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5 Ways to Boost Collaboration within Your Remote Team

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Collaboration with Remote Team|5 Ways to Boost Collaboration within Your Remote TeamWhether you’re working out of a shared office space or remotely, effective collaboration among your team is vital to your success. It’s important to facilitate communication between coworkers and ensure you’re approachable as a manager. If your employees are currently working from home, you need to maintain a certain level of collaboration remotely. There are several advanced tools you can use such as task or project management software, or video conferencing. You could also consider renting a coworking office space, to work together in person. Here are five ways to boost collaboration within your team.

Invest in the right tools

If your team is working remotely, they will need access to the best online communication tools. Ensure each employee is comfortably set up at home with an ergonomic workspace and strong internet connection. You also may need to consider supplying them with updated equipment. Train your team and make sure they’re confident using video conferencing and cloud-based software.

Consider a coworking space

You could also consider renting a coworking space on a short-term basis. You can choose whether to hot desk or rent a semi-private or private office. This way you can work together in person but you won’t have to worry about renting or buying an office permanently. You and your team will have access to all the necessary amenities without any extra expense. It’s an ideal solution for startups and small businesses.

Daily catchups

There are many benefits of daily standups and you can recreate these remotely. Have a set time in the morning to check in with the entire team. Ensure everyone is aware of their daily goals and give them the opportunity to ask any relevant questions. Daily catchups are also a nice way to start the day, maintain a friendly environment, and boost morale. If you prefer, you could include a quick quiz or a game as an ice breaker.

Task management software

If you invest in the latest task management software, you’ll be able to track your remote team’s schedule and daily activities. This is a useful way to judge whether each member of your team is spending the right amount of time on tasks, or if they need more time. You can also use this data to learn ways you can be more productive and look for areas of improvement. Your staff will also be able to communicate through this cloud-based application and update their progress as and when in real-time.

Communicate your mission

In order to successfully grow your business, you need to communicate your mission and vision to your employees and get them on board. The best mission statements are inspiring, not only to potential customers but also to the people that work for you. Articulate your company’s values and your plans for the future. Employees prefer to feel part of something important, that also aligns with their own principles. Make them proud to work for your company. This will help to create more engaged and motivate staff and boost collaboration.

Managing Your Business From Afar

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |managing your business|Managing Your Business From AfarIf you are the kind of manager who likes to have a real hands-on approach with your business and what is taking place inside it, then you probably want to be able to do that no matter where you are. You might be travelling the world or on break, but you still want to be able to look into what is going on in your business and work out how to make the changes you want. Actually, it’s always possible to manage your business from afar, and as long as you are aware of how to do it, you will find that it is easier than you think.

Remote Viewing

One of the best ways to maintain a real hands-on approach even while being nowhere near the office is to use remote viewing, which is a means of taking control of a computer screen from somewhere else. There are many ways of doing this, but the best ones are those that allow you to have a whole overview of what is going on in your systems from a piece of software on your own computer or smartphone. Something like teamviewer might be helpful here – and if you are lucky you can find a teamviewer coupon to help reduce the cost a little.

The Cloud

More and more businesses are using the cloud, often without even really knowing what it is or how it works. In essence, the cloud is just a server that is held externally, and used by you the client from whatever device you happen to be on. It’s actually much simpler than it might seem. If you have ever used Google Docs, or shared files in Dropbox, then you have used a cloud service of some kind. This is obviously very useful if you want to manage your affairs from afar, especially if you have previously shared the right files on the cloud.

Your Smartphone

Your smartphone is likely going to become one of the most important things that you have on you if you are going to want to travel and still be in touch with the business back home. With a smartphone, you can send and receive emails, do some twitter marketing, access a cloud service, and of course take phone calls. It’s a great way to stay in touch, and you will find that it is hard to really go without it these days if you want to manage your business no matter where you might be.

Putting Someone In Charge

Of course, whenever you are away, you will also want to put someone in charge whom you trust with proceedings. You can also then communicate with them directly if you want to get a sense of what is going on in the business, and that is something that you are going to find incredibly useful indeed. With that kind of person on board, managing your business from afar will feel like a much easier thing indeed, and it will help you to have trust in what is going on too.