Remote Work

remote-work-challenges

A Quick Guide For AU Entrepreneurs to Dealing With Remote Work Challenges

Business, Remote Work / By

Remote working is fast becoming the next big thing in human resourcing and organisation staffing in Australia and other parts of the world. This dynamic shift may be largely attributed to the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic but it offers multiple advantages. 

Remote working has allowed millions of qualified people living in low-income regions such as India and Asia to earn money commensurate to their qualifications and service without having to relocate abroad. Also, entrepreneurs access to the best of brains for the delivery of top-notch services.

While the rewards of remote working are high, sourcing and managing remote workers can be very tasking and may even turn out risky sometimes. In this article, every Australian entrepreneur can discover what the many different remote working challenges are and the simple ways to manage them using the right tools.

Hiring Remote Workers

Hiring remote workers is one of the challenges many entrepreneurs face, they are usually at a loss as to what procedure to employ for their hiring process. Although the process of hiring remote workers can be time-consuming, however, if done properly, it can guarantee your team’s success.

Offshore staffing solutions can be done either by making use of BPO companies or remote work agencies or by directly hiring freelancers.

Remote work agencies have grown increasingly sought after due to the pandemic. They provide the right personnel for companies who face the problem of staffing. These agencies are renowned for finding the right talents for any industry and the amount of training they give to their employees on how to deal with the unique challenges of working from home so they can perform better as remote workers. The method of using offshore staffing solutions have proven effective in employing remote workers.

Communication

Effective communication with remote teams is another challenge entrepreneurs deal with. An entrepreneur will constantly need to receive feedback and share ideas with remote workers. The use of just email messaging to communicate may be stiff and restrict expression.

Team collaboration software like Zoom, Workplace and Google Hangout are rather excellent tools that support messaging, video sessions and file sharing.

Monitoring Productivity

It may be quite challenging to determine how much remote workers are contributing to the progress of an organisation. 

A simple way to track progress is to make use of metric tools and provide remote workers with daily goals to achieve such as a specified number of contents to edit or a given number of calls to make. For effectiveness, the use of metrics for remote workers should be commensurate to their abilities and the facilities they have access to.

Scheduling Meetings

Offshore staffing solutions bring up the challenges of differences in time zones. An entrepreneur should factor in this when allocating tasks and ensure tasks are set to be accomplished at least a day before they are needed. This will always allow remote workers with lagging time zones to be able to contribute their required quota to every task.

While scheduling virtual meetings and calls with remote workers, entrepreneurs should make use of tools like calendar apps to determine the exact time in each worker’s time zone. This way, a time frame fair enough to everyone can be selected.

Building the Trust Of Remote Workers

A major challenge with offshore staffing solutions is building trust on both ends. The employer is concerned with how much remote workers will perform while the remote worker is bothered about getting commensurate pay after performing tasks. Employers should build the trust of remote workers by being transparent on things such as pay rate, payment timelines, project expectations, working hours, and status updates on projects.

One-On-One Meetings And Morale

A great way to boost morale is through one-on-one meetings. While it might be too much to schedule this kind of meetings with every member of your remote team, doing it can increase how well workers see their value and allow getting feedback on work performance. It’s easy for remote workers to feel out of touch if one-on-one meetings are not scheduled regularly or every once in a while.

Related article: How To Maintain a Great Workplace Culture In a Remote Model

Conclusion

Offshore staffing solutions are excellent support to working systems in Australia. The processes in hiring and managing remote workers may pose great challenges to inexperienced entrepreneurs. Hence, this article has been provided as the Australian entrepreneur’s guide to dealing with remote work challenges.

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How To Maintain a Great Workplace Culture In a Remote Model

Employee Engagement, Offshoring in the Philippines, Remote Work / By

A company’s culture is the heart of any organisation. It isn’t built overnight, but instead, it involves the participation of employees, HR, and leadership. HR cultivate an environment of belonging that unites the entire team together wherever they may be around the globe and boosts productivity.

You don’t develop a productive and happy team culture by chance. If you’ve done a great job of building an amazing office-based culture you might be wondering how to keep it up even when everyone now works remotely.

In this article, you will learn how to continue growing a positive company culture with your remote team even when scattered around the globe.

Encourage Inclusivity

When people who use to work together now work separately, some will feel fine with it. They will still connect with their colleagues perfectly. But others won’t. New members on the team might not have had the chance to build a rapport as the old-timers have. Ensure you check in on everyone’s needs. Run surveys, ask questions. Introduce ideas that foster inclusiveness, implement them so everyone can feel they belong.

Welcome New Employees In Front Of The Entire Team

As a follow up to the last tip, help new employees blend in by welcoming them in front of the team just like you would when everyone was in an office setting. One way to do this is to ask the new hires questions about themselves, then circulate the answers to the team through email, along with a welcome message. 

Encourage new employees to have one on one meetings with the team members. This way, they can get to know one another and start building some rapport.

Encourage Open Communication And Feedback

Promote transparency by keeping communication channels clear and open. It encourages team connection which is vital to any organisation. Everyone should have a voice in the team, not just the loud extroverts. Reduce any formality or red tape that may keep some employees quiet. Depending on your team size, the more casual and laid-back you are with team communication channels, the more open and honest they typically are. 

Set Expectations On Communication Methods

Clearly defining what purposes each communication channel serves helps to make communication flow better. For example, you may want serious documentation by email, whereas casual team discussions by Skype or Slack.

You can provide a simple guide about where and what to post, so everyone is on the same page. And when new members come in, let them know right away the communication and collaboration tools you use, so they don’t have to email the team to find out.

Keep The ‘Water Cooler Effect’ Going

The ‘watercooler effect’ refers to a common phenomenon in the workplace when employees gather around the office water cooler to chat. It describes the gathering and connection building between people in a certain environment. Like a physical office, this should also be encouraged virtually. You can consider creating a channel for this on your company-wide text tool. You may have to lay ground rules on content, organisation language, humour, so no one gets offended.

Communicate Non-Stop

Great workplace culture is built on communication. Get it wrong, and the culture you seek won’t stick. 

Set aside specific and regular times weekly for an all-hands chat if possible. You can arrange two meetings if time zones prevent this. Go over what the team is working on. Provide details on decisions that might affect the team, and stress on feedback and free flow of communication. These kinds of meetings help disseminate news and get the team motivated.

With regards to the chat software, maintain an always-on policy, even if you may not be at the desk always, someone should be able to message you, so you can see it whenever you get back. Discourage round the clockwork, as this can lead to burnout and breed contempt.

Hold meetings through video conferencing, as this allows everyone to recognise each other, see facial expressions and reactions. Body language is very effective in communication. And finally, try to have regular (or at least) annual face to face meetings.

Related article: Why Leaders Need to Embrace Employee Motivation

Conclusion

Whether you are thinking of adding a new remote team by going the offshore staffing in Manila route or looking to transition your organisation from an on-ground team to a remote one. You need to be equipped with the knowledge on how to preserve the team culture to enable an environment of trust, transparency, and confidence that will keep moving your business forward.