Remote working has become increasingly common with the new technology and software we have today allowing us to work from anywhere in the world. Before the current state of work, almost 50% of employees were already working from home at least half the time, 16% of businesses are exclusively hiring remote teams and the percentage of remote works have grown 140% since 2005.

Remote working can be difficult and isolating for many people. Its shown that frequent communication with managers and employees within the workplace can help the team work effectively. When the communication breaks down the engagement with the work and the productivity starts to fall. Therefore, large companies like Adobe have continuous performance management, they also frequently have employee check-ins.

Having quality feedback keeps the team motivated and on track. Without communication of feedback employees can go in blind and not perform up to standard that they would working in the establishment with the help of their team and managers around them. Organisations should use the right strategies to improve the communication and get the best use out working remotely. Organisations need to understand how a remote team operate differently from a physical environment. Communication, strategies and collaboration are still important. The methods used to get these done change from face to face meetings to video calls, but the process is still the same. Setting clear rules and boundaries can help the team feel connected. We need to be aware that online meetings cause a lot of personal connection activities to be pushed aside. Start a meeting with team building and casual questions. Meetings can get boring so make sure they are engaging otherwise employees might zone out.

Organisations need to trust their teams that their productive, trust they are making this transition to remotely working positively and they are still successful as they were in person. It is important to keep teams engaged and connected with each other and the work. There is already a culture when they are in the office so bringing that culture to the online space to accommodate virtual teams keeps the engagement.

 

Sources:

https://www.eztalks.com/unified-communications/what-is-remote-communication.html

https://www.clearreview.com/importance-real-time-communication-remote-working/