Due to the Covid 19 pandemic occurrence, many offices are shifting their operations from central physical office settings to remote working and utilizing rented private offices offered by places like Office Evolution. This shift is causing an unexpected appreciation for the joys of working remotely. Though it may be a different animal altogether than working in the traditional office setting, running a productive remote team can be an interesting and rewarding endeavor.
Remote Employee Communication
The primary component to maintaining a well run office team remotely is, you guessed it, communication. Communication keeps the remote team feeling a sense of connection with one another even when not physically present in the same shared space. In a sense, the remote team does operate within a shared space, albeit a virtual one. In this virtual space, it is important to maintain communication throughout. It is even possible that remote teams may find it easier to communicate openly with one another in the absence of physical presence. Issues can come up that may not arise in the physical workplace, such as gender differences at work, and sentiments around power hierarchies in the workplace.
Remote Management
Because the presence of the boss is not felt by the employee directly in the room, it is necessary for the management team to take extra measures in order to monitor the employees' work when operating the office remotely. The employees need to feel that even though they are in their own home, they are working within a space that is run by their boss. Employees need direction and a sense of reliance upon the management of a company. There are multiple ways to achieve this sentiment with remote office work. One such way is through the implementation of more frequent deadlines.
Whereas the employee working in an in-person office setting might be assigned a deadline to complete a project by this Friday afternoon, the employee working in a virtual remote office setting might require instead a deadline for drafting up the outline for a project by Wednesday, finishing the final edits by Thursday, and finally submitting the project by Friday afternoon.
Having more frequent deadlines allows the employee to feel the presence of management at his or her side throughout the project composition. This process often naturally encourages more communication between employee and superior. This means that the employee may e-mail or phone the boss throughout the process of each deadline. A good boss will be not only prepared but overjoyed to hear how the process is going for his or her employee. The aforementioned tools can be implemented in managing teams remotely.