How to Boost Your Remote Team Collaboration

How to Boost Your Remote Team Collaboration

You might face some challenges when working together with a team that is not physically there. Working from home is not the same as working in an office – and the differences are obvious. In the prior case, you do not have the ability to visit your coworkers’ cubicles or hold conferences and meetings every morning to check in with everyone.

Despite this, working from home has become quite popular – and it doesn’t seem to stop. Sadly, the COVID-19 crisis has only boosted the need for working remotely. However, there are many benefits that it brings. Not only do you get a more flexible schedule, but you will also be able to attract more talent to your company, by reaching people across the world.

However, there are some disadvantages to this form of work as well. Sometimes, the line between working and living can get blurred. People might be tempted to slack off or they can burn out too fast by working at all times. So, it’s up to you, as the project manager, to take initiative and put a stop to this. Today, we talk about the most important factors for boosting your remote team collaboration.

Find the right tools for the job

What tools you are using to work with your team matter. Because of this, the first thing you need to ensure when setting up your remote team is that they have a good way to collaborate and communicate. This should not come as too hard – after all, one of the main reasons for such an impact of remote working on the workforce was due to technological innovations.

Therefore, there are many amazing zoom alternatives that you need to look into. The main thing you should search for is a way to centralize all your communication. It can be quite easy to be split up between way too many messenger apps and tools. This slows down the work, as well as making the process complicated – and your goal is to make it as simple as possible.

So, find a tool that works best for your team – something that everyone can use, and that can be a singular solution to your communication problem. The thing to keep in mind when searching for it, though, is that you might have different people in your team. Some of them might not be well-informed about the technology, so the tool you pick should be intuitive or easy to explain. You might even want to consider creating or sharing a tutorial with them. This way, you will cut down on those dreaded minutes at the beginning of the call where everyone is screaming to check if they are heard.

Secondly, make sure that the tool you have is also optimized. Not everyone has the newest, fast running machines. Therefore, you need to find a collaboration tool that can work on every computer – and on every platform.

Plan well to boost your remote team collaboration

After you have set up a good team communication, you need to think about the planning of the project process and workflow. This is the second factor in boosting your remote team collaboration – the way you allocate and divide up the resources informs how your team will move forward with completing the tasks.

A perk to working from home that we already mentioned is the flexibility that it offers. However, this can also prove a challenge – the flexible work schedule might offer a chance for slacking or postponing work. This is why you still need to define the schedule well in order for your team to make progress. However, do not exclude flexibility when doing so!

Instead, work with your team to create a schedule that everyone can agree on. The thing to consider here is the different time zones your team is working in. Try to find a place where they overlap so that your team can work together during these times. It’s still important to communicate with them about the schedule – sometimes, the immediate response will be beneficial, but it is just impossible. Try to find a solution that works for everyone.

Centralize the information to get better results

The two factors we described are the staples of boosting your remote team collaboration. However, an important step you need to take is finding a way to combine these two. Sometimes, the split between the collaboration tools and a planning tool can be huge. It will hurt the team’s efficiency and productivity if they keep switching from one to the other.

So, finding a platform that shares both communication and planning tools is essential. This will strengthen the team’s ability to work on a project and be a significant help! It is also important to find a tool that will allow you to easily update information pertaining to the project. You will want your team to get notifications immediately – and speed up their response in this way.

There are two more things to worry about when looking for this tool. One is the ability to search for information. As your business grows, your files will pile up and it can be hard to find the one you were looking for. Finally, a software that allows cross-platform integration will also make working on the project easier and in that way to boost your remote team collaboration.

About the author: Petar Djordjevic is an up-and-coming blogger-to-be. While studying for his master’s degree in General Mathematics, he splits his time between learning as much as he can about writing and theater, and working as content creator at IdeaBuddy, the perfect tool for planning your business.

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