7 ways to Increase Your Remote Team’s Productivity

Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, work from home has become the current norm in work culture. Working from home has several advantages, making it a popular choice among employees and employers alike. You not only get to choose your schedule, but you also save time by not having to commute, allowing you to spend more time with your family. However, there is a typical drawback to working from home.

Many remote employees struggle to stay productive. Because this is such a prevalent issue, we've compiled a list of tried-and-true strategies to help you address it and get your workers to maintain their productivity when remotely working from home. 

Here are seven effective tactics that, when implemented, can result in a consistent and considerable rise in remote employee productivity. 

1) Streamline communication

Efficient brainstorming, a strong team connection, and effective communication are the foundation of a productive team. It's especially important for remote teams who rely on regular contributions to keep in touch and operate more effectively.

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The best approach to feel connected to your remote team members is to talk to them about subjects other than work frequently. It's critical to form bonds with the individuals you work with.

However, it's critical to achieve the correct balance, since things may quickly spiral out of hand. After all, too much cross-channel communication might have the opposite impact of what you want. Sharing, for the sake of sharing, can lead to dangerous information overload, which impairs decision-making and overall productivity.

2) Optimize Corporate Culture For Remote Teams

Maintaining a dedication to the corporate culture and mission outside of the regular work setting is one of the most difficult aspects of remote work productivity. As a result, it's vital to emphasize crucial cultural features and guarantee that the team adjusts to them even if they're not there.

Some steps to optimize corporate culture for remote teams:

• To better support employee work-life balance, which is a fundamental driver of improved productivity, establish flexible work hours.
• To encourage employee wellbeing and, as a result, boost productivity, provide considerable mental and physical health incentives.
• To reinvigorate employee engagement and dedication to common goals, create procedures and activities that support basic corporate values.

3) Create Well-Documented Processes

One of your most critical responsibilities is to ensure that processes are well-documented. Ascertain that all staff are aware of where to obtain these papers and that they are followed.

Avoid just informing team members what the aim is without also giving them a sense of how that goal will be met. Allow staff to create standard operating procedures (SOPs) for their respective jobs to make things simpler for you. As things change, keep these SOPs up to date.

Failure to continuously improve diverse processes is one of the most major barriers to productivity. Organizations must examine all time-wasters — i.e., repetitive jobs — and search for solutions to automate them to devote more time to top-priority projects.

Organizations may assist their remote staff to achieve a well-planned schedule by minimizing time spent on repeated chores, resulting in a defined priority plan and so ensuring more focused, productive work.

Improved procedures empower your employees to work smarter rather than harder. As a result, they will be more likely to disconnect after work and, hence, better work-life balance. When people are energized, they are also more likely to do their best job during the workday.

4) Do Not Overload Employees

It's easy for management to detect whether an employee is overworked when they're working from the office. You may have noticed that the employee does not eat lunch or leaves late every day. With remote personnel, you don't always have this kind of information. Employees may get overburdened if necessary precautions are not followed.

If you have no option but to assign urgent work to a remote employee, find out how it will affect their other commitments. The employee may then give you an estimate of how much time they'll need to spend on the tasks that will be affected.

Another thing you should advise your staff to avoid is sending too many emails to others. A "respond all" command, for example, might convey communication to those who are uninterested. Employees are now faced with the additional work of screening emails they should not have received.

5) Be Ready To Deal With Technical Problems

Most businesses have an in-house technical staff to help employees with any technical issues they may encounter. Remote teams may be dispersed, causing a unique plan for dealing with technological issues.

It is your obligation as a manager to guarantee that your team is not delayed because of a team member's inability to complete their responsibilities due to technological difficulties. Identifying service providers near each team member who would be available if a technological problem arose may be one solution. Another option is to pay for access to a shared workspace where workers may work while their issues are being resolved.

6) Look for an HR Platform That Caters to Remote Teams

Investing in a great HR Platform is integral to managing remote teams. Many HR Platforms like HR Cloud offer plenty of features for employees to collaborate and engage. E-forms, automated workflows, time-off tracking, and other powerful tools may also help you drive your business and enhance productivity among your remote employees.

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You can also use these tools to collect anonymous feedback and sort out issues that are being faced by the employees. You can also use these systems for tracking employee efficiency and evaluating the work being done by each employee. 

7) Host Team-Building Activities

Weekly team socials and calls, when employees can speak about anything other than work, serve to keep everyone in good spirits. An after-work Zoom hang or a group lunch via video is a terrific approach to boost non-work contact. Having an online game night or movie night, similar to what you'd have if the teams were in the same office, is also a good idea.

Employees may bond and get to know one another outside of the workplace by participating in these activities. This type of bonding brings teams closer together and aids them in their work. These teams are more productive than those in which the personnel is unfamiliar with one another.

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Consider doing a larger team-building exercise every quarter. A game night or a talent performance may be on the cards. This will enable your team members to get to know one other better. Get your teams together for in-person meetings after COVID-19. Face-to-face contacts in the real world may have a long-term influence on your team's connections. You may also offer to sponsor a team-building excursion to a central spot to encourage your teams to achieve their objectives.

Wrapping Up 

It might be difficult to manage remote teams. However, properly managed remote teams and personnel are significantly more productive than traditional teams working on physical office premises.

It's all about seeing potential productivity bottlenecks and addressing them before they become a problem. There is nothing like the performance that a remote employee and a remote team can deliver when done correctly.

These strategies and best practices can help you overcome challenges, increase communication, and blow your key performance indicators (KPIs) out of the water, whether your company is temporarily working from home or you're heading a remote workforce.

About Author: This article is written by our marketing team at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is dedicated to providing powerful solutions for your HR teams and creating an exceptional employee experience. Our aim is to help your company improve employee engagement, onboarding, and to save you valuable time!