Useful Tips on How to Assemble Your Remote Team

Whether it’s the advancement of technology and new career opportunities or even the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of individuals have turned to remote work in recent years. And while working from home has offered a number of benefits for employees, employers have found this work model quite challenging, especially when making a sudden shift to remote working.

Maintaining the right productivity and efficiency levels is considered to be among the biggest issues, preventing businesses from reaching new growth and success opportunities in this new environment. If you are facing the same challenge as well, here are some ways you can manage and lead your remote teams successfully:

Focus on good communication

Poor communication is often cited as being the biggest challenge of remote work, preventing proper collaboration, and hampering teams from reaching success. That is why you might want to make communication a priority among your remote teams, and set clearer expectations for which channels should be used and when.

Focus on good communication

For example, you could use instant messages for casual chats and urgent requests, emails for company-wide updates and announcements, and video conferencing software for check-ins, meetings, brainstorming sessions, etc. A system like this will make communication simpler and more effective among remote employees, leading to higher productivity and success.

Provide access to useful tools

Even if employees are working from home, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to be left just to their own resources. Many remote workers will still expect their employers to provide them with the tools necessary for optimal performance, and they might even get frustrated by a lack of investment in useful tools.

access to useful tools

If possible, ensure your remote teams are equipped with software and other digital solutions they require for performing their jobs efficiently. This can mean introducing new communication tools, time trackers, or even collaborative work management platforms. Having the best tools and resources at their disposal will enable your remote workers to remain productive and effective regardless of their location.

Streamline your processes

Inefficient processes tend to become evident when teams aren’t working in person, next to each other. Paired with inconsistency, unreliability, and a lack of harmony, such processes can only hinder productivity and the overall team outcome even further. Fortunately, you can use contingent workforce and build an international remote team and take advantage of global Employer of Record services for reaching top talent, reducing costs, and minimizing legal risks. Streamlining workflows will also be essential for collaboration and productivity, whether that means using task managers, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, or even moving your processes to the cloud for flexibility and accessibility.

Set flexible working hours

It’s always a good idea to maintain a certain amount of flexibility when working with remote teams. A healthy work-life balance is among the top priorities for many employees, and flexible work schedules are often touted as being the biggest benefit of working from home. But flexibility can only go so far without structure.

Even if you opt-out of stricter working hours, it’s still recommended to implement some measures that will increase transparency, such as requiring an “away” status to be set, listing employee time zones, and making all employee calendars visible. These small changes can make a big impact when it comes to availability, communication, and collaboration among your remote teams.

Make responsibilities clear

Not many employees know exactly what is expected of their job and performance. As these expectations might become even more confusing when workers aren’t in the office, making responsibilities and roles crystal clear to your remote teams is incredibly important.

You can do this by defining roles in project plans, assigning tasks to employees in work management platforms, recapping meetings with action items, or providing valuable feedback during performance reviews. No matter what you choose to do, taking steps to make roles and responsibilities clearer can allow you to avoid confusion and set your remote teams up for more purposeful, productive, and successful work.

Leading a team is never an easy task, but it becomes even more challenging when your employees are working remotely. Thankfully, managing a remote team successfully can still be accomplished, as long as you focus on communication, provide necessary tools, and streamline your business processes.


Related Articles

Leave a Comment