Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. With today’s technology, many workers are working remotely. There are certain keys to working with remote teams. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Looking To Grow? You Have To Let Go? How You Can Work With A Remote Team Effectively.
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Growing a business these days means having to find ways to cut financial corners. If you’re someone that’s on the road constantly, remote work is an essential cornerstone of a developing company. Many businesses use remote workers now, but for all of the pros and cons associated with remote working, if this is essential right now, how can you work with a remote pool of workers effectively?
Don’t Confuse Brevity With Clarity
When we looking to maximize our effectiveness and we need to communicate with remote teams via email, we can feel that the fewest number of words possible is the only course of action. But, we can confuse brevity with clarity. You have to think about getting your point across, not just so your workers know what to do, but so you can avoid any bounce back. A lack of clarity will result in more confuse responses which will triple your workload and reduce your productivity for that day, meaning you will have to work hard to catch up later in the week. Regardless of your type of work, whether you’re growing a digital agency, a pool of bloggers, or an e-commerce business, if you have remote workers that have to be firing on all cylinders, you have to ensure that you are able to distill exactly what you mean into a message so that it leaves no stone unturned. This is a fine art.
Breathing Space
The anxieties that creep in when we’re running a remote team is that we, very simply, have no idea how our employees are working. There are ways for us to ensure they are on the right track, regular meetings, either in person or via video call work perfectly fine, but part of the draw of remote working, especially when you are starting up a business, is that the employees have some sense of freedom. They are working from home, so they are able to do things, within reason, their own way. The temptation can be for us to breathe down their necks a lot more and metaphorically look over their shoulder. But you have to think about the overarching productivity. If you are constantly pinging messages to an employee to check on their work, you’ll have to think that this will invariably slow them down. This is why it’s better for you to instigate communications first thing in the morning or the end of the working day. It all depends on the feedback you have to give, but working at home comes with its own unique set of challenges, and we have to think about this, because if we are sending numerous little emails, messages, and we are one step away from picking up the phone and speaking to them, the number of little tasks that they have to do throughout the day that purely involves messaging you back could slow them right down and impact you at the end of the week.
To work with a remote team, it requires the ability to say what you mean, but let them work in their own way. In many ways, you are relinquishing a lot of control, but if you are looking to grow, then you have to let go.
