Today, employees do not have to work in the office. We share with you the three most important principles of an effective remote team. What is more, there are types of businesses where remote teamwork is not a luxury but a necessity. Sometimes employees need to work in different countries, so it is important to properly establish a workflow between teams in different locations.
Let’s figure out how this is possible.
The first principle: Working in cloud services
Only with the help of cloud services is it possible to establish a full-fledged workflow. The main advantage of cloud services is that they are not tied to a specific computer. To continue working on the project, you just need to log in to your account from any device.
The full-fledged work of an international team requires four types of cloud programs.
- Cloud storage of information. The main thing is that each team member has access to working documents.
- Messengers. It requires both personal communication with each employee, as well as general calls of departments, managers, or all employees.
- IP telephony. It is necessary for customer service and sales departments.
- Project management systems. They allow you to coordinate the work of remote employees.
The selection of specific combinations of services is a purely individual process. We advise you to familiarize yourself with the functions of different services and choose the ones that are right for you. For example, if you decide to relocate your team somewhere, for instance, to move your IT outsourcing to Latin America, it is more important to properly organize project management so that no one gets confused about deadlines and the work is done on time.
The second principle: KPI, not a working day from 9 to 18
A fixed working day is good for a company that operates in the same time zone. But for an international team, it imposes strong restrictions.
Firstly, it will be extremely difficult for the manager to evaluate the work of individual employees due to their disunity in time.
Secondly, it will be more difficult to coordinate the work of specialists. Especially if the working days do not completely coincide – for example, in one location, the working day is already over (7 PM), and in another, it is just beginning (9 AM).
At the level of company management, it is better to replace the concept of a working day with the results of KPI work. It is necessary to set clear work tasks for employees and give them a deadline by which everything should be ready. The employees themselves are engaged in planning the working day. This requires a certain level of trust but removes the need for total control.
How to analyze KPIs
- Each employee or supervisor must designate tasks for a specific period in the general calendar of the CRM system.
- When the task is completed, the employee marks it in the system.
- At the end of the reporting period, the head analyzes the quality of each employee’s work.
The third principle: Team communication
One of the main questions for creating an international team of specialists is how to ensure full-fledged communication between employees so that they feel like one team and not a collection of individual professionals.
Lack of communication can negatively affect the quality of work. After all, man is a social being. To make employees feel like part of a team, organize video meetings. Choose a time when the meeting will be more or less convenient for everyone, and call once a week. This is especially true if the team is small.
And if the company’s finances allow, once a year, gather everyone together and arrange a corporate holiday. Believe me, the money spent on it is more than compensated by an increase in the working mood of employees for several months ahead.
If you correctly take these three steps, the team will move the company with excellent speed. And it doesn’t matter in which countries the employees work – the results of the work will be excellent.
The main thing is to cope with difficulties in the first stages. But then you will be able to evaluate all the real advantages of a remote team.