5 Strategies to Improve Productivity for Remote Teams

Improve Productivity

Is your company one of the 16 percent of U.S. companies that are fully remote? Or maybe you’ve adopted a hybrid model, where only some of your teams work remotely.

Either way, remote work has significant benefits, including increased job satisfaction among remote employees, greater employee retention, and lower labor costs.

However, even with all the wonders of remote work, productivity issues can be a pain that refuses to go away. Left to their own devices, most employees will struggle with time management, which affects their productivity.

This raises the question: what can employers do to improve productivity for their remote teams? We have a couple of strategies that might help.

1. Constitute Your Remote Teams Properly

A team is a group of people who come together to pursue a common goal. The members have qualities and skills that complement one another. Keeping this tidbit in mind is key when you’re creating remote teams in your organization.

If you’re randomly selecting employees and placing them on remote teams, you might end up with dysfunctional teams. Don’t just look at their qualifications. Evaluate whether an employee will thrive in a remote environment before assigning them to a remote team.

You see, not everyone fancies working from home. If you place an employee who would rather work from the office in a remote team, you’re effectively forcing them to go remote. This can negatively affect their productivity, which will in turn affect the performance of the team.

Once your remote teams are up and running, don’t stop there. Monitor the changing preferences of the team members and make the necessary adjustments when necessary. If some team members who loved working remotely now want to return to the office, don’t keep them remote as their productivity can decline.

2. Provide the Right Tools for Remote Work

Technology makes remote work possible, but tech tools come in different configurations. A computer, an active internet connection, and an email address are enough to enable anyone to work from home, but is that all your teams need to do their job? Providing your team with the best tools goes a long way in maximizing productivity.

Start with the hardware. At a minimum, your employees need modern, fast computers. If they’re still stuck with old computers without any in-built web cameras, for example, forget about live video calls. This also means they won’t collaborate on video calls.

Next comes the internet. It’s of no value having a supercomputer if your internet connection is sluggish. Your teams need fast internet to access company systems and communicate efficiently.

Collaboration tools like Slack and Zoom are a must-have. There are other specialized programs your remote employees might need depending on the nature of their jobs. Ensure they have the latest versions.

3. Keep an Open Line of Communication

Efficient communication in a remote work environment isn’t just about providing communication and collaboration tools. You must take the initiative to foster a culture where open communication thrives.

Draw communication policies that define how the teams will communicate. For example, specify the platforms on which official communication will be done. If your teams are big, you can select one or two members who’ll be responsible for the team’s everyday communication.

It’s essential to establish communication norms. As an employer or workplace manager, make a habit of checking in on your teams on a set schedule.

Also, if you’re dealing with high-volume communication, make the most of solutions that will help everyone stay organized.

For example, if the email is your primary communication channel, your team that’s working from home can use Mailstrom. The tool will group emails and clean up inboxes, all while offering privacy protection. Your employees won’t waste time digging through a heap of emails to find important messages.

4. Real-Time Technical Support Improves Remote Team Productivity

Technology breaks down from time to time. Even when it’s working, there can be slowdowns that’ll affect team productivity. As an organization, you must be prepared for these issues.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to start looking for a technician to fix a tech problem. Downtimes are costly. Besides performance disruptions, you can lose customers and valuable revenue.

Having a dedicated technical support team is the best way to ensure emerging IT problems are fixed as soon as they occur. Your remote teams should have direct contact with the support team so that issues are reported and addressed quickly.

5. Act on Feedback from Your Remote Teams

Gathering employee feedback, whether remote or on-site, is a good human resource management practice. Unfortunately, some employers don’t act on the feedback they receive or take too long to act.

Feedback from your remote team is a valuable source of information. You’ll be able to detect minor challenges before they morph into big issues.

As such, be quick to address issues raised by your teams. For example, if your remote teams are saying they’re feeling disengaged from their work, implement strategies that will help make them feel more engaged. You can organize teambuilding activities, introduce a recognition program, and host virtual casual hangouts more often.

Improve Productivity Without Trying Too Hard

You’ve made a smart business decision to build a remote team, but a lot had to be done to ensure the team fires on all cylinders. These tips can help you improve the productivity of your teams without breaking a sweat.

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