Now that more and more companies are turning to remote work environments, mainly due to COVID-19’s global impact, it only makes sense that these brands now need more ready-made remote work solutions. After all, it’s one thing to check in on productivity and performance in an office setting. It’s another altogether to handle different employees who might not even be in the same time zone.
With this in mind, you need to be selective when you’re choosing remote team management tools. Your tools should promote more excellent team performance, align with your leadership style, and help you realize cost savings that can help you expand your work teams. Here’s what you need to know.
1. Establish clear and concise expectations
Nothing breaks down remote communication faster than poorly established communications. So whether they’re strategies based on the entire team, a supervisor, or an external leader, it’s critical to develop clear workplace expectations that every team member can process. It’s also crucial that your team leaders also adhere to these expectations for greater team member empowerment. Otherwise, if different work groups or project teams see team leaders and external leaders failing to adhere to defined best practices, it could lower workplace morale and negatively impact any hierarchical team structure.
Of course, while it’s practical to set your expectations early, you also need to regularly revisit them to ensure that your organizational dynamics continue to evolve alongside your brand. For example, whether you manage a manufacturing company and need to coordinate remote customer support representatives or you are hiring remote teammates to address marketing concerns, your expectations should highlight joint goal opportunities, daily expectations, and how workers should occupy their time if they clear out work queues or don’t have active service requests. In addition, establishing workplace expectations can address workplace inequity and help you identify the root causes of any performance bottlenecks that impact your virtual team.
2. Hire managed teams services
If you’ve never worked with managed teams services, they could shift how you approach product development, project management, human relations, and other mission-critical departments. First, managed team services maintain candidate databases that hold applicant resumes, information, and peripherals. Then, with a managed team service, you can swap team members in and out of project roles as situations necessitate. By changing work groups, restructuring teams, and pulling in external leaders for specific projects, you’re able to maintain brand agility and flexibility.
Managed team services can help you develop software platforms, craft proprietary digital strategies, and implement custom solutions that help you attract, hire, and retain top remote talent in your chosen industry. When you need to get to market quickly, but you also have to manage remote team members, managed services are effective solutions.
3. Use productivity and engagement software
One primary entrepreneurial concern surrounding remote work has to do with productivity. While it’s true that many remote workers are, in fact, more productive than they were in an office situation, it’s still essential for business owners and individuals in leadership roles to use productivity and engagement software to track performance and reach typical goal milestones.
Productivity tools go beyond simple time trackers and even include features and peripherals that can help employees focus, hit metrics, and continue to grow. So remote team software is an intelligent investment so whether you’re trying to prevent high turnover or you want your human relations department to have a glimpse of worker performance. Any work team or group can benefit from the appropriate tools, software, and applications to boost productivity and engagement to suitable levels.
With these tools, strategies, peripherals, and tips in mind, it’s easier to establish a remote work hierarchy that works for team leaders and members alike.