Best Practices for Effective Remote Working

As the world continues to adapt to new challenges, work is shifting gears once again. In many industries, working from home (WFH) has become the norm. It's a smart way for companies to limit exposure to health risks and keep employees safer while maintaining productivity in a remote work environment.

Working from home is not a new concept. Most of us, especially those in the tech industry, have worked from home occasionally, but it is uncharted territory when the entire company consists of employees working remotely. This poses several challenges and opportunities - and there is a lot to determine in setting up the right systems for company-wide remote employee scenarios.

A New Set of Challenges and Opportunities

Working remotely has its benefits - it allows people to focus on individual deliverables and often provides the time and space for remote employees to concentrate on difficult or intense tasks. Modern open-office layouts have stripped workers of quiet spaces, and working from home can be a refreshing break from the buzz of the workplace.

However, managing remote workers makes many things more challenging, especially communications. Remote teams often miss out when it comes to the critical conversations and relationship building that are so important to team cohesion. While video conferencing and collaboration technology do bring teams together, remote work makes it harder to read body language, hear what people are saying, read in-room dynamics, ask follow-up or side questions, or drop by and quickly sync with a coworker at their desk. It is even more difficult to conduct a brainstorming session when everyone is logged in via video.

The good news is that most remote employees save a significant amount of time by not commuting. Some people now may use the time they would normally spend commuting to talk and message with their colleagues more, which could overcome communications challenges and improve remote employee engagement.

Below are some of the best practices for remote working, segmented into company-level, team-level, and individual-level tips. These suggestions may work best for startups, but there should be some things that work for departments in a larger organization as well.

Best Practices for the Company

• Keep the same goals as you normally would, but provide more clarity. Customers must remain top priority - we don't have the option to be less aggressive on achieving our business goals, just because we're working remotely. Since remote employees have a harder time dropping in to clarify things, each level of leadership should take extra effort to make sure their teams have a clear understanding of expectations.

• Ensure you have critical coverage for the most important areas of business at all times. Working remotely gives people the flexibility to walk the dog or take lunch whenever they want. This can lead to gaps in coverage if people don't coordinate schedules - this is especially important in mission-critical areas of the business.

• When managing remote workers is uncharted territory, remote managers need extra tools and training. For example, consider using employee engagement software to help monitor the level of communications across teams, review velocity, and help in other ways.

• Executive office hours are important - especially when there isn't a physical office. Make sure executives and teams hold a time on their schedule when they're available to answer questions from any remote employee in the company.

• Maintain transparency - establish a communications channel visible to the whole company where key initiative leaders can submit weekly status reports and get feedback from executives. This will help ensure everyone is up to speed and promote remote employee engagement.

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