Telecommuting, a.k.a remote working is the biggest shift in workplace dynamics that can be witnessed in jobs these days. Working from home with a flexible workplace has proven to be helpful to a lot of people out there. However, from a leader’s perspective, the conversion from traditional to WFH has proven to be a hardship.
Even though remote work has the potential to increase productivity and make work life easier, it doesn’t facilitate much team collaboration. If you think that a remote workplace cannot give you the joys of a physical workplace, think again.
Here are 5 ways to help your remote team collaborate effectively:

1. Planning and Establishing a Workflow

There are a lot of ways in which having an established workflow can help with effective collaboration among remote teams. These not only facilitate a more streamlined approach to your work process but also help in tying the whole team together. Have doubts, here’s how:

• Keep everyone’s strengths and availability in mind and plan a workflow together so that everyone can stick to the work plan with ease.
• Setting a sequence of tasks that everyone is on board with reduces the need for communication and makes your team more productive.
• Also, setting a workflow using suitable tools can help you deliver and submit the files that you want with respective task detail.
• Effective communication can only be achieved once you have a set strategy in play, which can only be made visually possible with a functional workflow.

2. Communications with the Right Motive

Now what I mean with the right motive is that you separate your tools and dialect for formal and informal communication. It is great to be close to your colleagues, but you need to be careful of the timing, meaning know when the discussion is formal or informal. Here’s how you can achieve that:

• If you want to reach your whole team at once, you should do it via announcing it through your collaboration software. This would be better than losing your message in a long group message text chain.
• Also, this means that you need to keep the communication alive. With the proper channels, you need to make it clear to your people that you are there for them by being available all the time.
• For meetings, it is suggested that you do not limit your communication to just chats and indulge in video chats and conferences.
• Another way to be always connected with your team would be to use proper project management tools so that collaboration can take place through feedback and comments.

3. Leading With Transparency & Delegation

All leaders know that transparency holds the utmost importance in the functioning of a workplace. Therefore, remote teams too, should make transparency their main interest and practice it religiously. Here’s my advice to all the managers out there:

• To implement transparency, make sure to create a space where you can clearly allocate tasks to your team members.
• Also, use time tracking tools to be on top of your team members so that everyone is aware of the progress they’re making.
• Another factor that bleeds into transparency is to include people in meetings, planning processes, etc, to make them feel more liable employees.
• For a productive and collaborative workforce paint the full picture and convey goals and milestones as clearly as you can.

4. Setting Suitable Guidelines is a Must

A remote team without guidelines is like a boat without sails. For most teams, discipline might be the only thing keeping a remote team together. If you are a leader who wants to see their remote team through, you must use every tool in the book to keep them motivated. Want to know how established guidelines can help with that?

• Rules are good. These are ropes that can help you keep your balance when you are walking on a narrow path all the while keeping you grounded.
• Now for a team that has newly switched to remote working, you should know to set guidelines such that these are functional yet flexible.
• Regulation is also important when it comes to communication, a team should be quick to respond to updates and the changes made.
• And, guidelines should also be there so that people can be held accountable for their work as there will be set instructions for dealing with deadlines

5. Appreciating & Celebrating Achievements

As a leader, you have to not only oversee but acknowledge the work of your employees and help them celebrate achievements. And, I know it may seem like giving appreciation and celebrating these milestones is impossible for a remote team, but, some tools can help you with just that. I’ll tell you why people today would rather depend on software platforms for giving appreciation rather than writing things down in a personal email:

• A task management tool will help you create announcements for achievements and celebrate accomplished goals that will be there for everyone on your team to see.
• Software platforms these days have a “Hi5” feature that can help you quickly recognize the hard work of your employees with the utmost ease.
• Also, if you don’t know exactly when your team needs motivation, some tools can help you measure team culture and team engagement.
• Use your tool in the best way possible by creating an announcement elaborating exactly what the employee’s contribution was to the project.

Why do these tools work better than a heartfelt email, you ask? Because these platforms will help you shed light on the performance of the employee for everyone to see. And, surely, this might just be the one thing that inspires people from your office to do something great as well.

Conclusion

Collaboration can only cultivate in a place with adequate and effective communication. However, the temperament of a leader will determine how well a remote team will function.
So create an atmosphere of inclusion for your team so they feel the formation of a team culture. I hope my article presented all the necessary steps that will help you operate your remote teams better.

By: N Sharma

It’s up to YOU to make your dreams come true!
The Successful Affiliate / Road To Success Team