If like most professionals, you have suddenly found yourself working from home and/or managing a remote team, it can be a steep learning curve for anyone. Figuring out how to stay focused, on schedule, connected, and focused when working remotely can take time. If you are now managing a remote team, have a look at these six tips on how to improve a remote team’s productivity and communication.
Work From The Same Space
Working from the same online space can help with time management and collaboration. When everyone is using the same place, phone calls, and emails could be enough to keep everyone on task. However, when your team is spread around multiple locations, your project management and communication need to be more intentional.
Thinking about using online collaboration and cloud storage to keep all your projects and teams on the same line. It will make it easier to communicate, track progress, set goals and deadlines, and answer questions.
Productive Virtual Meetings
Just because you can’t all go and sit in a meeting room doesn’t mean you can’t have a productive team meeting. Virtual meetings are a fantastic way to remain connected when your team can’t be together, however, they may run a little different. You need ot make use of things like a virtual waiting room, dress to impress even though working in your casuals is appealing, and mute yourself when required to prevent too much background noise from disturbing the points been made.
Check-In Without Over Doing It
Because you see less of your team as they are working remotely, it can be more difficult to track their progress. When working remotely, you might be tempted to check in more often or attempt to provide more detailed instructions. While this can be helpful, it’s a good idea to find ways you can manage your team progress without time-wasting and micromanaging. Daily check-in is sufficient enough, in the morning. Set goals, talk about progress and offer feedback when needed.
Be Patient And Flexible
Working remotely is going to require an adjustment period. Especially for those who are completely used to working in the office. Getting familiar with hosting virtual meetings, understanding new technologies and software, and learn how to manage a good work-life balance are all things that are needed to get used to.
This mean that flexibility and patience are vital in keeping the company morale up and helping to increase productivity. If an employee shares their problems with childcare through this difficult time try to accommodate them or allow flexible working hours when working from home, especially if there is no meeting due to take place.
Restructure And Streamline
If your team is now working remotely for the first time, it is likely that you will have to spend some time adjusting your current processes and procedures. Methods that were successful in the office may not be so successful for remote working. Get feedback from your teams about how you could potentially restructure and streamline some of the current tasks to make more sense of this new working style.
.These five areas should help to become familiar with working with a new remote team and make sure it is successful and productive. Is there anything that you are doing to ensure the productivity of your new remote team? Please share in the comments below.
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