Are you finding it hard to improve the productivity of your remote team? Managing remote teams has many challenges. For example, despite video conferencing apps, remote working makes visual and verbal cues harder to detect. The lack of these subtle signs makes it easier to misinterpret what team members are saying.
Also, more and more workers are finding it hard to unplug from work. When your living and work areas are near each other, it becomes difficult to establish a work-life balance. This may lead to burnout among team members, which reduces your company’s productivity. This article will show you how to use technology to manage your remote team and solve the most common problems.
1. Effective communication
Following the covid-19 pandemic, more companies are adopting remote work models, which has led to a rise in video conferencing apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype.
Video conferencing apps are necessary when holding team meetings because they enhance employee bonding. Talking through Slack is less effective than talking over a Zoom call. Video conferencing makes employees feel heard, valued, and connected.
So if you have people from different time zones in your team, create video conferencing meetings once or twice a week to help them build a relationship.
2. Better collaboration to increase engagement
Employee engagement refers to the enthusiasm and dedication that workers feel toward their job. Employee engagement is critical for your company’s success because it is linked to job satisfaction and employee morale. Engaged employees are more productive and perform better.
Many collaboration apps enhance engagement among remote teams.
For example, Asana makes it easy to track your progress in completing tasks. Many teams use it to improve their workflow management. Monday is another team management tool that focuses on team collaboration and building transparency.
Use different collaboration tools to get maximum benefits. This allows team members to achieve a common objective regardless of their location. However, your team should agree on a limited number of tools because too many apps will confuse them.
3. Enhanced security of your business and employees
It is increasingly challenging to protect your business and employees against cyber threats with remote work. This is because it is harder to monitor employees’ online activities and detect when they visit inappropriate sites, exposing your business to malware.
To enhance the security of your business, create a clear cybersecurity policy so your employees can safely access your company’s data. Without a proper process, an employee’s access point can quickly become a hackers’ entry point to your system.
Most data breaches occur due to illegally acquired credentials, so implementing password management software can protect your organization from cyber threats. Password management software does more than just store passwords. It can also generate random, complex passwords that are hard to crack and store them in an encrypted database.
Using proxies can also help you track the sites your employees visit. This may help your IT manager detect dangerous and malware-infected sites that may spread a virus to your network.
4. Setting clear expectations
Project management software like Asana, Plutio, and Clickup enables you to assign tasks and set clear expectations such as deadlines. Using such tools in a remote work environment can improve your company’s performance and productivity.
As a manager, you can track the assigned tasks and tick off the completed ones. If others are behind schedule, you can reach out to figure out why the employee is not active.
5. Keeping track of time
If your company pays workers by the hour, then tracking time is necessary. However, with remote work, you cannot collect employee sign-in sheets. Instead, there are apps that workers can use to track the number of hours they put into completing a project.
Once you get the timesheets, you can transfer them to finance for payment.
6. Reducing distractions
Hyper-connectivity comes with a heavy price, making it almost impossible to focus and be present. Working from home has a unique set of distractions such as Netflix, neighborhood noises, unexpected visitors, and family members. Even worse are the online distractions like social media apps.
Certain apps can help your employees limit these distractions and enhance deep work. For example, Serene helps you plan out your productivity for the entire day. SelfControl is another app that can block certain emails and sites from your computer for a specified period.
Conclusion
Technology can enhance the productivity and performance of your remote team in many ways. For example, it can reduce distractions, increase employee engagement, improve communication, and enable better collaboration.
Security tools can help protect your valuable data by helping with password management and tracking the sites your employees visit. Don’t miss out on all of the technology that can help your employees be more engaged and optimistic about their work.
