Remote Collaboration is collaborating virtually towards a common goal. Working remotely from home, a cafe or coworking space is becoming very popular and inevitable these days, but managing teams scattered in different locations hasn’t gotten easier.
For a perfect collaborative environment with your remote team, you have to manage employees remotely which can be difficult in passing on proper instruction, lack of motivation and face to face communication.
Thanks to continuous development of tools, resources and programs by the tech companies, communication with remote teams have become easier and efficient.
And with remote jobs on rise, more people are finding themselves able to work with the constraint of a 9-5 desk job.
Remote working or work from home can have its downfall such as loneliness and for this we have a best solution i.e. coworking space. If you have a remote job and you are free to work from anywhere, consider coworking space or remote coworking.
Remote coworking offers freelancers, entrepreneurs and remote teams a place to work. People have a chance to meet, network and work alongside different people from different companies.
“Read also : https://www.theexecutivezone.in/coworking-space-for-startups/“
Create an Onboarding Process
Onboarding plays an important role for a remote team, since they don’t have as many opportunities to organically integrate into company culture and processes.
The onboarding process is essential for new hires to get to know their team and learn about the company.
But when an employee is working remotely, it may seem like a process for them to get used to the new environment and if done well, can make teams feel excited and motivated.
Remote Onboarding Checklist:
- Recruiting Remote Employees: Your website, job descriptions, and interview should give an interviewee a clear picture of what the company expects from employees working remotely.
- Offering Remote Jobs: Include all details concerning remote working in the offer letter for employees. This gives them a clear understanding of their jobs, work-space expectations, leave policies, onsite requirements, etc.
- Help Remote employees set up their workplace : Organising this process perfectly will save both you and your remote team from a lot of frustration. Onboarding process of a remote employee should be flexible and constantly evolving.
- Welcoming Employee : It is very important to make the remote employee feel like part of the team. Send them a welcome kit, arrange a virtual video call to give new employees a virtual tour of workspaces and to introduce them to co-workers.
Give Technology Support
While many organisations did not have all the requirements in place when the present crisis struck, most are quickly working on how to make remote working smooth and ensure employee’s system access is reliable and secure.
Many organisation faced greater technological problems like:
- Implementing a video conferencing solution
- Dealing with sensitive data that cannot leave internal servers
- The Higher demand of securing data
- Ensuring full tech support to employees in remote locations
Remote technology support gives the employee the ability to deliver the same level of service even when they are at some remote location.
Using technology support effectively can help employees embrace and thrive in a remote position and here are few resources that help businesses:
- Using marketing and sales tools like HubSpot
- Using technology with better communication features like virtual reality
- Using artificial intelligence assistance
- Setting up a remote technical support team
Remote employees can become helpless if their email or computers aren’t running.
An IT support team that is available 24/7 can get employees back to work. Another solution to this is if employees work in coworking space which provides in-house IT and Tech support.
Use Team Communication Tools
Effective communication is the key to enhance remote team collaboration.
It is important to communicate with remote team members actively which can be done by using the right communication tools.
As per stats on Buffer, common problems in remote work are communication, collaboration and loneliness.
As remote working evolves, new and advanced communication tools are being developed. These tools are fresh, innovative and support simple but meaningful communication and some of these are:
- Zoom
- Nextiva
- Appear.in
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
- Google Meets
- GoToMeeting
- Basecamp
- Google Hangout
Use Virtual Meeting Tools
Remote work is becoming inevitable these days, and most managers are still confused on how to best conduct meetings with their remote employees. With advances in technology, conducting virtual meetings is getting easier these days.
First, pick the right online meeting tool: The basic thing we are looking for is a tool that provides audio and video capabilities and a plus on features like screen sharing.
Other than that, the size of the remote team affects your software selection and how user friendly is the tool.
“Read also : https://www.theexecutivezone.in/virtual-office-benefits/“
Use Project/Task Management Tools
A remote project team is a group of professionals working from different locations on a project. Project management is a big task if a team is distributed in different locations as the company faces many challenges of communication and collaboration.
In order to lead a successful remote project team, managers need to understand how remote project management is done and by identifying the right project management tool can help businesses with all the challenges.
Luckily, these days all manner of tools are launched for working from home or a coworking space. These tools can help the company with the process, project scoping, task prioritization and to sync and track progress.
Few Project Management tools are:
- Productboard
- Timely
- Airtable
- Basecamp
- Zoom
- Slack
- Freeter
Set Appropriate Individual KPI
To measure the productivity or performance of remote employees, managers can set individual KPI.
Key performance indicators (KPI) evaluate performance by quantifying individual and organisational goals. It is a metric that tells how well an organisation is achieving its stated goal.
“What gets measured gets done” is a management saying. If you set a goal around the desired objective, the chances that you achieve the objective are much higher.
By setting up appropriate individual KPI for the remote team, it can help you measure the performance of the employee and even of your organisation.
Create Stress-Free Environment
According to coworking insights, a majority of remote workers claim they experience less work-related stress while working from home or from a coworking space.
But on the other hand, remote work causes a higher rate of depression. For a stress-free environment for remote employees here are some tips:
- Create a virtual meditation/yoga class
- Play virtual online games
- Suggest working from a coworking space to remove the feeling of loneliness
- Keep dedicated helpline numbers
- Encourage employees by praising their good work
- Engage in 1:1 meeting
- Have team encouragement session
- Motivate with perks
Be a Team Leader
Remote work has become more popular due to the current situation. And leading a remote team can be great for business as remote teams can be more productive and you can handle clients more effectively.
For this to happen, you as a team leader should set :
- Some ground rules for communication
- Use communication tools
- Have frequent 1:1 meeting with your team
- Track time and employee activity to boost productivity
- Listen to and support your employees
- Empathize with your remote team
Enhance Strong Work-life Balance
Work-life balance is a concept that emphasizes the need for time in both work and personal life. In the present situation when people are working from home or from a coworking space, a work-life balance is very important to help reduce stress.
Here are few ideas for strong work-life balance:
- Create a dedicated workspace: For a healthy work-life balance it requires discipline and it can be achieved by creating a dedicated workspace at your home or work from a coworking office.
- Set your routine: setting up a routine at home and sticking to the work is essential, it helps you work more efficiently.
- Communicate with your family and team: Communication is key for enhancing work-life balance. Tell your family and team about your working hours and stick to that.
- Don’t work in your pajamas: Work from home can be a bit lazy so wearing formal clothes or working from a coworking office space will keep you motivated.
Encourage Autonomy, Upskilling, and Job Crafting
- Encourage your team and empower them to think about their skills.
- Support them to upskill in the areas they are lacking.
- Encourage your team to think about their future goal, their career plans, where they see themselves in the future in your company.
- Give autonomy to remote teams to support other departments where possible.
- Provide regular feedback to each member of your team.
Conclusion
Collaborating with your remote team perfectly is a bit of a task if you don’t have the expertise or experience to handle it.
However, it’d be great if you get the right help. Working remotely has its benefits and one of them is you get the freedom to manage your time.
Remote employees have a better work-life balance and therefore are perceived as happier employees. Remote work is not for every industry but in this current scenario remote work or working from a coworking space is blooming and is the need of the hour.