The Ultimate Guide To Transitioning To Remote Work

That’s why establishing a consistent feedback culture is so important. A survey by Growmotely found that more than half of remote employees prefer working fully remote. Consider checking in with your workforce periodically to uncover their work preferences—whether fully remote, in-office full time, or a hybrid arrangement. At The Remote Company, we developed an agile project management system that is simple and allows team members to feel empowered to take responsibility for themselves.

• Of the respondents say they were less distracted and were able to get more done than when they were in the office.
• If your employees are shifting to remote work primarily because of Covid-19, you need to understand that they are justifiably likely feeling apprehensive and maybe scared.
• Recognizing the accomplishments and improvements your employees and co-workers are making is a great way to make them feel proud and like an important part of the team.
• Some of those face-to-face interactions that you’ll be missing include lunchroom breaks or after-hours drinking.
• It’s easy for remote workers to feel disconnected, so ensure they receive updates on important business initiatives at all times.

Keep reading to learn more about the best practices for remote team management or visit the ViewSonic workplace solutions page for further insights into remote and hybrid work. For companies with remote team members, the threat of losing valuable intellectual property to hackers and competitors is all too real. While this is standard for employees during all circumstances, communicate that quality and output must remain on par with on-site work. Still, know that there is an adjustment period as your team moves to a full-time work-from-home situation. Make yourself available to answer any questions and set expectations.

Get The Team Together Physically Once In A While

You can have the best workers for the job, with the right qualifications and skills, yet fail to deliver from home. Some people don’t thrive in a remote context due to varying reasons. You might need to focus on developing a communication mechanism that ensures frequent and reliable information flow within the team. This might include always being available to respond to questions.

This is especially helpful for sales and customer service teams. Many remote businesses hire from anywhere in their country—or even the world—to access the very best talent. Most companies can also find skilled workers from companies with lower costs of living to hire talent they couldn’t afford in more expensive areas.

Establish processes and systems for measuring remote employee productivity that do not undercut trust or verge on micromanaging. For example, goal setting, weekly one-on-one check-ins, and KPIs are a great way to follow remote employees’ performance while respecting their independence. The first step to creating an inclusive remote workplace is to outline the company’s values and principles on inclusivity. Share this policy internally and externally to help your existing remote teams embody these values and attract and welcome new remote workers from diverse backgrounds. Creating a diverse, equal, and inclusive work environment is just as important for remote teams as for in-office teams. Companies adopting inclusive workplace practices help their remote team members feel like they’re on a level playing field regardless of their background, location, or job title.

15% of remote workers said their boss distracted them from work, which is less than the 22% of office-based employees who said the same thing. With 70-plus team members distributed across the United States and Canada, Alley acknowledges the key role that cloud tools play in making remote teams work. That said, Jason also points out that trying to manage remote workers who work too hard is a struggle in and of itself. This again highlights the importance of having clear expectations and building a culture that doesn’t drive workers to burnout. Like the other examples of remote teams on this list, the folks at Buffer rely on instant messaging to go back and forth and share updates with each other.

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However, it also allows companies to tap into world-wide talent. Some companies have a traditional office but offer remote work policies that allow employees to choose to work remotely 1 or 2 days per week. Twist is a communication app for teams who want a calmer, more organized, more productive workplace.

Leading a remote team is much harder when a team member isn’t a good fit. Maybe they don’t follow the company’s values, possess the right work ethic or are not as skilled as they let on. Toggl is a time-tracking app that makes improving your own productivity easy. The time tracking tool is simple to use and enables you to easily analyze the time spent on projects, and makes remembering to count the time simple, thanks to its one-click reminder timers.

Understanding Your Remote Team Members Unique Needs

According to Forbes, remote workers with flexible schedules are generally more productive than employees working 9-5 from centralized offices. However, new tools must be embraced for remote teams and new strategies developed for this new type of remote https://globalcloudteam.com/ or hybrid workforce. Statistics on remote workers reveal that more than 4.7 million people work remotely at least half the time in the United States. 44% of companies do not allow remote work and only 16% of companies hire remote only workers.

However, in the context of remote work, the workplace and the home are no longer easy to separate. Thus, it is essential to focus on what is delivered, instead of the amount of time an individual spent sitting at a desk. When you introduce rules to the remote team, be clear about what they mean. For example, using vague terms like “properly” and “quickly” may confuse people about what is expected. Thus, you would want to state what a “one day” deadline means, with regards to when it starts and ends. When people are heading into the office daily there are clear boundaries between work life and home life.

There are a number of great tools that you can use to track productivity among your staff, like TimeDoctor and Tickspot. Your employees deserve to feel appreciated – even from a distance. There was a time when remote work as we know it wasn’t even a possibility, because the technology didn’t exist. If your colleagues and business partners wanted to get in touch with you when you were out of the office, they couldn’t email, text or direct message you. You would’ve needed to provide an alternative phone number, pager, or even a fax number to have a work-related conversation.

When employees are remote, it can be easy to feel disconnected or even invisible to the rest of the team or organization—especially if your workforce has a hybrid mix of in-office and at-home employees. That’s why it’s crucial to build employee recognition into your team culture. Since you aren’t all working together in an office setting, you don’t have the opportunity to collaborate in person, check in at each others’ desks, or chat in the break room to stay up to date. This means you need to find other ways to communicate effectively and clearly. Project management tools enable teams to manage their time and stay informed about upcoming deadlines. Since remote workers can also share updates within the program, these tools eliminate the need for status update meetings, improving overall efficiency.

Choosing The Right Remote Workers To Join Your Team

Here is what you should do to successfully lead your team remotely. One of the areas that technology has successfully infiltrated is the modern workplace. Initially, employees had to be in the office for them to be able to work. This is because it was where all the office equipment needed for work was stored; such as files, desktop computers and telephones. Once you do this, it is important that you actually listen to what is said and understand it. You should also try to identify any clear trends within the feedback, such as issues raised by more than one team member, as these may need to be addressed as a priority.

With the apparent preference to work remotely, getting employees isn’t a challenge. You can consider daily touchpoints with your team to know how their work is progressing. Your approach should be friendly as you don’t want your workers to feel micromanaged. Weekly feedback is also crucial in offering insight, promoting brainstorming, creating transparency, and offering insight. Perks and benefits are another way to garner enthused interest from remote employees. If you want to manage a remote team, you must make sure to give them the space they need to do their work effectively.

Feedback is one aspect of communication that managers need to pay attention to while managing a remote team. Both giving feedback and asking for feedback and input is critical to success. Ensure your team understands how to navigate whatever video conferencing system you implement. Depending on the industry, there the benefits of virtual teams can be vast.

Building A Remote Work Culture

Ask for feedback during one-on-ones, team meetings, and through surveys to get insight on how your team members are feeling and identify ways you or the company can improve. When your teams are distributed, it’s easy for the right hand to be ignorant of what the left hand is doing. Misalignment can lead to missed deadlines, unclear accountabilities, miscommunication, and lower quality customer service across the organization. When your team is remote, you don’t have the same opportunities to connect with your team organically—from popping over to their desk for a quick chat to catching up in the break room. Annual team or company retreats are a great way to bring people together in person for some deeper team bonding. If your company can afford to, set aside a weekend for a casual retreat to strengthen team connections and company culture and make shared memories.

Your employees are at the center of your business, so it’s really important to choose them wisely. Whether you are starting and building an all-virtual team or making it a viable option, you need to plan, organize, and grow your remote team. In the long run, fighting the change may do more harm than good. According to Buffer, 99% of current remote workers would like to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their careers. That’s nine points higher than the figure from the same survey in the previous year.

Opening a foreign subsidiary is a complex process, but it’s the most permanent and encompassing solution for businesses that want to grow into one other country. Once you open the foreign subsidiary, you’ll operate as a fully functioning business in that country and can run domestic payroll for any employees you hire there. If your business wants to run remote payroll domestically, check out our guide on remote payroll for more information. And if you plan to hire a hybrid team, see our article on the unique challenges of hybrid payroll. Remote-friendly companies, also called hybrid companies, must set up in-person and remote work processes.

And they want to see a future at the company that allows them to grow and develop. Lucidspark is a virtual collaboration tool that makes it easy for teams to communicate and brainstorm in real-time . The infinite whiteboard is your canvas for sharing ideas, sketching projects, and planning work. Use it for work or play to promote team connection and streamline communication and collaboration from afar. Building a strong remote work culture from the start can help you capitalize on the benefits of remote work while mitigating some of the risks and challenges that are unique to distributed teams.

Reduce Or Eliminate Meetings

A synchronized calendar would also be helpful in organizing your remote team around deadlines, vacations, meetings, or group activities. To manage a remote team, you need a thorough comprehension of your role as manager. These exercises will fuel better communication and collaboration overall. Remote teams will enjoy work more when they enjoy who they’re working with. Retrospectives can also be feedback sessions, small unveilings of a prototype, and even problem-solving sessions.

Common Mistakes To Avoid When Managing Remote Teams

But as we all know, talented people can be found anywhere – and remote companies can use this to their distinct advantage. Businesses can leverage the skills of remote workers worldwide, having access to a much wider pool of talent. That means they are not bound by location, enabling them to unlock innovation and drive their company forward.

Instant Messaging Tools

Keep these tips in mind when crafting your strategy for engaging remote employees. And fortunately, there are tons of options and solutions to help remote teams stay connected and productive from anywhere. Additionally, with the line between home and work blurred, workers may end up working long hours and have difficulty taking breaks and signing off at the end of the day or on weekends. This can create an unhealthy burnout culture that stretches your team thin and makes employees feel like they have to be available to each other at all times of day or night.

Developing personal relationships will create stronger work bonds and more satisfied employees. Luckily, with the right technology and employee engagement solutions, managing remote workers can be just as rewarding—and productive—as managing an in-house team. Since remote teams are not confined to the 9 – 5 workday, it’s tempting to micromanage to ensure the work is getting done.

That’s why we created Twist, which is centered around threaded and asynchronous communication. Many find that open work spaces– which are meant to be collaborative– are distracting. Constant interruption makes it more difficult for team members to engage in “deep work,” hampering How to Hire a Remote Team productivity. On average, employees who do the majority of their work on computers are distracted once every ten and a half minutes. One of the biggest reasons why remote work has become so attractive is because of the inherent downsides of the in-person workplace.

Global Workplace Analyticsestimates that employers can save over 11,000 dollars per year per employee. The savings are from the lower cost of office space, increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, and less turnover. The numbers say remote workers are more productive in many cases but not in all situations. Globally, 16% of companies are fully remote according to an Owl labs study.