Aug 19, 2020
Secrets for Leading your Remote Workers to Success
So You’ve Switched Over to Remote Work
The COVID-19 crisis has convinced a lot of companies to switch over to remote work. However, while this kind of setup has similarities with its onsite counterpart, it is very much not the same. As such, those who are new to leading remote workers might want to look up ways to make the switch over that much smoother.
What Are Some Secrets for Leading Your Remote Workers to Success?
If you are leading remote workers for the first time, here are some suggestions to keep in mind:
Cloud-Based Services
For starters, you should be using cloud-based services. This means that the software is hosted on the service provider’s own servers, with the result that the user’s computer serves as a terminal and nothing but a terminal. Something that brings a number of benefits and cost-saving measures such as automatic updates, improved security, and increased ease of scaling.
However, the single greatest benefit for remote workers is that they can access the software whenever and wherever they want so long as they have something capable of communicating to the Internet, thus eliminating the need for them to head into the office.
Project Management Software
One of the biggest issues with remote work is that remote workers can’t communicate with one another with the same ease as when they are in the same office. As a result, their productivity because their coordination has dropped. Project management software such as EUROPA or ClickUp can make it much easier for remote workers to coordinate on shared projects for much better results than otherwise possible.
Business owners should take the time to properly configure their project management software to best fit their business processes. It may be time-consuming at first, but the long-term productivity gains will turn your project management software of choice into a single source of truth for your business operations.
Do not be mistaken, choosing and implementing a new project management tool should not be taken lightly. Serious consideration must go into all aspects, from ease-of-setup to pricing, to features that may be needed down the road. Non-technical or heavily occupied business owners may wish to consult with an IT specialist or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation company.
Multiple Communication Options
Speaking of which, communication is key for coordination. However, while email is very useful, it isn’t suitable for every single variety of interactions that should be happening between remote workers. For example, email threads are very awkward for conversations, particularly when there are more than two individuals participating in such conversations. Likewise, email cannot hope to capture all of the nuances that can be found in face-to-face meetings, which can give rise to miscommunications.
To solve this problem, companies should set up chat software such as Slack or Microsoft Teams as well as other telecommunication methods so that their remote workers won’t have to waste time coming up with their own solutions that may or may not be as secure as what their employer would like. Similarly, consider how the chat software will integrate into a project management system, or find a project management system that has chat built-in.
Provide a Sense of Structure
There are some people who can make the transition to remote work with minimal issues. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for everyone, as shown by those whose productivity suffers when they have their normal routines swept out from underneath them. However, this is a simple problem with a simple solution. After all, business owners should be more than capable of providing their remote workers with a sense of structure if they need one.
Even something as simple as having remote workers check-in at the same time in the morning can work wonders in this regard.
Encourage Communication
Telecommunications is getting better on a constant basis. However, it is still no match for its face-to-face counterpart. To make up for this, decision-makers should be encouraging their remote workers to communicate more frequently so that everyone can get a clear idea of what they should be doing as well as why they should be doing it. This doesn’t just mean worker-to-worker communication, this should also include two-way communication between the workers and the management because better information will contribute to the making of better decisions.
