Whether your business is spread wide across the globe, or your employees are working from a local virtual office, knowing the right way to manage remote employees is vital to the success of your business.
It’s important your remote team understand their responsibilities, their roles within the business and to ensure they’re motivated and communicative with you and other members of the team. Learn how to manage a remote team with help from our useful guide and tips today.
Benefits of working remotely
So firstly, why should you let employees work remotely?
Remote working is becoming increasingly more popular – in a lot of modern businesses, if employees are not permanently remote working, at least some of the time is spent outside the office. This is especially helpful for companies that require employees to attend meetings and build face-to-face rapports with clients – allowing them a level of flexibility to remotely work wherever they need to.
One of the easiest ways to promote remote working is investing in a virtual office. Not only does this allow you to maximise on fantastic city centre locations without paying the price of rent, but it can also provide advantages and pulling points for employees to want to work for your company. Some of the benefits of letting your employees work remotely include:
Flexibility
Whether it’s being able to look after the little ones or pick them up from school, working remotely allows a level of flexibility that isn’t always available in a workplace.
Increase of focus
Working from home, or remotely, can provide fewer distractions, such as chatty co-workers or office politics, letting you immerse yourself completely in your work.
No commuting
Employees can wave goodbye to the horrible train commute or sitting in rush hour traffic each day.
Lower stress levels
Working remotely out of the office or business environment can lower stress levels. This is because being in your own comfort of working can allow you to take a breather when you need and re-evaluate before reacting to stressful situations.
Recruiting talent
With a virtual office or a remote working environment, you can attract a larger talent pool of candidates. The ability to work remotely will entice employees but as well, you can expand your location search, too.
How to manage a remote team effectively
However, it’s important to acknowledge that remote working can come with some complications. Learning the best practice for managing remote teams can be a great way to drive success in your business and bring out the best out of your remote employees.
Communication
It’s important for things not to get lost in translation – one of the main elements of successfully managing remote teams is communication. Setting up regular meetings or calls is important for transparency and communication. it can be harder to organise this if employees are on different time zones, but it’s important to hold at least video call meetings, if not face-to-face meetings regularly.
Organisation of work
Processes and procedures are imperative to effectively managing remote workers. It’s important every employee understands these processes e.g. how they send data across to each other or quality assurance – meaning everyone is on the same page, regardless of postcode.
Time tracking
It can be a worry that, as a manager, you won’t always know exactly what your remote team are doing – or more specifically, how hard they’re working. That’s why introducing a time tracking tool can be a great way to keep up to date on the work that’s being completed, and where the most time is being spent from your remote team of employees. This also allows for a more flexible working pattern – it may be that a member of your team needs to pick up the kids from school each day, but as long as the designated amount of hours are tracked each day, then it can be completed at any point. It also enables employees to be more mindful about how much time they’re spending on tasks and is likely to improve focus.
Company culture
When you’re managing remote teams, it’s important to ensure company culture does not get lost. Arranging times where the team can get together and get to know each other is important – this can be over a video call or, if location permits, team building events.
Thinking about hiring your own virtual office to help you manage a remote team? Find out how virtual offices can save you money as well as improving your employee retention rate. For more information, learn everything you need to know about our virtual office space in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham today.