Home-based businesses are taking up the economy by storm due to seemingly infinite benefits they render to the owner. Managing a remote team comes handy when you jump into these types of profession. It’s a misconception that carrying out a job from home is easy to go task; instead, you have to put extra efforts just to make ends meet. However, once you get a firm hold of it, there is nothing better than carrying out business in this specific way.
This helps you to be an achiever in both, personal and professional life. Running a business from home is capable of yielding enough wealth; however, it requires proper planning and scheduling. So, mentioned below are ways how you could get your hands into this type of profession and be a pro in doing it.
Tips to direct a remote team
When you’re planning to operate your business from home, it becomes essential to manage a remote team with all of its members distributed in several geographical locations. Jotted below are some points about how you could control your team and enhance team efficiency.
- Create a blueprint of your plan
Before you commence working on a particular project, make a blueprint of your entire plan. Preparing a robust blueprint will not only make all the points clear to you but also to your team. This primary step will define the goals of the project and will also highlight the expectations of the manager from its employees. Creating a blueprint will help you to lay down the exact requirements of the projects, thus enabling employees to collectively work towards attaining the common goal.
- Be clear about the expectation of your team
When the goals and objectives of the project are discussed by the employer, it is his/her duty to also chalk down the set of expectations for several job roles. When you make them aware of the goals, highlight the steps that will assist them in stepping up to the success of the project. Emphasize over attaining the individual goals by making them aware of the tools, timelines, project management, and other points. Try to clear to all the doubts beforehand that arise in the mind of your employees so that they could give their best in carrying out a task. The efficiency of your team will be enhanced with clear deadlines and goals.
- Try to control as you would have controlled the local teams
Working with a remote team might get a bit difficult as there is no chance of getting a face to face interaction. Thus, the employer must get the help of strategies and tools that will help him/her to control the employees in a way that he would have managed the local teams. It might get difficult to work efficiently and create a working environment when the entire team is remotely distributed. Thus, try to ensure management in which there is openness and each member could access each other effectively and efficiently at any point of the day. This will help your project to be handled professionally.
- Be in a constant network
Communication, especially regular communication is what makes a remote team stand triumphant. Due to the fact that your team is distributed it becomes painfully difficult to have face to face or personal interactions. Try to establish a network that might keep you all in constant touch during the working hours. Likewise, if something urgent comes up, you can use a service to mass text employees so they don’t miss an important update. Make technology your best friend while doing so and ensure full control over it to have maximum output from your team. With the help of regular feedback and engagement, your project will be well handled.
- Focus on both the team and individual team members
It’s imperative to give positive feedbacks based upon individual efforts as it will encourage your team members to work with their entire heart and soul. Regular team conferences will render you an opportunity to address your team as a whole and provide them with feedback based explicitly on their work. This will help your team members to comprehend the problematic areas along with assisting in finding measures to get rid of them.
Feedbacks not only motivate each of your team members but also pave the way to implement the set guidelines of any project. This further comes handy in managing deadlines even more efficiently.
- Collect the common set of tools to enhance the productivity
With the introduction of technology in this era, it has made everything possible. Thus, get hold of the various elements of the technology that might help your team to work collectively and effectively. Select a specific set of tools to carry out collaboration, information transfer, and project management with ease. Work with your team to find out the tools that could be accessed and worked upon by all the team members comfortably.
- Create a friendly work environment
A team should always feel safe and reliable when it comes to raising their voices regarding the issues and problem that they might face while working as a remote team member. Try to maintain a friendly business environment where all the member might speak and come up with new ideas and innovations. This will give your employees a genuine sense of safety and respect needed to work efficiently with no burden of insecurities.
Tools that will help you to manage a remote team
- Communication
Communication is a vital tool when it comes to handling a remote team. A number of tools are available due to the blessing of advanced technology, that has made communication easy. Tools such as Skype, Slack, Google Hangouts and Zoom have made communication a cakewalk.
- Collaboration
Collaboration tools help the employee to keep track of the progress of each and every team member. These tools are essential when a person has to work with many employees that aren’t situated locally.
- Project management
Project management tools keep all the work done by the employees ted together. It further monitors the projects and has an overview of it. Tools such as Trello, Asana, and Confluence might be your saviors.
How to make remote video conferencing even more professional and accurate
Remote teams often find it arduous to interact and share opinions with each other because of the gap in the communication channel. They see it significantly uncomfortable as they are unaware of the person behind the screen. Thus, remote video concerning is used to ease the work of employers and employees as a whole.
Mentioned down below are the ways how you could enhance your team experience by using remote video conference feature.
- Sense of security
When you are capable of having a video conference with your employees, you become more secure and relaxed about the people you are working with. The same goes for your employees as they are relieved that they’re working with a real remote team with the actual project due to the increasing number of frauds in the online corporate world.
- Stay plugged in
You can stay in constant touch with all members when you are dealing with a remote team using technology. Moreover, a robust video calling solution makes them available at any point of the time. Video conferencing makes face time with the team member very convenient. A constant connection enables growth as the work is carried out efficiently without any doubts.
- Maintain a record of meetings
You have numerous advanced feature such as recording your entire meeting using Cloud-Based Video Conferencing Solutions so as to maintain the record of the session. This not only helps your employees to go through the meetings to recollect the details and information but also assists you in creating a professional business environment online.
Advantages of controlling a remote team
Managing a remote could be a herculean task to deal with. It is challenging to manage several minds that are flooded with a number of ideas. It is fundamentally important to tackle with their concerns. If employers are capable of doing that, then they are introduced to a number of benefits brought by the remote team to their business. A few of them are jotted down below.
- Increased productivity
When the employees work in a physical office, they tend to delay and postpone the work assigned to them just to fill in their working hours. In a proper office, a number of distractions come on their way hampering growth as a team and also as an individual. However, if a person is capable of doing that same work home, they are free from any type of distraction or the fixed working hours. This makes them work efficiently with no postpones so that they can be free from work as soon as possible. This increases the project’s growth and also the income of both, the employer and the employees.
- A decrease in fixed costs
When you work in a physical office, a number of costs come into the way daily. Expenses of the office electricity, stationery, internet connections, furniture, repairs, and maintenance have to be taken care of on a daily basis. However, these expenditures are eliminated when it comes to handling a remote team. You need not purchase or rent on an office that might cost you a massive chunk of money. The employer shouldn’t spend on buying the work equipment like computers or printer so as to invest more and more in the betterment of the project.
- The opportunity of hiring distant qualified employees
Technology has made it possible to hire people carrying exquisite talents and skills from all around the globe2. Many times recruiters are unable to hunt for perfect employees to carry out the jobs thus, their work is not carried out in an efficient or cost-effective way. However, when it comes to remote employees, you are in power to hire people sitting in any part of the world. Technology has made it really easy for employers to get talented workers with the right skills residing anywhere. This increases business’ opportunity and growth.
- Satisfied and motivated workers
When a person is having an opportunity to work from a remote place, they’re able to balance their personal and professional life. Reason being, they don’t have to work under the tiring environment of a physical office sitting in a chair for hours and hours in front of their computer screens. This also reduces their travel cost as they don’t necessarily have to regularly travel from home to office. The flexible working hours give their minds enough relaxation to think about other aspects of their life well. Hence, it keeps the employees motivated making them able to perform like a pro during their working hours.
- Promotes the growth of their company
Growing at a fast pace turns out to be a key advantage in the brutally competitive business environment. When a person is doing their job by managing a remote team, then they are capable of opening their branches in any part of the globe. This helps the company to expand its workforce and efficiently meet the demand of the market. Motivated employees try to grow the business in their respective regions to bring out the best from them and their jobs. When a company is involved in remote team management, they might expand their business without sending too much over the infrastructure abroad. Thus, the remote team comes with multiple benefits.
Takeaway
The world has turned into a considerably smaller place due to the introduction of technology. Business can be carried out at any platform now due to this blessing. Moreover, it is possible to carry seamlessly operate a business and carry out the transactions sitting in the comfort of your home. Handling a remote team might seem a troublesome task in the very beginning, however, it might be sorted very easily and efficiently by following some tips mentioned above. Thus, make full use of the opportunity and make all your dreams come true and enjoy the benefits derived from getting engaged in carrying out a business sitting at home.