for the most part) been categorized and compartmentalized for decades, cooperating to some extent but largely operating independently of one another. The question is, will this remain to be the case, with so many people now working remotely and communicating with their teammates as needed? Let’s try to make a few predictions as to the future of the departments we are all so familiar with.

With Remote Work, Departments Have Become Somewhat Moot

Here’s the hard fact of the matter: the concept of a department is unnecessary when people are no longer working side-by-side in a shared environment. Rather, the unified workforce somewhat dissolves into individual people working on their tasks and communicating with each other as needed.

Of course, this is not to say that the tasks and responsibilities that each department assigns to its members have gone away. Sales and customer service will still need to interact with prospects and clients, while HR will still need to act as the bridge between management and the workforce. However, remote work has done a lot to remove some of the barriers that the concept of departments once erected between the members of a given organization. In fact, studies have shown that the businesses that have performed the best throughout their remote response to the pandemic were the ones that relied on cross-silo teams (groups of employees from different departments) and shifted their focus from how busy each employee was to how successful these employees were at achieving their desired outcomes.

Other companies reported that the furloughs that many saw required them to adapt, with their remaining employees taking on new responsibilities and collaborating with coworkers they wouldn’t have otherwise. This has been exacerbated by the adoption of automated solutions and the need to create new roles that these new technologies bring with them.

All in all, remote work and the conditions that encourage it have all contributed to teams that have more diverse skill sets and are therefore more useful in a flexible work environment.

Of Course, Technology is Needed to Make Remote Work a Feasible Option

Whether you want to encourage your team members to embrace the benefits of remote work on a regular basis, or simply want to enable your team members to work remotely when the need arises, we can help equip your business to sustain it. Give us a call at (503) 278-5011 to get started today.