Working in a distributed environment, otherwise called ‘Remote working’ has been on the rise for sometime now and is increasingly getting more popular and practical. Covid19 has forced remote working to a significantly higher percentage of the population and we have little choice but to adapt.
It is inevitable to form new schedules, home offices and even new habits so that working from home (WFH) is both manageable and also productive. Working from home can really throw some challenges, however, it also opens up some possibilities of creating positive changes and increased collaboration amongst teams. For those companies that have adopted remote working, already understand some of the benefits of it:
- It’s a lot more cost effective where wages and services are often cheaper in other regions within or outside the country. For example it’s certainly cheaper to hire talents in Nashville or New Mexico compared to New York. A recent article suggested that Facebook is now directing its compensation based on the location allowing high skilled resources to work from their homes without having to move to San Francisco offices.
- Larger pool of talent to work with when your horizons are much farther.
- Your Solutions automatically start enjoying a 24/7 availability when you are having team members spread out across time zones.
- Gain cultural insights and the advantage of different perspectives.
- Expand your business presence and make connections across the globe.
I’m sure you’re starting to see plenty of other benefits too. And there are also challenges that come with being part of a distributed environment. Disruptive ideas are great, but disruptive implementations are not!
In this article we wanted to share a few best practices of getting the best out of your employees during this period
- Selecting the right technology for your project.
- Ensure high team spirit and morale.
- Pay more attention to onboarding process.
- More accountability and less micromanagement.
- Ensure high level of Collaboration and participation.
- Deliberate celebrations and non-productive engagements.
- Constant feedback to measure and improve.
Selecting the right technology for your project
When considering the right technology tools for your project, there are a few important things to consider. Time zones, language barriers, internet availability, knowledge differences among various team members, Cultural holidays, and New environment burnouts could be some issues that pop up, but surveys have shown that in spite of some of these challenges working from home or working in a distributed environment can be highly productive.
Whether you are working for clients in your own time zone or for someone on the other side of the planet, few elements become key deciding factors and therefore automatically crucial. The size of your team for instance, and how distributed are your team members, play a role in the tools you choose. Always choose tools that most of your team members can adopt. Consider the fact that direct face-to-face discussions have diffused a lot of small issues on a daily basis before, but now that everyone is in their own environment, an effective alternative becomes important. Collaboration is key
Video conferencing and screen sharing solutions that work relatively better with even lower bandwidth connections make for a better choice.
Visualize the complete workflow to understand all the gaps in your process and choose automation tools that bridge those gaps. Handling those workflows becomes crucial for your project delivery. Cost-effectiveness should not be the only primary deciding factor as that could mean you end up with a bunch of different tools that may or may not integrate with each other and you are left with a complex manual workflow to keep up with your timelines.
Ensure high team spirit and morale
When working together in office, few things can be taken for granted as the environment provides those advantages as a byproduct. Collaboration among team members becomes easy when people work face-to-face. Being honest about what you are working on at that very moment is usually transparent when working at one place. The teams are usually undistracted when working as a team to achieve their everyday targets.
- Create a safe space for everyone to contribute.
- Encouraging openness among members.
- Allowing your teams to cope with a routine that best suits their personality and their current environment.
- Extra effort in team building
- Include non-productive engagements to strengthen camaraderie and team spirit.
Pay more attention to onboarding process
More accountability and less micromanagement
- Ensure everyone is clear on their roles and expectations within the team.
- Let your teams know that it’s ok to make mistakes and that owning up to them is not frowned upon.
- Reward practices and instances of accountability.
- Embrace a certain level of vulnerability in the workplace.
- Do not allow members to be just background enablers as it challenges clear accountability.
Ensure high level of Collaboration and participation
Deliberate celebrations and non-productive engagements
Constant feedback to measure and improve
It’s important to set expectations and be realistic about it. Expectations must be measurable, so setting clear KPIs and deadlines becomes vital. Employees must know what they’re supposed to do. Managers need to make sure that tasks are precise and timely. A constant feedback and open reporting increase accountability in an established safe space. It helps to bring up hurdles and roadblocks that they are facing into everyone’s view and makes it easy for the team to report and rectify.
Kanini provides Digital Workspace Solutions that can enhance your employee productivity with modules around employee collaboration, productivity measurements, performance management, coaching and feedback, solutions to nudge employees to improve their performance based on neuroeconomics, etc
