About Team RemotePanda
RemotePanda is a personalized platform for companies to hire remote talent and get the quality work delivered from our city Pune. All talents associated with us are close network connections. When we connect them with you, we make sure to manage their quality, their growth, the legalities and also the delivery of work. The idea is to make remote work successful for you.
A cold hard truth that one needs to understand to have engaged employee- You need to be an engaged manager first. There is a concept called, the world is your mirror. Whatever is reflecting you from your external world is due to the result of something that is going on within you. So if you are finding that your employees are not engaged in your team, in your company, then it has something to do with a lack of potential engagement from within yourself.
Hence, if you were, to be honest with yourself, can you say that you are fully engaged as a manager everyday hundred percent of the time?
If you look around, there would be hints here and there that show lack of engagement within yourself. It should be no surprise that there is a lack of participation in your employees as well.
Motivating remote work team just like motivating internal work team is the greatest thing you can do to drive home productively.
- DETERMINE THE TYPE OF WORK
Motivating a remote or outsourced work team is not the same as driving an in-house team. Firstly, it is essential to determine what type of work you are collaborating on. If it’s a quantitative work based on per unit either per minute of audio transcribed or leaves gathered, you are going to pay them on a per unit basis. This way your costs are directly correlated with their outputs. If it’s more of a qualitative project make sure you have clear instructions and expectations and deadlines at the outset and then go ahead and pay per hour or per month of work delivery.
During the hiring process, it is essential to discuss what to expect from your employees. Be sure to cover hours of availability, communication expectations, including responsiveness to emails and phone calls. The employee must understand their work responsibilities and how their products will be measured.
Also, decide on what kind of non-monetary rewards you want to give your team. Set up challenges and reward them. The award may not be just money but, it may be any value that offers a feeling of recognition.
To ensure that your remote employees feel like an essential part of your team, you must engage them. Be in contact with your staff daily via phone calls, email, or other channels. Be sure to include them in the weekly staff meeting. Also, plan individual phone calls with each remote employee to see how things are going on on a personal level, and to make sure there are no obstacles in their way.
Make sure that you FaceTime using both audio and video. A lot of people treat their teams like they treat their computers. Get on Skype video chat with them and have a general conversation about how they are doing in their life, as you would do with a regular employee in the office. Also, if you have the time and money, it is excellent if you can make a trip out to your remote work team to boost the teams’ morale.
Today, the technology is so advanced we can work from almost anywhere in the world seamlessly. The following apps could be beneficial:
- Zoom or Skype for conference calls or video meetings.
- Trello for project management.
- Evernote app is excellent for sharing business and meeting notes with others.
- Zixmail is a superb tool to transport sensitive data over the internet. The HR professionals are required to protect the data of their employees. This tool ensures that everything is encrypted, secure, and they are compliant.
These are a few apps that are in use, mostly. Many other apps might work great for you and your company.
When you manage a remote team, you have to trust that each person is working towards your shared goals. Focus more on the results and the quality of their work endless on what they are doing at any moment. As their leader, you must behave in a way that shows you trust your team to do their jobs well. They will likely live up to your expectations.
BONUS TIP: During the group calls to add a unique “what’s going on” topic to your agenda. This conversation will help each person to briefly discuss non-work-related activities such as graduations, family trips, or their grandchildren. It will encourage personal connections between your team members, and everyone will benefit from that.
About Shweta
I am a solo mom of two beautiful angels. I have worked remotely for several years now, and it has been an extremely positive experience both for the companies I worked with and for myself.
Great work can be rendered from anywhere, and you are most creative and productive when your people and your surroundings inspire you. At Remotepanda it has been a life changing experience with a group of interesting people. I am an experienced back-office virtual assistant with experience in building a complete back-office process from scratch and run it.
Your employees want to work from home, from the coffee shop even from the beach. Are you ready for that? 68% of American workers say they expect to be able to work remotely at least one day each week, and that number is only going up. However, remote employees also say they are less likely to receive meaningful feedback or even speak to their managers about future goals. For your current remote team members, you will have to go the extra mile to ensure the team plugs into what’s happening. Set aside sometime each week to visually connect with your remote direct reports in team meetings and individually also if you are celebrating a victory in the office don’t forget to include your remote workers send them the rewards as well, or they will feel left out.
Working with remote employees can have a lot of benefits. It can save you money; it can save you space, it can also save you time. But how do you make that work? Here are a few tips that I found make remote employees very successful.
- To have regular calls and meetings. To meet regularly one-on-one via video such as Skype. These meetings allow you to convey the nonverbal messages and make a little more human of a connection. To keep people engaged, try to do as much with video conferencing as possible. Nothing replaces good old fashioned human connection. But for those who sit by themselves all day, the video helps. Start using video for your calls; it is incredible how much clearer the communication is. Not only can you take cues from body language, but it also helps keep people more engaged in the conversation.
- Give autonomy and accountability. One should have regular reporting with the team. These reports will let you know, consistently what they have been working on and what challenges the employees’ risk.
- Make get-togethers, exciting occasions. Include them in the company culture. Just because they are far away doesn’t mean that they can’t participate in humor and jokes and activities that your business is doing. Help them feel unified with everyone else.
- Chat in real time. One of the biggest challenges for remote employees is a feeling of isolation. Working alone can be great for productivity, but it can also be lonely. One way to combat loneliness is to have scheduled daily checking calls or huddles with your team. These daily huddles do two things. One, they make sure that everyone is focused on the right task each day. And two, it gives remote employees the human connection that they need not feel like they’re in it alone.
It’s no secret that working as a remote worker, is the new normal for many business people today. But with everyone spread apart, you and your employees have to stay on the same page.
Technology advancements have made remote working more productive and engaging than ever before. If you need help with technology or build a team of remote employees, talk to us at Remotepanda.
About Shweta (Support/Technical Assistant and Blogger)
I am a solo mom of two beautiful angels. I have worked remotely for several years now, and it has been an extremely positive experience both for the companies I worked with and for myself.
Great work can be rendered from anywhere, and you are most creative and productive when your people and your surroundings inspire you. At Remotepanda it has been a life changing experience with a group of interesting people. I am an experienced back-office virtual assistant with experience in building a complete back-office process from scratch and run it.
BOT is the next big thing in offshoring
Companies looking to get involved in the international markets are embracing the build-operate-transfer (BOT), model. The BOT model is a form of an integrated partnership combining the design and construction responsibilities of design-build acquisitions with operations and maintenance. It lets you build an offshore team in the ‘build’ phase and put them for a preliminary test during the ‘operate’ phase. Once the team has adjusted to your company’s processes, tools, and methodologies, you can take the full control of the team in the ‘transfer’ phase. BOT model gives you the leverage of trying before buying. That means you don’t need to invest much in your offshore unit until you are sure of its worth.
Let’s understand all the three stages of the BOT model in detail:
- Build: It is the initial phase, including activities like defining the qualification requirements to the workforce. It includes everything ranging from distributing personnel recruitment procedure, approval of the reporting process, creation of infrastructure, and core team. This is also the phase where trust rapport between customer and contractor is formed, and the project is started.
- Operate: This phase is where project management happens. It includes expanding the team as per the customers’ requirements while developing products or projects. Additionally, there is the implementation of processes to reach an ideal level of business maturity and technical abilities of the team. Also, the ‘operate’ phase encompasses the allocation of lead programmers and team leaders in the unit plus applicable costs are changed on an annual basis.
- Transfer: it is the final phase where outsourcing partner transfers project ownership to the client. Although it’s only possible when your client is ready to take control of the project or the contract has ended. This phase includes a transfer of assets and some handover process.
How RemotePanda helps you with build-operate-transfer software outsourcing?
We help you build a team of the top talent in India - right from sourcing candidates to interviews to due diligence & hiring. We then put those employees in an office of your choosing & manage their day to day operations. Later, once you feel the team is ready & at par with your sops, we transfer the control over to you. You now have access to global talent, an office in a different part of the world, easy access to a booming economy and most of all, you will have your employees
The BOT model enables you to set up an offshore team in the ‘build’ phase and then take them for a trial run during the ‘operate’ phase. Once you see that the team has well adapted to your company’s processes, methodologies, and tools, you can decide to take full control of the team in the ‘transfer’ phase. This model gives you the choice of trying before buying, meaning you don’t need to make any long term investment in your offshore unit until you are sure of its value.
How the BOT model at RemotePanda works?
The build-operate-transfer model at RemotePanda follows a set of procedures.
- Initially, we will connect with you through a phone call and understand your requirements and pain points. Once the prerequisites are precise, we’ll start building a team for you.
- It includes the screening the candidates with due-diligence, interviewing them, and hiring the best-fit.
- In this step, we will be responsible for the agile project management of the team. Besides, we will provide them the technical and business coaching along with taking care of the daily operations.
- Finally, you can transfer the candidates on your payroll. We will manage all the legalities and continue providing you the necessary support.
In short, RemotePanda will set up a dedicated team for your project as per the number of resources required. The resources will be provided with the infrastructure, which includes physical space, machines, high-speed internet, Amazon cloud workspace, secure access, and training. Also, a virtual CTO can be accessed on an hourly to fulltime basis.
If requested, RemotePanda will continue to assist with administrative management, accounting, recruitment, or any other services related to your offshore team even after the transfer of ownership.
Reasons to choose the BOT model
Running a business is all about saving money, spending it, and gaining profits. That’s why the BOT model often helps in cutting costs in the best way possible. Since the project team is owned, managed, and operated by an offshore group, it saves as much as 60% of the standard cost. The funds saved can be used to help enrich and develop the company’s employees and recruiting more skillful resources.
- No risk in building a team
There are risks associated with every business since every country faces issues at some point or another. So the BOT model helps in reducing the risks of being in a different country by diversifying investment for the investors. Since the outsourcing partners are already aware of the conditions of the country it’s operating on, they are prepared for possible problems that could arise during the team set up.
Using the build-operate-transfer model, organizations can scale their operations quickly through a wide array of services, which in turn completes the business model.
Having diverse resources in different locations or time zones help reducing time to market since the process cycle is almost 24/7. Since the development is uninterrupted, it doesn’t waste much time in a day.
- Access to booming technologies
Having an experienced team allows companies to introduce the latest technologies. And having access to these technologies can be an added advantage that often engages and retains members in the organization.
Conclusion
A BOT model helps companies create the full value of their outsourcing partners. Simultaneously, the proper plan keeps business operations and knowledge in-house as if it’s the part of the same company.
Similarly, RemotePanda assists you in such a way that you can focus on developing and enhancing your core business. We will supervise the offshore operations and development, and get things done before the transfer of ownership.
Machine learning has become the tech scene influencer right now, and you only have to look at how much the companies of all sizes are investing in this technology to see how vital a role it’s going to play in our future lives – both personally and professionally. As per one of the Gartner’s prediction, “By the year 2020, consumers will manage 85% of their relationships with organizations without interacting with humans”. With 20% of the C-Suite already using machine learning, businesses are planning to grow their teams with Machine Learning experts. But an excellent ML team isn’t just about the engineers; it’s a different combination of talents and perspectives. If you’re one of those planning to build a successful Machine Learning team, here we will help you grow your organization.
Standard Job Roles within Machine Learning Teams
Before creating a team, you need to know the current job roles that are best suited in a Machine Learning team. Usually, Machine Learning teams consist of engineers, scientists, analysts, and managers. Below we have listed down the individual responsibilities of each team member.
- Data Engineers – Data engineers build and maintain the “big data” infrastructure needed for data modeling, predictions, and analysis that is later verified by data scientists.
- Data Scientists – Data scientists are analytical data experts with an ability to solve complex problems using data-driven techniques. They take specifications from product leads to understanding the business objective. They are mainly responsible for gathering massive amounts of disorderly data and changing it into a more usable format.
- Data Analysts –Analysts are responsible for monitoring processes and production model performance, plus evaluating data quality.
- Machine Learning Engineers – Having a background and skills in applied and data science, and intense coding, these experts execute the operations of an ML project and are responsible for running the data pipelines and infrastructure needed to conduct code to production.
Now, if you are trying to build a great Machine Learning team, you need to understand the necessary skills required. The ideal ML team members should be proficient in understanding the wide range of algorithms and applied mathematics, plus they must have analytical and problem-solving skills. Along with this, in-depth knowledge of some statistics and programming languages is a must. We will further explain the list of skill sets required. But before that, you must understand that knowing some programming languages isn’t enough.
A Machine Learning expert should understand how to build end-to-end machine learning solutions to existing problems. That means along with the curation of data; they need to absorb it, explore it, and cleanse it. Besides, they need to train and assess it, iterate on it, and then correctly execute it. Only then, they can claim to be the masters of Machine Learning.
When you hire member in your machine learning team, it’s essential that you know who can do research for ML and who can apply it to your business challenges. For a stronger team, hire brilliant programmers who can make use of existing libraries and frameworks, but can overcome inherently ambiguous data science.
Here Is a List of Primary Skill Sets Required
1. Python/C++/R/Java: In a Machine Learning team, the members need to learn all these programming languages. Python and C++ help in speeding up the code, whereas R is necessary for statistics and plot. Besides, Hadoop is Java-based, so you may need to apply mappers and reducers in Java.
2. Probability and Statistics: Theories are essential for learning about algorithms. Some best examples are; Gaussian Mixture Model, Naive Bayes, and Hidden Markov Models. The team members need to firmly understand the Probability and Statistics to grasp these algorithmic models.
3. Algorithms and Applied Mathematics: Standard implementation of ML algorithms and knowing its working can help you discriminate supervised learning models. For that, you need to thoroughly study subjects such as convex optimization, gradient descent, partial differential equations, Lagrange’s theorem, quadratic programming, and more.
4. Distributed Computing: Usually, ML teams require working with large data sets. They can’t operate this data using a single machine, so it should be distributed across the whole cluster. To make the process easier, you can use Amazon’s EC2 and Apache Hadoop.
5. Expertise in Unix Tools: Your team members must have the knowledge in Unix tools such as grep, cat, fund, sort, se, tr, cut, head, tail and more. Since all the processing is on a Linux-based machine, professionals must have access to all these tools. Hence, it’s essential to learn the functions and use those.
Just having this technical expertise isn’t enough to make your team a successful one. It must stay up-to-date with the imminent transformations. That means the members should be well aware of the news about development tools, theories, and algorithms. For this, they can read papers like Google File System, Google Bigtable, and MapReduce plus several online books for ML.
We hope the above points help you build a greabout creating data science solution for a specified business problem. However, hiring Machine Learning experts can be costly and requires a lot of work. As the demand is more and resources arat Machine Learning team that takes your project to the next level. The best team members not only know the techniques to develop models and extract data from insights but also have the comprehension e less.
To overcome these challenges, several online marketplaces like RemotePanda are providing a cost-effective solution. We, at RemotePanda, help you conveniently connect with Machine Learning contractors. Hire from our wide range of resource base who can help you successfully build your next critical ML project.
1. What is the use of a training set, a validation set, and a test set? What is the difference between a validation set and a test set?
In Machine Learning, there are three separate sets of data when training a model:
Training Set: this data set is used to adjust the weights on the ML model.
Validation Set: this data set is used to minimize overfitting. You are not adjusting the weights of the model with this data set, you are just verifying that any increase in accuracy over the training data set actually yields an increase in accuracy over a data set that has not been shown to the model before, or at least the model hasn’t trained on it (i.e. validation data set). If the accuracy over the training data set increases, but the accuracy over the validation data set stays the same or decreases, then you are overfitting your ML model, and you should stop training.
Testing Set: this data set is used only for testing the final solution in order to confirm the actual predictive power of the model.
Difference between a validation set and a test set
The validation data set is a set of data for the function you want to learn, which you are not directly using to train the network. You are training the network with a set of data which you call the training data set. If you are using a gradient-based algorithm to train the model, the error surface and the gradient at some point will entirely depend on the training data set thus the training data set is being directly used to adjust the weights. To make sure you don’t overfit the model, you need to input the validation dataset to the model and check if the error is within some range. Because the validation set is not using directly to adjust the weights of the network, therefore it’s a good error for the validation. Also, the test set indicates that the model predicts well for the train set examples, also it is expected to perform well when the new example is presented to the model which was not used in the training process. Once a model is selected based on the validation set, the test set data is applied to the network model, and the error for this set is found. This error is a representative of the error which we can expect from absolutely new data for the same problem.
2. What is stratified cross-validation and where is it used?
Cross-validation is any of various similar model validation techniques for assessing how the results of a statistical analysis will generalize to an independent data set. It is mainly used in settings where the goal is a prediction, and one wants to estimate how accurately a predictive model will perform in practice. In a stratified variant of this approach, the random samples are generated in such a way that the mean response value (i.e., the dependent variable in the regression) is equal in the training and testing sets. This is particularly useful if the responses are dichotomous with an unbalanced representation of the two response values in the data.
Stratified cross-validation can be used in the following scenarios:
A dataset with multiple categories. When the dataset is smaller and categories are imbalanced, this is when stratified cross-validation will be used.
A dataset with data of different distributions. When we can’t ensure that both types of dataset are present in training and validation, we will have to use stratified cross-validation.
3. Why are ensembles typically considered better than individual models?
Ensemble models have been used extensively in credit scoring applications and other areas because they are considered to be more stable and, more importantly, predict better than single classifiers. They are also known to reduce model bias and variance. However, Individual classifiers pursue different objectives to develop a (single) classification model. Statistical methods either estimate (+|x) directly (e.g., logistic regression), or estimate class-conditional probabilities (x|y), which they then convert into posterior probabilities using Bayes rule (e.g., discriminant analysis). Semi-parametric methods, such as NN or SVM, operate in a similar manner, but support different functional forms and require the modeler to select one specification a priori. The parameters of the resulting model are estimated using nonlinear optimization. Tree-based methods recursively partition a data set so as to separate good and bad loans through a sequence of tests (e.g., is loan amount > threshold). This produces a set of rules that facilitate assessing new loan applications. Moreover, Ensemble classifiers pool the predictions of multiple base models. Much empirical and theoretical evidence has shown that model combination increases predictive accuracy. Ensemble learners create base models in an independent or dependent manner.
4. What is regularization? Give some examples of the techniques?
Regularization is the process of adding information in order to solve an ill-posed problem or to prevent overfitting.
Some of regularization:
L1 and L2 are the most common types of regularization. These update the general cost function by adding another term known as the regularization term.
Cost function = Loss (say, binary cross entropy) + Regularization term
Due to the addition of this regularization term, the values of weight matrices decrease because it assumes that a neural network with smaller weight matrices leads to simpler models. Therefore, it will also reduce overfitting to quite an extent.
5. What is the curse of dimensionality? How to deal with it?
The curse of dimensionality refers to various phenomena that arise when analyzing and organizing data in high-dimensional spaces (often with hundreds or thousands of dimensions) that do not occur in low-dimensional settings such as the three-dimensional physical space of everyday experience.
Dimensionality reduction is an important technique to overcome the curse of dimensionality in data science and machine learning. As the number of predictors (or dimensions or features) in the dataset increase, it becomes computationally more expensive (ie. increased storage space, longer computation time) and exponentially more difficult to produce accurate predictions in classification or regression models. Moreover, it is hard to wrap our head around to visualize the data points in more than 3 dimensions.
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6. What is an imbalanced dataset? How to overcome its challenges?
Imbalanced datasets are a special case for classification problem where the class distribution is not uniform among the classes. Typically, they are composed of two classes: The majority (negative) class and the minority (positive) class. These type of sets suppose a new challenging problem for Data Mining since standard classification algorithms usually consider a balanced training set and this supposes a bias towards the majority class.
Ways to overcome the Imbalanced dataset challenges
1. Data Level approach: Resampling Techniques
2. Algorithmic Ensemble Techniques
7. What is the difference between supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning?
Here is the difference
In a supervised learning model, the algorithm learns on a labeled dataset, providing an answer key that the algorithm can use to evaluate its accuracy on training data. An unsupervised model, in contrast, provides unlabeled data that the algorithm tries to make sense of by extracting features and patterns on its own.
Semi-supervised learning takes a middle ground. It uses a small amount of labeled data bolstering a larger set of unlabeled data. And reinforcement learning trains an algorithm with a reward system, providing feedback when an artificial intelligence agent performs the best action in a particular situation.
8. What are some factors determining the success and recent rise of deep learning?
Here are some of the success factors of deep learning:
1. Gnarly data
2. Built-in feature engineering
3. Topology design process
4. Adoption of GPUs
5. Availability of purpose-built open source libraries
9. What is data augmentation? Provide some examples?
Data augmentation adds value to base data by adding information derived from internal and external sources within an enterprise. Data is one of the core assets for an enterprise, making data management essential. Data augmentation can be applied to any form of data but may be especially useful for customer data, sales patterns, product sales, where additional information can help provide more in-depth insight.
Computer vision is one of the fields where data augmentation can be used. We can do various modification with the images:
- Resize
- Flipping
- Rotate
- Add noise
- Deform
- Modify colors
10. What are convolutional neural networks? What are its applications?
A convolutional neural network is a class of deep neural networks, most commonly applied to analyzing visual imagery.
Applications
1. Image recognition
2. Video analysis
3. Natural Language Processing (NLP)
4. Drug discovery
5. Health risk assessment
6. Checker games
This blog is originally written by one of the remote workers of our network - Shweta Jain, as a tribute to all the working mothers who are doing their best to balance both sides of their lives.
“Remote work” or “Work from home” are terms that to some extent offer wings to a girl to fly a bit higher within the sky, follow her dreams while not undergoing the guilt of leaving her world behind. Her small nest is her world. To not be able to be physically present at home the majority of the time, really deprives her to be there for the most precious possessions of her life.
Remote jobs are on the rise. And because remote work will usually cause more significant flexibility, more and more moms are jumping on the remote work bandwagon.
Myself included!
I’ve been operating remotely for over six years currently.
And in that time, I have nurtured my kids and saw them all the way from kindergarten to junior school without having to put them in daycare. Not once!
I like to think about all the money I saved as a remote working mom, but the most important was being part of all the major landmarks because I was at home with them and not restrained to a cubicle 8+ hours a day.
You too may be considering a switch to remote work. And luckily, there are plenty of remote jobs for moms (and dads too), you can use to keep your career warm, contribute to finances, and generally enjoy the ride of motherhood while keeping your own identity.
What Makes Remote Work Attractive To Moms?
To be honest, raising a family is time-consuming. Whether you’re a single parent, co-parenting, or somewhere in between, parenting is a 24*7 job.
And even though the number of stay-at-home moms is not as high as it was in the 1960-70s, it’s still an attractive option for many families. Firstly, it allows a mom the freedom to spend more time with her kids. And it also gives women the convenience to build their careers while maintaining a household.
So, who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?
And, of course, several benefits come with a flexible remote job that gives you the best of both worlds as a stay-at-home mom and a breadwinner. There are many jobs with work from home options especially designed for women. It helps in balancing both professional and personal life especially if one has small kids to look after.
Perks of work from home Moms are:
1.Flexibility: You can plan your schedule so that both office and household chores are completed in time.
2. Reduce time to travel: The daily commute from office to home and home to office. Facing traffic jams and delays is a big pain which does not exist in working from home.
3. Saving on pocket: Work from home does not require any specific dress code or formal wear. For ladies, it is a great saving on their pocket.
4. More time with your children and family: You can spend more time with your children and family. You can see your little one completing every development milestone like the 1st walk, 1st word he/she spoke.
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- It provides children with an academic edge.
- It is beneficial to both non-school age and school-age children.
- Less childhood stress, anxiety, and aggression.
5. Saving on office rent: If you are not working for a company and have your own office, working from home will help you to save the office rent.
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- Fewer turnover rates
- Greater employee satisfaction
- Lower overhead costs
I wish more “work from home “opportunities would appease to more lives and allow women to not only nurture their world but live their dreams side by side. Allow them to lay the warm cooked meals to the kids, snuggle them more often, and also be present in the board room. To be there for the ailing member of her little world rather leaving them longing, to rush for the office in time. To be able to hold the little fingers more often than punching the swipe cards in offices. Technology has blown to its maximum size. Why not use it to the good to maximize this concept and affix its size? Why should not companies think about it and segregate more profiles of these types only to add to such jobs that are “work from home”? Why can’t one get the fun of both lives? Hold a career and still care and nurture her child.
When you are armed with how to spot a real job from a scam, where do you uncover this great work from home opportunities? Thanks to the Internet, apps to connect a company with remote workers, and the progression of a more flexible work economy, these jobs can easily be found if you know where to look. And for employers looking to hire these work-from-home moms, these sites offer great talent pools.
Find The Right Balance For Yourself
It is not necessary that all remote jobs for moms are created equal. Some will require a 40-hour-a-week commitment with set hours that make it challenging to find time for family. Yes, you’ll save time and money every day without having to commute to an office, but you won’t have the flexibility.
For example, if you have an infant in your care, you need something flexible. That way you can work around feedings and nap time. Freelancing often offers the most flexible way for moms to work remotely when you have younger kids.
For moms with older, school-aged kids, a part-time or full-time remote employee position may be a better fit. These types of jobs are like traditional office jobs — set hours, steady pay, and benefits — without a daily commute.
Moms may even yearn to be mompreneurs — they start a blog. A small business. Or another type of income-generator from the ground up. The possibilities here are ENDLESS. Get creative. Do what you love, and follow it with the wildness only a mother can!!
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY - More power to you all.
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A woman is an ultimate multitasker. The way she manages to juggle between work and life is something to be worth appreciated. When it comes to education, women have never failed to close the gender gap. Similarly, on the work front, they are the real heroes. But these heroes also need a break; the reason could be anything, from marriage to starting a family and raising the child.
However, taking a break from work can be both liberating as well as an intimidating task for a woman. A couple of years down the line when she decides to make a comeback into her working life, she finds it difficult to find a job that best suits her schedule. Mostly, a woman, after starting her family, wants the flexibility of working hours so that she could be around her family when needed. Research says, in India, almost 50% of female employees stop working after 3 years, either due to marriage, childcare, or aging parents. This data roughly accounts for 10 million graduates and post-graduate females. Perhaps, several women want to resume work but are unable to do so because of strict, rigid working hours with a competitive work environment.
At RemotePanda, we support the career success of women returning to work and connect them with remote work opportunities. These women are highly motivated, with less overhead cost and provide a high retention rate. From research and copywriting to virtual assistance and customer service, we create new possibilities for women at all stages of their career.
Additionally, we provide them the training that can help them to get at par with the changes in the industry and the demands of the job.
Our Talented Women Workforce
What Our Clients Have To Say For Our Female Talentpool
RemotePanda strives to help women build their skills and support them for their career growth by assisting them to work at the comfort of their homes. Also, we actively support and champion the successes of women passionate about their work. Remember, women will be valuable assets in every role they play, not liabilities.
Diversity in the workplace is all about encouraging acceptance, mutual respect, and teamwork regardless of differences in gender, age, race, language, religion, or communication styles among teammates. In today’s world, embracing diversity has become a significant part of rewarding business practices.
There are enormous benefits of having a diverse work culture. Innovative process and products are the results of having a workforce from an extensive variety of backgrounds and demographics. When divergent minds work together to achieve the same goal, the outputs are enduring.
However, diversity and inclusion have their own issues as well. Business leaders need to understand various challenges of diversity in the workplace to prevent and address those on time. We have created a list of the most common issues faced in diversified work culture.
Challenges Associated With Diversity
1. Different Ages and Generations
In the next five years, 75% of the workforce will consist of millennials and will change the work culture. Older employees may find it challenging to adapt to changes in the workplace and the work culture the young generation will bring about.
In large organizations, there are different age groups, from youngsters to senior citizens. Therefore, it forms the cliques and social circles, and some employees may feel isolated in the team.
2. Language and Communication Barriers
Language and communication hurdles are constant in organizations with diversified employees. Companies often hire employees whose native language isn’t English, so they sometimes find it difficult to understand the accent and get the message across. This language barrier can result in miscommunication and productivity loss.
In many parts of the world, gender diversity initiative is in its starting phase. The reason why women are low in numbers than men is culture. Women need to juggle between work, household chores, and childcare. In some places, the traditional system still restricts women from earning. And if a woman starts work, she gets paid less than the man in a similar position. This inequality has led to the least number of working women and the challenge is to maintain a healthy ratio of gender diversity.
4. Ethnic and Cultural Differences
Since the retirement of credit card giant - American Express’ CEO Ken Chenault, the Fortune 500 companies are left with only 3 African-American CEOs. According to a study by the University of Wisconsin, individuals with Amerian-African sounding names will 14% less likely get a call back for a job offer.
It’s sad that the issues of diverse ethnicity and culture are still there in the companies. Even when the outlook of the world has changed so much, built-in bias is always a challenge.
Read Also: 7 Diversity and Inclusion Best Practices You Need to Follow
Organizations fail at diversity when they focus only on things like race, gender, and sexual orientation. Instead, focus on identifying where you are strong and where you can get better as a group. Then go find people to fill those gaps. Mandate that you only hire people that close up those gaps. You will be shocked at how your diversity goals are met-Chris Dyer CEO (PeopleG2)
Solutions to Diversity Challenges
1. Identify and Define the Issues Existing Within the Workplace
It may sound easy; the initial step to solving any diversity issues in the companies is to identify it. The end-goal is to create a work culture with acceptance and equivalent opportunities for everyone. Once the organizational leader identifies the challenges of diversity in the workplace and differences among employees, they will be better able to specify diversity issues to determine the changes needed to address those.
2. Communicate and Stick to Company Policies
One way to deal with some of the problems faced by diversity in the workplace is to review existing organizational policies and training and to develop new ones plus implement those that are relevant to specific issues, if necessary. It would help companies establish a culture of acceptance. Diversity initiatives must be the mission statement and the onboarding process of the organizations.
3. Provide Proper Training Related to Diversity Issues
Diversity training such as productivity training programs, productivity enhancement, retention, and engagement can benefit an organization in many ways. Companies can offer training as freestanding programs, and the results can be integrated into other initiatives.
Apart from this, creating avenues for employees to advise each other and to collaborate and engage in various projects is another great way to help bridge the gap between different age, cultural, and ethnic groups, and help maintain healthy relationships.
4. Accountability of Employee Actions
An organization shall not tolerate any inappropriate behavior with an employee and address it at the earliest. The higher management must be open to communication about any issue faced by the employees. This process will provide potential victims of discrimination, and prejudice with a medium through which they can report inappropriate actions with fear of nemesis.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, how people feel about working with others individually; they are different from each other in some way. A workplace is a professional environment, and there is a need to be treated as the same by everyone regardless of rank or title. Eventually, including diversity with acceptance will be an added advantage for the companies to overcome the challenges of diversity in the workplace. And these companies tend to perform 35% above national industry medians.
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Ever thought of what it would be like, to have a large talent pool of different caste, creed, race, gender, and age in your workplace?
Of course, it would be fun to have them around! Working with different kinds of people seems exciting always. Who wouldn’t want a company culture with a comprehensive range of combinations? It influences the company’s values, experiences, beliefs, behaviors, and expectations and makes every employee genuinely unique.
Moreover, an understanding of diversity and inclusion has emerged over time, from focusing on compliance earlier to making D&I a crucial part of how we must do business. However, to cultivate a diverse and inclusive working culture, you need to work on approaching tasks in a much planned and thoughtful manner. Here are some of the diversity and inclusion best practices to help you do it in a better way:
1. Make Employees Feel Important
For employees to bring their best foot forward, it’s essential to build a sense of belonging. Being open about belongings and encouraging discussions make them feel they can be themselves. It helps to foster better social bonds and creativity in the workplace.
Though, these changes aren’t always linear and may take time. You have to work hard and focus on diversity plus be proactive about inclusion so you can establish belonging.
Diversity and inclusion often go hand in hand. But for driving successful change, every individual leader needs to believe in the sense of belonging –– both logically and emotionally. When the leaders come forward to own diversity and inclusion, the company’s D&I practices will succeed.
Leaders often need to put themselves in the shoes of others to understand their experience. The more a leader is understanding, the more it will be helpful to encourage a diverse and inclusive working culture.
3. Automate the Inclusive Process
Setting goals for hiring may expand diversity in numbers, but this won’t automate an inclusive culture. Sometimes, leaders practice D&I improperly on the talent pipeline, but employee experience continues beyond an appointment letter. To retain and foster elite talent, you need to take a proper look at the complete employee experience, to promote inclusion daily and measure its impact.
Read Also: 4 Major Challenges of Diversity in the Workplace
4. Remember That Inclusion Is a Continuous Process
Just teaching your employees the meaning of inclusion isn’t enough. Like any other behavior change, inclusion needs people to identify key moments required to build new habits. And when these behaviors are applied in an environment supporting open and healthy conversations, valid change becomes possible.
5. Make Better Connections
Individuals tend to react with fear and doubt when someone challenges their beliefs. While fear can act as a strong motivator, it also inspires people to restrict their perspective –– the conflicting effect for creating an inclusive workplace. Finding ways to overcome challenges with the scope of possibilities and uplifting the power of team efforts make way for positive change.
Besides, support your employees so they can actively execute inclusion and take actions to address their specific needs. Set up employee matching programs allowing them to support important causes financially, and provide them with the volunteer time off so they can physically support significant causes. Also, you can strength communication through timely meetings and appreciate the idea originator. It builds confidence and trust-factor between you and your employees.
6. Help Individuals Thrive
The criterion, structures, and prejudice in society can also affect an organization, resulting in hiring, training, and benefiting people who fit the best. Develop a culture that helps employees contribute their skills in your organization. The best-fit for your workplace will be an individual who is capable of bringing to life your mission, values, and purpose with their hard work and dedication. You have to help bring the best out of them.
7.Understand Your Purpose
In an attempt to build a diverse and inclusive work culture, it’s crucial to connect the dots between what’s happening inside and outside your organization. What your brand says about who you are as a culture? Why isn’t your employee base and customer base on the same page? Are the experiences being misunderstood? Inclusion is all about the way an organization operates, works, communicates, and contributes
It’s not easy to develop or manage a diverse and inclusive workplace, but it is inspiring to see that many companies have already introduced D&I strategies. Following the diversity and inclusion, best practices will bring innovation and revenue stream, eventually helping your organization leverage the benefits.
Did You Know – Including remote teams can help you enhance your diversity and inclusion practices?
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With a tremendous shift in workforce demographics and the emergence of global markets, workplace diversity is gradually becoming a necessity for businesses to embrace differences and change. Employees can leverage the direct and indirect benefits, including mutual respect between co-workers and capital gains.
Moreover, diversity provides employers access to a vast pool of talent and skills.Thus, diversity makes your organization more productive, profitable, and successful. In this post, we have listed down some points that will help you gain a comprehensive insight into the importance of diversity in the workplace for both the employees and employers.
1. Increased Trust Factor Between Employees
Workforce diversity plays a vital role in building respect and trust among employees. Whether they work in a team or a group with distinct work patterns, or varied cultures or generations, a collaborative work culture becomes the benchmark. However, achieving a perfect work environment may be difficult, but employees realize numerous benefits that diversity brings to the workplace and they develop mutual trust and respect for their co-workers’ performance.
2. Reduction and Quick Resolution for a Conflict
With a variety of skillset in the workplace, it’s natural that the conflict may occur. Although, when co-workers understand and accept each others’ differences and work toward a common goal, often find similarities. Respect among colleagues either reduces the chances of conflicts or makes it easier to resolve a dispute.
In other words, diversity in the workplace protects the quality of the relationship that employees maintain with their colleagues.
3. Ample Opportunities for Employees
Workplace diversity builds a positive reputation for the company, resulting in increased advantages and opportunities for employees. An organization practicing business ethics and fair employment and appreciates distinct skills can attract a broader talent pool of professionals. Also, diversity leads to loyal customers choosing to do business with only socially responsible companies.
4. Increased Exposure to Different People
A culturally diverse workplace offers more than just exposure to its workers. They learn from those colleagues about their different working style and their different views about work. It is especially true for employees in the multinational working environment, as well as for those who work in a company culture that’s open to people with disabilities.
Diversity leads to better brainstorming and better generation of ideas. It eventually helps with innovation.
Diversity adds the company’s innovation ability. A homogenous group of people looking at the same problem from the same perspective invariably will come up with one solution, where a diverse group will come up with several possible solutions and pick the best one.
If diversity can be a multiplier for innovation, we cannot afford to be even 1 percent behind our competition. Because in a year, that 1 percent might be 2 percent, then 4 percent, then 8 percent, and then 16 percent.
6. Multiple Language Skills for Diverse Customer-base
Cultural differences and language barriers may act as an obstacle for an organization that wants to expand its business process overseas. Although, hiring professionals with diversified languages can make it possible for the company to grow its business globally and interact with a broader client base.
7. Job Promotion and Employee Development
With the company’s ability to reach foreign markets, two significant opportunities for employees are created: promotion and self-development. As the doors are open for employees of different backgrounds, disabilities, age, or race, the chances of building global profit centers are more. Moreover, employees who want to learn the multinational business strategy and are ready for an onsite opportunity may find exciting career options.
Companies leveraging the benefits of diversity will open doors for a broader range of candidates to their vacancies, as it will help that organization progress and attract individuals from all classes. In this way, as the applicants for job positions rise, the chances of finding an out-of-the-box talent increases. It is also a benefit for retaining an employee, as people are more likely in favor of working in an environment with a diversified workforce.
9. Improved Employee Performance
Employees will more likely feel comfortable and cheerful in an environment where diversity is a priority. This workplace equality for diverse people is a motivation for employees from multiple backgrounds. They often feel confident in their capabilities to achieve their best. And with the increased morale of the employees, productivity also increases.
Of course, it’s not wrong if we say that things that are worth achieving never come easy. The benefits of diversity in the workplace outweigh the efforts required to build one that anyone would do their best to overcome the challenges associated with it. And we hope that the above points help you understand that.
