Distributed
workforce
vs. remote work:
What's the difference?

The pandemic thrust the world into a trial-by-fire adoption of a distributed workforce. While many companies had already instituted portions of remote work and distributed teams, many others saw it as a future digital workplace that wouldn't arrive for decades. As the world shut down and time dragged on, employees began seeing the value of increased flexibility with work. With strained supply chains and a depleted workforce, companies began rethinking how they defined the work environment.

As workers instantly moved to remote workstations, companies faced a critical question: How do you network remote employees into a truly distributed workforce? While every company is still defining its strategy, the first step to creating a plan for remote work and distributed teams is to understand the difference between the two. All remote workers are distributed, though not all distributed workers are remote.

Simply put, remote work is the physical location of an individual worker in relation to a central office. In contrast, a distributed workforce is the discipline an entire organization follows to enable employees to work from various locations.

Spreading the team around is already common for global companies with multiple regional headquarters or satellite offices to better serve their customers. In addition, it provides companies access to a broader talent pool and provides employees with increased options for career advancement and mobility.

However, to convert sporadic remote employees to an advantaged, effective distributed workforce, every company needs critical tools and processes.

One of the best ways to integrate remote work and distributed teams is to implement cloud file sharing. The more information your team transfers through email or chat responses, the less likely the team can benefit from existing data.

Cloud platforms serve as a hub for information to be stored, shared and reviewed as a team to improve collaboration. Employing this strategy can reduce the number of questions new team members ask, providing document control and resiliency.

Shared password vaults are a substantial time saver that business leaders should consider. How much time each week do you spend typing in two-step verification codes, remembering and resetting passwords, or giving up entirely because you don't want to go through that tedious process?

A shared password vault provides a central repository for these passwords and can save your team hours of hidden time throughout the week.

One of the most significant threats to a distributed workforce is cyber security. Moving from a centralized data security strategy to a distributed one requires a different approach.

Much like how the internet works, you can adopt a virtual platform to assure security without central hardware. Employing tools, like a virtual private network (VPN), a software-defined wide-area network (SD WAN), a secure gateway or a cloud-based platform, can add the security of a central solution to a distributed network.

Adding various sites for your distributed workforce increases the importance of having a fast network. The technology should be as invisible as possible to have seamless collaboration, provide employees access, deliver security and then get out of the way.

Communicating to the cloud and virtual networks requires a high data transmission rate. As such, it's critical to ensure that the network speed isn't the limiter to collaboration.