Remote working is when various employees perform their duties and responsibilities from different locations but with a central office run by the employer. The practice has become popular in many organizations, especially after the pandemic severely hit the world.
There are many benefits of collaboration in remote teams. Collaboration increases productivity levels in remote teams. Similarly, collaborated remote teams are likely to earn huge profits. Simultaneously, it reduces costs and saves time.
In addition, collaboration enhances the team member workforce. It encourages innovation and creativity among team members. Collaboration improves team members’ morale and motivation, creating a positive a positive work culture. With collaborative teams, you can build and maintain diverse relationships among the team members.
Despite its numerous benefits, remote working is vulnerable to many challenges, such as loneliness, home-related distractions, varied time-zone, and technical issues. However, it is possible to overcome the challenges and keep everything running smoothly in your organization. Everyone needs to keep the remote team active and fruitful.
Let’s learn about how to improve collaboration in remote teams:
Team Collaboration Software
Nearly 80% of organizations have adopted collaboration software tools in their remote team operations. The number keeps on increasing with the significantly advancing technology across the globe.
Team collaboration software have proven beneficial in saving time and resource. It can improve communication and enhance team member engagement. Organizations must choose tools that best suit their available resources and needs for effective results.
Team-Building Activities
Working from home can be pretty challenging, especially for introverts who aren’t used to the stay-alone life. As an employer, you can make remote working enjoyable for your employees by initiating various team-building activities.
Team-building activities don’t always have to be work-related to break the boredom. The most common and effective team-building activities include:
- Remote birthday celebrations.
- Virtual cooking sessions.
- Annual or semi-annual physical unions.
- Virtual coffee or dinner dates.
- Regular home-to-home visits.
- Virtual trivia games.
Remote Working Tools
Remote working slightly differs from the standard office layouts, where businesses can have shared resources for a group of employees or an organization. Remote working employees require various tools to facilitate their performance and well-being as they adhere to their duties and responsibilities.
As an employer, you’re bound to provide your team with the crucial tools for remote working. Some remote working essentials include a stable internet connection, office furniture, a phone, and a laptop. You can expect maximum collaboration from your remote team after providing these tools.
Clear Goals and Objectives
Goals and objectives are what guide an organization toward targeted performance. Every organization should outline its goals and objectives and clarify them to every employee. In a remote team, this practice will help your members stay determined to meet individual and collective goals.
For more effective results, you can set aside time as a team to refresh and evaluate the status of your organization’s goals and objectives.
Communication Channels
While several communication channels exist, not all will work perfectly for a remote team. Therefore, employers should evaluate the different channels, conduct trials, and choose the most favourable ones.
Your preferred communication channel should be efficient, convenient, time-saving, and understandable to the team members. Many organizations’ most common communication channels include Emails, social media platforms, live chats, and phone calls.
Healthy Work Rotations
Allocating various tasks or projects to your remote team members in a rotation manner enhances collaboration. Imagine if you had the same employees undertaking specific roles for years since the business started. Besides boredom, the other employees would view it as unfair, especially concerning leadership positions, thus creating a chaotic environment.
Regular rotations allow every employee to showcase their strengths in different departments, achieving maximum collaboration in the remote team.
Employee Rewards
Recognition and celebration of your employee’s efforts, even on minor projects, significantly boosts their morale and motivation, thus achieving collaboration. The practice has proven essential for teams whose members require constant motivation to keep going in the challenging world of remote working.
To avoid biases or inequality, employers can use various project management and tracking software tools that provide reliable results on every employee’s performance.
The most effective ways of rewarding your remote team members are by:
- Providing incentives.
- Increasing their salaries.
- Providing time-offs and vacations.
- Presenting shopping vouchers among other small gifts.
- Recognizing and celebrating them before other employees.
