Do you believe that more flexible work arrangements can make you more productive? The trend of hiring a remote workforce started before the COVID-19 crisis. However, work from home culture has become a need for many businesses. Thanks to the advancement of web conferencing and a range of online collaboration tools, team members from different locations can collaborate and work together to deliver their projects on time. It is important for a business to make sure that the remote workforce does not feel left out due to a lack of in-person time with other team members. Your remote employees should also feel included.
Poor communication and collaboration with remote teams can cause a boatload of problems. Therefore, you must proactively look for online collaboration tools for your dispersed workforce. Your business suffers when your engagement and collaboration suffer due to distance.
This article shares key tips to make your remote employees feel like an important part of the team.
Write and share user manuals
First of all, you need a written guide for your in-house and remote employees. It should allow remote employees to learn more about the company culture. They need to know who to contact and how to contact when there is something urgent. Keep in mind that employees spend more time with their colleagues. Your remote employees should not have to guess how their colleagues work, think, and feel. They don’t get any shared personal space to read the body language and mindset of employees working in the office. It is the responsibility of the leadership to encourage proactive communication. User manuals provide insight into the personal values, preferences, and working styles of each employee.
If you are using a cloud-based intranet software, it allows your employees to create profiles. Your employees can have the following sections in their profiles or user manuals:
- Working style
- Values
- What causes impatience
- The best way of communication
- How can that particular employee help remote workers?
This practice of user manuals can be effective when employees write their own manuals and share them in a common drive allowing others to access them.
Adopt asynchronous communication
Most of the communication with remote workers occurs in writing. Traditionally, employees have used email for this. However, email is not as efficient as online collaboration tools for business. Moreover, written communication can be tough to decipher sometimes. This can lead to disengagement and, eventually, lack of innovation. You can prevent this with asynchronous communication. When you have remote employees working across different time zones, you cannot always expect an instant response after sending messages. As a manager managing a remote team, you should aim to over-communicate. Online collaboration tools for business or cloud-based intranet solutions offer features like “@mention” or “[urgent]” when you need an instant response. The tool can send email notifications or notifications on phones.
Prioritize video calls
Remotely working employees do not get to see the face or body language of other employees. This can impede communication. This is the reason why video calls should be your first choice of communication. There should be daily standups, weekly check-ins, etc. Video calling is essential, especially for inevitable hard conversations. Always schedule a video call when you want to discuss a performance improvement plan, missed targets, or similar topics. You cannot address these issues with written communication. You should use online collaboration tools for business to conduct virtual meetings just like in-person meetings in your conference room. Start with the core message, outline the next steps, and in the end, let them ask questions. Face to face interaction makes them feel like they are part of the team.
For creating and sharing user manuals, communication, and video calls, you need a reliable online collaboration tool for business. Make sure that it is a cloud-based tool that can be easily accessed using different devices.
