Currently, the remote team is a common practice for hundreds of companies all over the world, and that’s for a variety of reasons. Thus, according to the statistics of 2015, employers saved $44 billion in total or $11,000 yearly for every half-time remote worker.
Also, it’s forecasted that about 73% of all business departments will switch to remote work by 2028. Herewith, employers and managers must know how they can keep the remote workers engaged and productive. That’s what we’re going to discuss further.
Remote Work: 8 Ways to Keep Your Remote Team Engaged and Productive
When sitting in the office, it’s much easier to focus on the tasks, cooperate with teammates, solve problems, and just stay engaged. When a home is your office, the situation is quite the opposite — it means more social isolation and distractions that may result in production loss. Here new ways of managing and collaborating with workers are required. That’s why we have prepared eight effective ways that are bound to help you to keep the remote team productive and engaged.
Equip Your Team with Tech and Productivity Tools
Equipping teams with advanced tech and productivity tools are essential for helping your remote teams succeed. Today, there are many different apps to use for managing the tasks, sharing documents/files, holding meetings, and collaborating with the team members wherever they are. The following solutions are the most sought after ones:
- video conferencing tools such as Zoom, UberConference, Google Hangouts, Skype, TrueConf Online, and so on;
- project management tracking solutions like Todoist, Asana, Trello, etc.;
- cloud storages like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.;
- chat/messaging applications as Troop Messenger, Slack, and others;
- time tracking applications for keeping the workers productive during the working hours — Time Doctor, Toggl, Timely, Harvest, and others.
You're free to implement either off-the-shelf or custom applications, all of them will help your remote employees and managers to be in touch with any situation, remaining productive, connected, and engaged.
Hold Virtual Meetings and Daily Check-ins
All aforementioned solutions, tools, platforms, and apps can be pretty helpful for the next way to maintain productivity — holding virtual meetings and daily check-ins. Remote teams should feel like a part of the company. That’s why it's important to hold regular meetings that are beneficial to employee retention.
Creating a daily check-in routine, you not only foster connections but set priorities more efficiently. If the work is highly collaborative, these check-ins can be held with the entire team or solo meetings in case the employees work more independently from each other. Revamped meetings can take the form of a series of video calls, or regular calls, messaging, etc.
Keep Your Teams Updated
Once again, the previous step is vital for keeping your teams updated that is highly important to engage remote employees and maintain productivity. Holding regular meetings with the team members, you let your team stay up-to-date about the priority tasks, estimates, requirements, and overall workflow.
Yet, it’s also crucial to provide the teleworkers with access to all the project files, documents, and other materials at any time wherever they are. Here you need to use:
- a centralized hub for managing projects for the remote colleagues to keep up with the latest updates;
- some cloud storage for your remote teams can access the information anytime and anywhere.
There are lots of reliable solutions to implement for ramping up the engagement of your remote workers and boosting their productivity.
Establish Clear Goals
It doesn't matter if the employees work in the office or remotely, all of them need clear directions. It's the only way to succeed. They need to know what is expected in terms of business objectives and overall company goals. Thus, you need to set clear goals and let the remote team know:
- what the expectations are;
- when definite tasks should be completed;
- what the current situation is.
In such a way, the managers can motivate remote workers and bring clarity and focus into the entire remote workforce. It’s where the project management tracking platforms are vital. Today there is a variety of solutions available, and you can find the platform that suits your objectives and the company’s needs best of all.
Measure Remote Employee Engagement
Due to the fact that teleworking can affect not only individuals but the team in total, it’s crucial for the managers to track and constantly measure remote employee engagement. They should be sure that telecommuters are kept up-to-date about what is going on in the project, the company’s culture, objectives, updates.
Conduct regular engagement surveys and encourage check-ins, ask to fill quick inquirers, and feedback forms to keep a finger on the pulse of remote team engagement. In such a way, the managers can reveal the gaps and find the weak spots to improve the connection between the remote team members and the overall company.
Accommodate Flexible Work Schedules
Employing professionals all over the world, who live in different time zones, makes it critical to accommodate flexible work schedules. This approach brings a lot of benefits to both business and employees. Here are the key reasons why you need to offer flexible work arrangements:
- employee satisfaction and as a result less employee turnover;
- reduced operating costs;
- better hiring flexibility.
Yet, managers should be ready that some overlapping working hours are required for all the teleworkers to be in sync. Every teammate should have access to the schedule to see when and who is available for collaboration, communication. That allows you to build an effective workflow for the remote teams to succeed.
Give Feedback on Work Performance
If you want to succeed when employing remote teams, you should pay particular heed to communication with your telecommuters. Poor communication is a pitfall that can cause the downfall of the remote teams. Giving feedback on the work performance of the remote teams is critical. Yet, lots of companies neglect it which results in a high turnover of the employees.
When your telecommuters receive the feedback, they can improve their work in the future. It’s a way to demonstrate that their work is valuable and reveal their strengths and/or gaps to fill. Also, it’s vital not only to give positive or negative feedback but eagerly accept it too. Thus, you’d encourage your remote employees to periodically share feedback by filling inquiries, surveys, feedback forms, questionnaires, etc.
Don’t Forget about Team-Building
Also, it’s very important to build relationships with your teleworkers by facilitating non-work interactions online. Thus, various team buildings, hangouts, team meet and greets, leadership office hours, spontaneous tete-a-tete coffee breaks, and other activities can be held virtually.
So, create various virtual events for the remote teams to discuss any topics, hobbies, news. For instance, the company can host virtual pizza/burger/sandwich parties, etc. on a weekly/monthly basis. In such a way, the managers can relieve stress for the workers, boost their engagement, and improve the connection between the remote colleagues.
Bottom Line
There are lots of advantages and unique perks to get when running remote teams. The biggest benefit is reduced costs. However, there are lots of challenges to meet as well. For example, lack of engagement, synchronization of the tasks, overlap in the workflow, staying connected with the employees, etc.
Thus, you’d better think over the ways to keep your teleworkers engaged and productive. Currently, there are lots of solutions and tools to use for helping the employees to do their work efficiently and stay happy. In this post, we have overlooked eight ways of running remote teams for achieving the key objectives.
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- How To Keep Your Remote Team Engaged And Productive - May 14, 2023
