Whist remote working has always been fairly popular in the United States, the emergence of the pandemic saw businesses across the country forced to embrace this less conventional way of working.
Now, as the world starts to return to some form of normality, many employees are now actively asking to continue to work from home.
In fact, it is estimated that 22% of the U.S. workforce will be remote by 2025.
Now, although there are many benefits to remote working, both for employees and employers, it is not without its challenges.
1. Managing projects
If your team is spread out across multiple locations, it can be difficult to ensure efficient collaboration. You may find that certain employees are taking center stage whilst others fade into the background.
You may also find it challenging to assign and keep track of individual tasks.
The Solution:
Invest in project management software such as Asana to help you to assign tasks and monitor progress. Slack is also a great app for facilitating communication.
2. Sharing data
While it is easy to share data when you are all working under one roof, if your employees are all working in different places and on different devices, this can be a little more problematic.
You may also be concerned about data loss and data protection.
The Solution:
Google Drive is a simple and free tool that can enable you to share documents. For data protection and data backup services, a Remote IT Support company is a good choice.
3. Tracking Productivity
Most employers are concerned about a reduction in productivity when they adopt remote working, despite the fact that research shows that remote employees work longer and harder than ones in the office.
If you are worried about how you are going to keep track of multiple employees on a daily basis, then there are tools to help you.
The Solution:
Use a project management tool such as Status Hero, which enables you to prompt employees to provide details on their progress. This platform also enables other team members to see what everyone else is working on, which can help to motivate less enthusiastic employees.
4. Navigating different time zones
One of the best aspects of having a remote workforce is that you can hire top talent from all over the world. However, this does come with the challenge of navigating teams who are working in different times zones.
Most notably, how do you get everyone logged on and working at the same time?
The Solution:
Set a fairly rigid schedule for the key members of your team and ask all remote workers to commit to specific times when they are available to work.
5. Building Trust
If you are new to managing a remote team, then you may find it difficult to sit back and let your employees do their job.
Plus, on the other side of the fence, your employees may feel like they have to prove how hard they are working.
However, if you want your remote teams to be happy and productive, you need to work at building trust between yourself and them.
The Solution:
Organize monthly face-to-face get-togethers where possible such as social events where you can get to know your remote workers and build a social bond between team members.
