It’s been established that remote work isn’t going anywhere, it’s here to stay. With that said, the greatest concern of employers nowadays is how to boost the productivity and collaboration of their remote teams.
Thankfully, there are clever ways, tools, and guidelines that can boost productivity and collaboration. Let’s see what strategies you can use to increase these two important factors.
1. Define the communication rules clearly
This should be the first and most important step regarding remote work. Deciding which communication channels are the best for your company and teams.
For real-time communication such as meetings, training, and conferences, you have the option to use channels like Zoom, Google Meets, and so on. For instant messaging, chatting, sharing of documents, task assignment, and overall collaboration, you can use Slack, Basecamp, Google Workspace, and many others.
To create a productive remote environment, you should limit the number of channels you use. Find one channel that allows different types of communication, both real-time communication and chat options.
Once you decide on which channels should be used, it’s time to set clear rules to avoid confusion and misunderstandings among team members. Make sure that you update all team members whenever you make any changes.
2. Leadership and transparency
Just as you’d lead and motivate your physical team, you also need to find ways to lead and motivate your remote team. This may sound difficult since we’re talking about remote motivation, but there are viable ways to encourage your remote team.
In this case, communication and transparency are the keys. You need to work on both external and internal communication and encourage your team to speak freely and as often as they need. You’re building trust with your team by allowing them to express themselves.
Another way to motivate and encourage your team and boost productivity is by being transparent. Transparency is a great way to build a culture of trust and team spirit. And you can do that by always being open and telling them everything upfront.
3. Encourage communication and collaboration
Productivity largely depends on the communication and collaboration within your company. That’s why you should encourage everyone to work together. For remote teams that means finding good project management and communication tools.
With great communication and collaboration technology, your team members won’t have any problems forming relationships, openly discussing and collaborating on tasks, and so on.
Communication and collaboration are crucial for remote teams. It’s highly important for teams to be able to reach out to their teammates whenever they need. By encouraging communication and collaboration, you’re also creating a stable and trusting environment for your remote team.
4. Organize virtual team-building activities
Don’t let everything be only work and no play. Leave some time for fun and games, too. Organizing virtual team-building activities is a great way to boost productivity and morale in your company. Team building activities are also great for building relationships and they also encourage collaboration.
The best thing about these activities is that you can do whatever you want to engage your remote team. You can organize online games, causal meet-ups, trivia nights, and so on.
Virtual team-building activities may be a bit different than those live ones, but the point is the same – to bring together team members and help boost their morale by eliminating any friction, conflicts, or other issues.
5. Encourage feedback culture
Yet another essential part of healthy work culture and a way to make sure that your employees are motivated and productive is through feedback. By providing regular feedback to your remote team, you show how much you appreciate and value their work. Of course, you should also encourage them to give feedback as well.
Employees who get regular and proper feedback feel happy and valued, motivated and all of that can significantly increase engagement and productivity. Additionally, by fostering a feedback culture, you’re also making sure that any potential mistakes are avoided.
6. Delegate and encourage autonomy
Don’t be an overbearing manager who breads down their employee’s necks.
When a leader or manager is constantly reaching out and checking up on the team’s progress it gives the team a feeling that they don’t trust the team. You’re also distracting them from their work when you do this. And that can negatively affect their productivity and engagement at work.
Instead of constantly micromanaging everything, try delegating and encouraging employee autonomy. When you grant them freedom and independence, your team will be more motivated and thus more productive as well.
Think about remote work this way – it’s all about teamwork, open and transparent communication, and a healthy work environment. Once you get all of these in order, you can expect an increase in productivity and collaboration.
