With the year-end approaching and the holiday season dazzling the world, there’s no better time to show appreciation for your remote employees. Since they’re far from an office setting, it’s important to recognize and remind them that they’re an essential part of your team. But what are the best remote employee appreciation gifts? In this article, we’ll suggest the 18 best remote employee appreciation gifts ideal for year-round needs, but especially for the holidays.

With the COVID pandemic still raging in most parts of the world, it’s safe to say that remote work is here to stay. And why not? There are many attractive benefits of remote work, like reduced costs, access to a greater talent pool, greater flexibility, and more. This has led to reduced office spaces and a rise in remote job postings. So, what other trends did the remote working world see in 2021?

2021 was largely about working remotely, following a work model shift due to the COVID pandemic. Many companies that weren’t initially open to telecommuting had no choice but to adapt to the new norm, realizing later that remote work wasn’t bad, after all. So, is remote work here to stay? In this article, we’ll discover some of the key remote work stats 2021 that employers and employees need to take note of.

The dynamic nature of the workplace has seen some incredible changes in the past couple of years with the rise of remote teams. Given that 83 percent of employers have reported a successful shift to remote work, it is highly likely that we will see a major shift towards remote teams in the future. As we see the growing trend of shifting to remote work, what will this mean for onboarding and training? Before we get into this, we need to look at the importance of employee onboarding.

We know about the “new normal” and “new ways of working” because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For numerous companies, the pandemic shifted the workforce to remote, even if it was temporary. However, more companies are now hiring fully-remote employees even if a large portion of their workforce will return to the office. At the same time, other companies have implemented a hybrid or fully-remote workforce.

Minimizing distractions when working from home is an ongoing battle. We show you how to get rid of the mental clutter and retain your focus. Working from home poses a myriad of challenges, but distractions are perhaps one of the biggest that we constantly need to overcome. Whether it's other people, children, that load of laundry that needs doing, or simply trying to adapt to the work/life balance in the home environment, there are so many ways our attention is diverted.

Regardless of the type of business you're talking about, organizations invest in digital transformation for a myriad of different reasons. Some turn to the power of modern technology to improve efficiency - empowering employees to communicate from department to department easier than ever before. Others want to guarantee that data can flow freely across the enterprise, making sure that the critical information that people need to do their jobs is always in the right hands.

Before your company can fully embrace digital transformation, you must first deal with the various pitfalls of a remote workplace. The lack of face-to-face interactions means there are certain limitations in communication, especially in information dissemination and engagement. In fact, a study by Deloitte shows that 75% of remote workplaces struggle to keep their members connected as they adopt the virtual setup. This applies not only to employees, but to board members as well.

An increasing number of businesses now operate almost entirely with a remote team — without the need for an actual office space or desks. However, some of them may require a physical location for mailing services and conference rooms for client meetings. In such cases, most companies go for a virtual office. A virtual office gives your business a physical address and other office-related perks without the cost of office rent and administrative staff.

Remote work, in some form or another, is clearly here to stay. But it’s not enough for businesses – particularly small businesses – to simply extend pandemic-era remote work accommodations indefinitely. And there’s a very good reason for that. According to cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, a full 19.8% of businesses suffered a data breach after switching to remote work arrangements. And the reason for that is clear.