How to Prepare Your Remote Workforce for Success

With rapid advancements to mobile technology for businesses, is your company ready to lead its growing team of remote talent? Employees and employers alike may benefit from the change, but the shift to a larger remote workforce could pose unique challenges for those in management or leadership positions.

Here are a few ways you can prepare your remote workforce to become key contributors to your business.

Find Self-Motivated Individuals

The first step to curating a successful remote team starts before onboarding: hire talent best-suited for the independence that comes with remote work. Several recent studies conclude that remote employees are just as much or even more productive than their in-office counterparts;
however, the success of your remote team is equally contingent on their ability to perform with relative autonomy.

If your mobile workforce doesn’t comprehensively understand their position, as well as their place in the business’ larger schema, it might be beneficial to incorporate an in-person training period. Not only will they gain a better understanding of their responsibilities, but the in-person introduction to the business will help them learn the nuances of your company’s culture and the individuals who embody it.

Determine Your Preferred Methods for Communication

Due to a lack of opportunities for in-person meetings, check-ups, and conversations, your remote team is already at a disadvantage when it comes to creating effective paths of communication. Dedicate time with your remote staff to determine a uniform strategy for using the different channels of communication in order to optimise the clarity and time efficiency of your conversations.

Instead of juggling between several chat platforms throughout the day, create a guideline for the appropriate times to use each channel- or you can remove the hassle and confusion that comes with using multiple tools entirely by utilising a unified communications service. Most importantly, make sure you and your remote employees have a secure and confidential method for communicating important internal documentation or other private data to avoid the risk of breaching company information.

Establish Boundaries

When tailoring the needs of a workforce that increasingly values open floor plans and pet-friendly office spaces, the work-life balance that remote work offers is paramount. Your mobile team should enjoy the benefits of working outside of the office, but it’s important to set them up with guidelines for work, just as you would for your in-office team. Even if your remote
employees are able to flex their work hours, urge them to schedule regular office hours to bolster a greater sense of team dynamics. Get into the habit of overcommunicating by planning meetings to catch-up with your remote team and their projects. If your employees work from home- where their personal and work spaces may overlap- help them create boundaries of
their own to prevent their work from bleeding into their personal life.

Acknowledge Their Successes

How often do you praise your employees in passing—as you walk by their desk or when first beginning a meeting? Because your remote team will not have the same physical presence as those at their office desks, the opportunities for public praise are much rarer. Nevertheless, your remote workforce should receive the same level of employee recognition when compared to those working on-site. By announcing the projects, goals, and achievements of your remote team to the company’s entire body, you’ll foster a unified sense of teamwork and promote workplace visibility to those hard-working remote team members who your in-office staff wouldn’t have the chance to see regularly by the water cooler.

What are your tips for managing a remote workforce?

Veronica Sagecroft is an online content specialist who writes about leadership, management and business solutions for companies of all sizes.

 

Find your next role on Jobbio today. 

Author Veronica Sagecroft

More posts by Veronica Sagecroft

Leave a Reply