Lack of engagement
With remote work, managers will have to find solutions to a lack of engagement, which can lead to feelings of isolation at work. For example, Harvard University research on loneliness in isolation shows that 36% of respondents frequently felt lonely. Similarly, employees may feel left out as remote work leaves little time for social interaction. For this reason, it’s essential to actively build a sense of community and care in the workplace when managing remote teams.
One of the best practices is making use of software that facilitates scheduled check-ins for each team member. Certain apps can automatically set regular meetings and remind both employers and employees so that entire remote teams can maintain consistent contact. This is important as a feature by Maryville University on the management of remote employees explains that they benefit significantly from regular communication.
Managers may also try out virtual water cooler or team-building activities to encourage further social interaction and informal communication. Again, this can facilitate casual interaction between remote teams.
Modern remote tools also allow instant messaging, leading to a more efficient collaboration between different departments. This benefit is the increased opportunity to maintain strong connections and share feedback for more excellent project management among team members.
Team collaboration
Collaboration requires clear communication, which may be difficult in a remote environment. Managing remote teams can be easier by automating your communication systems and collaboration tools. Fortunately, many video conferencing platforms are now using AI-driven changes to reduce file sizes, adjust video quality, and improve bandwidth consumption. This improves the quality of communication in meetings, which can make for a more efficient work environment.
Another one of the best practices for communication is using calendar programs to enhance collaboration further. They can manage remote teams more efficiently by automating scheduling, finding expected times between team members, sending notifications about scheduled meetings, and sending reminders as the date approaches.
Automation can also help by allowing everyone to keep track of each other’s progress, so they’re up to date with all relevant information. For example, workers can automatically be notified when tasks or milestones are completed. These collaboration tools can make managing remote employees much more efficient.
Tracking productivity and work
Finally, one of the biggest challenges to managing remote teams is fostering productivity and tracking your employees’ progress. Without traditional work setups, it can be difficult to supervise and ensure that your employees make the most of their time. Our article ‘How to Automate Your Process for Everyone On Your Team to Work Effectively Remotely’ outlines how automation can serve as your solution for attendance and work tracking.
Using automated time trackers and apps, you can easily keep everything organized and heighten accountability so people stay on schedule. Using software that automatically keeps tabs on whether the time requirements are met, scheduled tasks are delivered, and company milestones are achieved allows you to monitor productivity accurately. Some apps also incorporate AI to track employee data and compare key performance indicators to aid performance management. In this way, you are automatically alerted if anyone on the team needs help or if you’re on track with your targets.
Use Integrations and Dashboards to Manage Remote Teams
One of the best pieces of advice I have received for managing remote workers was from Wade Foster, the CEO of Zapier, to track your team productivity with the tools they use. So, for example, for a developer, it would be how many lines of code they wrote, or for support, how many support tickets they handle, and their average satisfaction rating.
However, many companies have found it hard to do this because pulling all this information together can be challenging on top of holding the team accountable and setting clear work-related expectations around these tools. To improve this process, many firms are using Autymate to sync their data and create clear dashboards using Autymate. For example, at Autymate, we sync Zendesk (for support tickets), Stripe (for subscription tracking), Monday.com (for developer tickets and project costs), SQL Server (for our app-specific data), and other various systems together to get a clear picture of our remote employees and their success at making our customers smile.
Remote work has been a positive development for today’s workers. However, despite the challenges that may arise from this innovation in the labor market, automation can provide solutions to optimize the remote work setup further.
Written for autymate.com by Jolene Bennett
