Let’s face it – It’s not easy to work in remote teams especially when you have to take care of numerous things being miles away from each other. However, using effective tips and the right tools could help you to keep your remote teams on track. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s take a look at five powerful tips and tools to easily manage your remote teams.
With the rise of technology, there has been a number of changes in the conventional style of working. People have moved on from 9-to-5-office-going culture and embraced the work-from-home-work-style. The trend has enabled companies to hire and work with the best talents around the world overcoming time and space constraints.
One must bear in mind that working with a remote team requires a little more attention than managing an in-house team. There is always a possibility of your comments being misconstrued and there is a constant need to prove your “virtual presence”. It’s pretty much like having a professional long-distance relationship with someone.
Tips for the smooth remote work environment
To nurture your virtual relationship with remote team members, below are some tips that could enable a smooth work environment for you and remote team members.
- Recruit the right fit: Remote work isn’t for everyone. Make sure you hire someone who is prepared or has some prior experience in remote work. The key is to look for candidates who are self-motivated, driven, and dedicated to work and rendering their services.
- Set ground rules: The only way to make sure your work is going smoothly and efficiently is to set some ground rules. Be sure to have some guidelines and rules that are conveyed to them from day one. Even basic things like logging hours break, and communications should be made clear as soon as possible to drive more efficiency and better collaboration.
- Facilitate better communication: It could be hard to keep track of work and progress being made especially when you have a distributed team. There is a solution to this – maintaining quality communication. Make sure you invest in collaboration software that facilitates effective communication to share updates and track the progress of tasks.
- Recognize when team members need help: It’s easier to see if someone is struggling, not feeling well, or having a bad day at the office while working together. However, it’s difficult to know such things when you’re miles away from each other. The trick is to develop a personal connection with each team member so that you can help without even them asking for it.
- Give feedback keeping their work style in mind: Be extra cautious while giving feedback to your remote team members as your words and intentions might be misunderstood. Take time to put together your feedback process and be mindful of how a team member prefers to receive feedback – written (emails), telephonic (phone calls), and visual (video calls).
After some tips to manage remote teams, it makes sense to discuss essential tools that could seamlessly connect distributed team members to each other.
Let’s take a look at them:
Tools for managing remote teams
1. ProofHub – Project management and collaboration
ProofHub is an online collaboration as well as project management software that is trusted by hundreds of remote teams to set up everything in one place. It is a good communication channel for team members to have seamless interactions with fellow team members and clients.
ProofHub comes with plenty of features such as online proofing, discussions, chat to share feedback, and communication effectively in a central place. ProofHub Gantt charts and reports allow you to monitor projects, progress, and the performance of your team.
You can also know how much time has been spent by a team member on a given task with this online time tracking software. Being an all-in-one collaboration software, ProofHub is a must-have for remote teams.
2. Cake – HR management
You might not need an HR professional when you have a remote team but you definitely need HR management software to take care of such stuff. The cake is one such software that eliminates the hassle of paperwork and spreadsheets and lets you manage their leaves and time off efficiently.
Cake gives you a detailed employee and company reports at the click of a button. Not being physically present all the time, you can run advanced reports on your employees to understand their habits and working patterns. It works across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices and could be seamlessly integrated with popular apps like Slack, Google Apps, and more.
3. Zoom – Meetings and video chat
Zoom is known as one of the best video conferencing apps that could accommodate up to 500 participants in video meetings. It is loaded with features like high-definition sound and visual quality, voice detection, and seamless screen sharing that lets you collaborate in real-time.
It is different from other conferencing tools in a way that only one person has to download it and others can join by clicking on the meeting link. The best part is that participants can join the video conversation from their phones, tablets, or desktops. If you’re looking for a leading modern video communication software, then you must try Zoom.
4. Google Drive – Cloud and storage
It’s not always possible to reach out to remote team members when you need a particular document. Having a central place that is accessible to all team members could be quite helpful. That’s when Google Drive comes into the picture as an incredible team-savvy tool.
You can create, store, and share documents in real-time. Remote team members can easily access documents anytime anywhere and update them in real-time. Whenever a change is made, it is automatically updated at that very moment. It comes with enough storage space that can store hundreds and thousands of files, documents, images, and more.
5. Todoist – Productivity
You can easily lose track of important things when you don’t have someone constantly reminding you to submit a report before a deadline. Todoist is a productivity tool that lets you keep track of everything in one place, so you can get it all done and enjoy more peace of mind along the way.
Interestingly enough, Todoist is also a product of a fully remote team. It encourages remote team members to not only work efficiently but also find a more fulfilling way to work and live.
6. Fingerprint for Success (F4S)
Fingerprint for Success (F4S) is a people analytic platform and a personalized coaching app that brings the best out of leaders and their teams. F4S helps improves team dynamics and helps create an awesome team environment.
It’s the ultimate tool to reveal the hidden talents and blind spots inside yourself and your remote team. With F4S, you get to know your remote team and work better together.
Developed by Michelle Duval, F4S is based on 20 years of scientific study, F4S measures 48 attitudes specific to work and benchmarks them against the world’s most successful innovators.
7. Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger has evidently become the preferred team collaboration tool for remote teams since it enabled them in sustaining communication across all channels throughout the pandemic. This team chat app performed well regardless of their team members’ location, avoiding latency difficulties and prompting other companies to use it as their official work chat app as well.
To date, alongside office, and remote teams, hybrid teams are also using Troop Messenger. It is a defence-validated tool that provides users with a safe and secure platform where they can communicate with all the communication channels like chatting, audio/video calling, file sharing, remote access, screen-sharing, audio/video conferencing, secret chat window, live location tracking, and so on.
The most significant benefit is that it is a cost-effective solution that can be delivered using any of the major delivery models, including on-premise, SaaS, chat APIs and SDKs, customisation, and others.
Last few thoughts
It could be challenging for anyone to work with a geographically dispersed team but with the right tools and tips, you can effectively manage your remote team.
Do let us know how you manage your remote team in the comments below.
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