It is fair to say that times have definitely advanced as far as how we work. While we used to all pack into a physical office, now remote work is the norm, which is good because this arrangement offers many benefits, especially if you are starting a project from scratch.
The ability to pull talent from anywhere and manage them from home will make work much easier. Here are some helpful tips for how you can find great people and effortlessly manage your team.
Assembling the Team
If you are assembling a team from scratch, then you will want to find the most highly qualified candidates who are willing to work from home. The great thing about remote work is that you can find employees from around the globe and you never know when the expert you need may be out there.
You can find people on websites like Upwork and Indeed, and many of these candidates are pre-screened ahead of time so you know you are getting great prospects.
Get Your Employees What They Need
In order to be successful, all of your remote employees must have the tools they need to work, communicate, and assist accordingly. Give employees an easy way to clock in and install a payroll program that will allow them to keep tabs.
All employees should also have a suitable computer and phone, and if you cannot buy one for them, then consider offering a stipend so they can buy what they need on their own. These costs may be expensive upfront but it is a much better alternative than having to constantly stop your work to troubleshoot technical issues with your team.
Perhaps your team works on analyzing real-time transactions from various companies. Useful software would be one that has a transaction data API that enables your team to interface with the data directly from the companies you monitor. Providing these kinds of tools to your team can enable you to do business more effectively.
Allow Your Team to Collaborate
Once you get up and running, you will want to make it easy for all of your remote workers to seamlessly work together and collaborate even if they are thousands of miles apart. Time differences can be a limitation on the types of tasks that you can work on at the same time. Luckily, technology has grown by leaps and bounds in this respect and there are many tools that you can use to ensure that you always know how everyone is doing.
Project management tools like ClickUp and Monday are easy for managers to set up and you can use them to assign certain tasks, set deadlines, and request status reports at the touch of a button.
When you manage remote workers, it becomes imperative that every step of your project is handled to perfection. To do so, you should break out your project into stages and detail every objective, activity, and deliverable so you know that no stone is left unturned.
Set Standards
Although you have put together a team of dedicated workers who are committed to the project at hand, it is still important that you set standards for the team so everyone is on the same page.
You should set the working hours, create check-in times, and ensure that your team is working with minimal distractions. If an employee has a repetitive task and you want them to meet a certain threshold, such as making 10 client calls per hour, then make sure to have that process in writing so there is no confusion moving forward.
Have Status Meetings
While everyone on your team may be working from different states, it is still important to have some face-time every once in a while, so your team knows that they are working with actual people and not faceless entities.
A good way to incorporate this step is to have video conferences a couple of times per month where you can discuss business and the members of your team can see one another. Video calls are a great way to build team spirit and put a face to the name.
In the end, while setting up a remote team may seem challenging on paper, with the right tools, you can work together effortlessly as if you were in the same office.
