Many studies have been conducted around the concept of working from home, and although it is widely believed that remote workers are more productive than their non-remote peers, the working from home environment can have its problems, typically when collaborating on tasks or projects (Chokshi, 2017). Amongst other things this could be one of the reasons why many UK employers never planned to adopt this new way of working but the COVID-19 crisis rapidly reshaped their plans and strategies, not providing much choice or flexibility. That said, many business owners have successfully transformed this crisis into an opportunity and achieved a level of harmony in the storm. Businesses should be inspired and motivated to follow their example.
So what’s the secret of success behind effective remote collaboration?
Remote collaboration may be challenging, and no one wants to feel like they are in the dark. I strongly believe that setting up clear expectations, trust, effective telecommuting, policies and procedures, plus of course reliable technology is all you need to be successful!
- Set up clear expectations
Some workplace teams are more project oriented than others, but regardless of the nature and structure of your team there are expectations for every member to play a role in your business success. Your main aim is to create efficient and productive teams of people who work well together without too much oversight. Make sure you set up your expectations and you are clear about them from day one. At the end of the day their collaboration underlines the whole team’s ability to complete a task or project.
- Effective telecommuting
You’re a good boss, you look after your staff and surely you don’t want to leave them with unanswered questions. Be sure to schedule consistent check-ins with your employees. There are many communication tools you can use for remote working, so set up a level of importance and inform your staff about this. You can use a combination of video, audio, chats and email.
At Octagon Technology video is the most important level of communication, then it is audio, chat and email. Video makes conversations more natural and it is really fast so if you need to do something very quickly and effectively this should be your first choice. If you have a small budget you can still use Skype for secure video conferencing but if you have a little more income go for Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams is one of the Microsoft 365 tools that makes meetings more personal and encourages teamwork. It allows you to start conversations very quickly and easily and allows real-time collaboration to help achieve more from wherever you are. In order to effectively collaborate on a document you must be in the cloud so that you and your employees can work collectively on a single document, editing, adding or deleting information in a real-time.
If for some reason you cannot have a video conference with your team but your communication is urgent then make a phone call and use OneNote simultaneously. OneNote from Microsoft is one of the best note taking apps. It allows you to take handwritten notes and convert them to typed text later. You can highlight what is important, add drawings, diagrams, arrows, circles around stuff and more. It is easy to pull up your content from anywhere, even if you are offline. You can start your thoughts on your laptop and finish off on your phone, and then share them with your team. What is most important is that OneNote keeps your notes secret because individual tabs in a notebook can be encrypted with a password so no one can ever steal them from you.
Chat creates a great opportunity for having an ongoing communication with your team in an informal and friendly way. Having regular chats about things like Netflix, family, cooking, favourite books, films etc, help not only with relationship building but also create a natural “bumping into” opportunity. Have chat constantly open so that your employees can use this facility anytime they need to. You can chat on Microsoft Teams too.
Make sure you set up a project management system and use it so that everything is documented – don’t keep it in your head, it may get forgotten!
- Trust and flexibility
Remember that your remote worker is working from home and may be involved in home schooling or other important tasks at the same time so be as flexible as possible. At the end of the day we are all in the same situation and finding lockdown hard.
Have trust and confidence in your remote team, let them be flexible with their working hours but remember it is important to track their hours of work, attendance and other basic measures of productivity too. You must be able to measure how much time they put inside the organisation and what results they are getting when they do that particular work. Clockify is a great time tracking software program that lets you and your team track work hours across projects.
- Have a telecommuting policy in place
To make your team collaboration effective you have to implement systems and have processes in place. If your project is complex you need to make sure you have a checklist, otherwise some important processes may get missed. Lay out your expectations, outline tools, set up the level of importance and define your position on flexible working hours. With your video conferencing be sure to set up a meeting rhythm and remember what cannot be measured cannot be assessed. Weekly meetings are great because you can update your staff about the organisation, going-forward plans or new goals to achieve. Clearly identifiable goals will help them be more productive and stay focused and on track.
Remote collaboration is challenging but if you set up clear expectations, trust your team, use effective and honest communication, have policies in place and access to reliable technology your team of designers, architects or engineers can effectively collaborate even when they are spread out across the country or even the world.
If you need any help or advice about collaboration tools please get in touch with me, I will be happy to help. You can reach me over the phone – 01522 797520, email – kamila@octagontech.com or we can arrange for a video conferencing via Teams, I’m flexible!
Kamila
General Manager
Ref:
Chokshi, N. (2017) Out of the Office: More People Are Working Remotely, Survey Finds
