Why banks should embrace remote work, especially for payment testing

Over the past few years, the shift to remote work and hybrid models (where employees split their time between working remotely and working in the office) has accelerated dramatically.

Today, some 16% of companies globally are fully-remote and around 62% of employees aged 22 to 65 say they work remotely at least occasionally, according to research published by Owl Labs.

Financial organizations can benefit dramatically from offering flexible work options to their employees. The best industry talent is now typically looking for flexible work options, and is becoming increasingly selective about the roles they accept and the companies they work for.

The importance of flexible work in 2023

In order to hire top talent, as well as retain existing team members, it's critical that organizations offer flexible work schedules where employees can work from a mixture of the office, at home and on the road.

Offering a flexible work environment can help lead to a happier, more productive and more loyal workforce, including additional business benefits such as:

• Increased collaboration and efficiency.
• Faster time to market for new products and services.
• Enhanced recruiting and staff retention capabilities.
• Reduced costs.
• Improved corporate sustainability.

Many businesses in the industry are benefiting from a remote workforce. In a post on LinkedIn, Dan Price, Former CEO and Founder of Gravity Payments, a credit card processing and financial services company based in Seattle, said: "If you want to find workers and increase your talent pool, go remote. If you want to save the planet, go remote. If you want to increase productivity, go remote. If you want to be a control freak for no good reason, force everyone back into the office."

We asked our employees where they want to work. Just 7% wanted to go back to the office full time, 31% wanted an office-remote hybrid and 62% wanted to work from home all the time. So I told them: "Sounds great."

Building a remote test lab: Technology is key

When it comes to payment testing, financial organizations need to extend their payment testing capabilities beyond the physical office. In order to take advantage of the benefits that come with a remote team, organizations need to invest in the right technologies to support their anytime, anywhere workforce and facilitate connectivity, communication and collaboration.

So, how do you build a remote test lab for payment testing? Here are a few of the key building blocks that you will need:

• 24x7x365 browser-based access to the testing platform.
• Centralized control and management of test scripts, data results and reports.
• Configurable roles and permissions to facilitate collaboration.
• Individual sandbox environments so that resources can work independently when necessary.
• Solutions that support multiple automation options, including API integration with continuous testing and delivery environments.

Having all of these features in one easy-to-use cloud-enabled platform is an essential requirement for enabling your remote payment testing resources.