Make Your Remote Teams Work Like a Well-Oiled Machine

With the onset of the internet, the world has built virtual ties that has enabled connectivity among the inhabitants of the entire planet. No wonder that working remotely has become a popular practice.

With providers offering superfast internet connectivity and affordable plans, it has become easy for entire teams to stay connected, share huge amounts of data, and collaborate while staying in the comfort of their homes. You can find one at Spectrum Internet.

According to a survey by Owl Labs, around 56% of companies around the globe allow remote work and 52% of employees prefer to work remotely at least once a week. 73% of teams will be working remotely by the year 2028.

Even though remote work comes with a lot of convenience, it is also filled with drawbacks. In fact, most remote teams end up failing due to lag in communication, scheduling conflicts due to different time zones, cultural and language barriers, proper tracking of employee performance, no cohesion and trust within the team, and many more reasons.

As remote teams have contrasting dynamics as compared to their in-house counterparts, their management requires a different approach as well. So, here are a few strategies you could adopt to prevent your remote team from falling apart.

  1. Is your employee suited to the remote lifestyle?

While choosing a remote team, it’s important that you ensure if your employee can fare in that environment and is not going to give in to procrastination and demotivation when left unsupervised. People who have freelanced or come from an entrepreneurial background can manage well in the absence of their boss and get the job done.

So when hiring your remote team look for one of these things such as prior experience involving self-management or self-starting capabilities found in freelancers, entrepreneurs, or artists with a side gig.

  1. Acquire tools specifically for remote teams

Managing teams in-house and remotely is way different. It’s a matter of simple summons to the conference room to get everyone talking on the issues for in-house teams. For remote teams, it’s not that easy, hence you need to acquire a few sturdy software for that purpose.

A project management tool such as Asana or Trello can help create project dashboards, assign and keep track of the task’s progress, and manage your resources.

Use a communication tool such as Skype or Slack to encourage informal work-related chatter and keep a formal one for interactions with clients.

  1.   Emphasize on processes rather than people

As their supervisor or boss, you cannot hover over your remote employees’ shoulders and see whether they’re getting their work done on time or just procrastinating. A level of trust and transparency is required in these instances. So rather than scrutinizing the coming and goings of your employees (which is infuriating with remote teams), scrutinize the process.

Draw the entire process via project management software, break it down in small tasks, and make sure the workflow of the project is accessible to the entire team and stakeholders.

This documentation keeps everyone in the loop of a project’s progress and keeps you updated on your employees’ performance as well.

  1. Foster the Culture of Remote Work

As much as remote work has become popular, businesses have yet to keep pace with this trend. Most businesses are still plagued wih lack of transparency, red tape, secrecy, and organizational infrastructure, which does not create an environment that fosters remote-work culture.

Hence, this type of business tends to draw employees suited to its culture, those who rather work in hierarchies and under a manger’s eye. Which in turn, does not invite new ideas i.e. remote work.

So for you to encourage a remote work environment, make sure your organization is employee-driven rather than manager-driven. It needs to be decentralized, transparent, have more autonomy, and flat hierarchical structure.

Wrapping Up

As per the aforementioned research, remote teams are the future. So your organization better escape the traditional loop and create an environment that not only gives birth to remote work, but nurtures them as well. So they can work as well-oiled as your traditional in-house employees.

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