How Can We Make Remote Teams Work?

More people want to have more freedom at work. The classic nine-to-five position is no longer popular. The trend is towards positions that fit better with lifestyle, family and hobbies. That’s why remote working is becoming more and more important. Of course this way of working brings new challenges.

How can Remote Work be Made Possible?

• Employees work when they want and where they want. This freedom and flexibility has become more and more important for employees. Working hours are flexible and even the place of residence can be anywhere. In the past, you had to decide where you wanted to work and move your home there. Thanks to remote position opportunities, this is no longer necessary as employees can work from anywhere. 
  Some companies even support this with home office equipment such as standing desks or office chairs. Because when employees feel comfortable, they are more productive and motivated!
• This option allows employees to get hired from all over the world, creating a diverse employee culture. And through various tools, collaboration can be simplified. To work more efficiently, it then makes sense to communicate clearly so that everyone can coordinate from different locations as well. 
  Communication should be designed in such a way that employees have enough time to work undisturbed, but also have the opportunity to consult with colleagues and build a relationship with them. In order to communicate not only in writing, face-to-face video conferencing can strengthen the relationship between employees.
• Another important point with remote working is that there are clearly assigned contacts that employees can turn to.

3 Ingredients for Successful Remote Working

If you want to bring together a team that is spread all over the world at the same time, you need to solve some challenges. We have 3 tips to make remote working successful for employees: important are the tools, the processes and the team itself.

1. Tools: 
   • With remote teams, the right tools are very important to ensure that everyone has the same set of goals and can pursue those goals without having a person physically next to them. 
   • There are quite a few helpful tools they can use to work remotely successfully.
2. Processes:
   • Processes can be boring and feel inflexible. But with good processes you can do the position remotely. This provides a structure to get the tasks done.
   • Processes should include a feedback culture to make progress visible and measurable to everyone in the company. 
   • One suggestion for this could be weekly one and one conversations. This allows to share feedback between the employee and supervisor.
   • This is a time to talk about the status of work and discuss improvements and requests.
3. Team: 
   • The most important factor is the team, therefore it is important to build a team that can work remotely.
   • Hiring people you can trust to get the position done is an important selection criterion. Remote work cannot work if you do not trust your team members.
   • When selecting employees, it is also important that people can manage without social contact at work.
     • For example, if several employees live in one city, they can be given the option of a co-working space where they can work together on a regular basis if desired.

Conclusion

It takes time to understand what the remote team wants in order to address it. But concrete structures and processes combined with the right tools can give employees a foundation for their work as a remote team.