The definition of what an “office” is, and how it provides for employees, is constantly changing. Many companies are seeing the benefit of having employees work from home. By offering more flexible solutions for employment, it’s easier to keep top employees on staff for longer. Allowing people to work at home also frees management up from having to provide office space for them to work, which helps save on overhead costs.

If you are interested in switching your office over to a more digital operation, there are a few things you’ll need to keep in mind in order to make sure everything runs smoothly. Here are our top three tips.

1. Have Adequate Lines of Communication in Place

Once your employees work from home, you won’t be able to stroll over to their desk when a problem arises and work it out. For this reason, you need to make sure ahead of time that you have a strong communication network in place. Does everyone use email and respond fairly promptly? Is there a phone line, perhaps through VoIP, that everyone has access to? Will you be easily able to set up conference calls with multiple people when necessary? Know these answers before launching your virtual office setup.

2. Why Many People Rent Virtual Office Solutions

If you’re making the move to digital, why might you still want a small slice of real property to work from? There are certain operations that are difficult to digitalize. If you need a place for your mail to collect, you want a real address, not a postal office box. If you need a receptionist, you don’t want them working out of your house. When you rent virtual office spaces, you share these resources along with other companies. With virtual office solutions, you only pay a fraction of the cost, and receive just what you need.

3. Have a Defined Method of Scoring Productivity

You may have heard the phrase “when the cat is away, the mice will play.” The same can hold truth for bosses — when the boss is away, the employees will take extended lunch breaks or stop working before they’ve clocked out. When you have employees working at home, it will be more important than ever to set specific goals so that you know they are getting work done for what you paid them. It might help to develop a system where employees document what they spend time doing each day.

Would your office rely on virtual office solutions? Let us know in the comments. Helpful research also found here.