Remote work and agility – can businesses achieve both? Sure, they can. The simplest yet most effective way is to adopt the right kind of technology. An extensive business network with a distributed workforce and different time zones may lead to ambiguity in the long run. Furthermore, lack of coordination lowers down team spirits, and your remote workforce might feel out of the loop. Hence, to bridge such gaps, businesses must restructure their long-term remote work strategies.
As 2020 prompted businesses to change their protocols, the new norm of remote work came with its own set of challenges. Some of the common ones were:
- Lack of collaboration
- Hiring the wrong talent
- Lack of clarity regarding the roles and tasks
- Difficulty in tracking employee productivity
- Lack of cohesion
- No set clock out times
- Employee burnout
Here are some strategies you must include in your remote work plan to overcome the above pitfalls.
1. Remote team management tool – A must-have
Today’s technology has made it possible to manage a wider workforce with the right tools. A virtual team management tool helps supervisors keep a tab on employees’ productive and unproductive hours and thus help measure each employee’s accurate performance virtually.
RemoteDesk, an employee monitoring tool, is a fully automated and AI-enabled technology that provides identity verification, time tracking, and remote workforce management features.
The application monitors remote employees while providing transparency, accountability, work-at-home policy compliance at scale.
2. Define clear goals and tasks – Say NO to micro-management
Communication is the key if done correctly. That being said, let your remote teams know their particular work hours, scheduled meetings, projects, and deadlines to avoid confusion. Additionally, if an employee knows what is expected of him, he/she will deliver their best even in a remote work environment. Hence, setting clear expectations will always make you a good ‘mentor’ rather than a ‘micro-manager.’
3. Teamwork begins with collaboration
A scattered team might miss the mark if the employees are not on the same page. Moreover, lack of coordination can lead to project delays. In such cases, tools like Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, among others, help the communication flowing and keeps the collaboration at play.
4. Adopt transparency for a thriving remote workplace
Let’s all admit that remote work gives workers ample amount of time to finish their work. But how do we know if remote employees are performing their tasks or slacking off? Here lies the biggest challenge for the managers – lack of transparency. Therefore, to avoid such skepticism, make use of technology to monitor your remote teams.
RemoteDesk helps keep track of employees’ activity.
RemoteDesk is a time tracking tool that measures the time and productivity of remote staff.
RemoteDesk’s time tracking application monitors the number of breaks a remote agent takes during a session. It removes the manual element of keeping records of each employee throughout the day. RemoteDesk automatically records, collects and sends activity reports to the supervisor along with the websites and URLs visited by each employee.
5. Have regular check-ins
Again, everything comes down to adequate communication. To keep the team spirit intact, mere email, texts, or phone calls won’t suffice. Therefore, managers need to understand the value of one-on-one interaction, as it helps in collaboration and avoids conflicts.
6. Organize virtual team building activities
One of the biggest mistakes that managers make is always discussing work! While nothing can replace in-person conversations, the right way to amp up team spirit is by setting aside some time for fun. You can simply have weekly trivia contests, share bucket lists, give a sneak-peek into each others’ home office, etc. Doing this not only creates happiness and positivity, but it also shows your team that you want to know their interests and hobbies better.
The bottom line
Managing a virtual team is easier said than done, but one can surely accomplish that. It all starts with communication as it helps clear the air and brings transparency to the table. Also, now is the time to gain an edge in this highly competitive market with breakthrough technology. Hence, to have an effective work-from-home policy in place, companies must look out for employee monitoring and remote team management tools for a smoother workflow.
