Working remotely full-time may quickly become the norm for many businesses. With that in mind, how can you ensure your remote team is performing at the best of their abilities?
Despite common misconceptions, the distance between you and your teammates as you work remotely doesn’t need to equate to a low-functioning team. But what does it take to bring your remote team from good to great? Let’s take a look at the key ingredients that make a superstar remote team and the strategies you can implement to bring out the best of everyone’s abilities.
Start with the tools to help your team when they're working from home. Using the right technology is one of the reasons why remote teams can become successful as it vastly improves a team's performance, increasing their productivity and ensuring they stay connected at all times. In fact, TinyPulse said that adopting collaboration technology can increase productivity by 30%.
With your team working remotely, invest in an all-in-one virtual workplace where they can access all the tools they need in one powerful platform. This means an inclusive tool that enables them to communicate, collaborate, and get their information without having to switch applications. Not only will this steamline the way they work, but it also increases their efficiency, making them concentrate more on their tasks, rather than getting distracted by juggling various tools.
According to a survey conducted by Salesforce, 86% of respondents said that ineffective communication was a big reason for failures in the workplace. Topnotch teams, whether on-site or remote, put transparent, real-time communication as their top priority. As they say, it's better to over-communicate than under-communicate when working remotely.
Make sure your team has the right channels that enable them to share information dynamically despite being dispersed. You can use instant messaging to quickly send updates to one person or the rest of the team. Meanwhile, video conferencing features help take meetings out of the office, enabling team catch ups or all-hands meetings to proceed as usual.
One of the significant challenges among remote teams is visibility on what each member is doing. While remote, you might find it difficult to assign tasks properly and lack clarity on how the workload is being distributed. Without a proper system to monitor everyone’s scope and responsibilities, it can also lead to stress and burnout—which can ultimately cause disengagement.
Highly-effective teams use a project management tool where everyone has an eye on each task's progress and due dates, as it can help them work effectively even when they are in different locations. This boosts accountability and productivity, while providing an easy and centralized point of information for all ongoing projects to ensure nothing falls behind.
One of the things employers don’t realize is that training and proper onboarding is extremely crucial to a remote team. In fact, OwlLabs' 2019 State of Remote Work found that 38% of remote workers received no training on how to work remotely. On the other hand, superstar teams provide opportunities for their employees to learn and grow. It shows that they care about their employee development and growth, things that are crucial to their career progression.
You can enable adequate training and constant knowledge access to their distance workers by ensuring that they can retrieve learning materials and their KPIs in one centralized location. Having a library where you can put all your company documents, policies, and training materials in organized folders can significantly help them quickly obtain all the useful tools and resources they need for their long-term growth.
At the end of the day, creating a superstar team is about more than just work—it's also the relationship you foster with everyone. Reinforcing an inclusive company environment even remotely can bring out the best in each employee, as well as making sure that everyone works towards the same visions and values. When people feel included, they will feel more inclined to work and exert more effort at work, going the extra mile to ensure they achieve the common goal.
As a remote team, you can do so by initiating lively employee-driven discussion hubs where they can talk about work and other topics. Creating an online community for everyone to connect and chat about things they care for creates a sense of community even virtually, making them feel they are part of a team regardless of their current location.
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