This year, many businesses have had to adapt and change the way that they work to suit the latest guidelines from the government regarding lockdown. For many, the ‘new normal’ involves having a mixture of some staff working from the office and others working remotely – but how do you manage this effectively?
Below, we are going to cover some of the ways that you can manage in-office and remote teams efficiently. Read on to hear what these are.
Improve Communication
One of the most important things that you should do when you are managing combined in-office and remote teams is to improve the way that you communicate. You need to make sure that all of your team members know what they are doing and you need to stay in touch with them as much as possible. It can be easy to forget about the remote team members when you have a few employees in the office so make sure they are kept up to date. There are plenty of tools that can help with this including video conferencing and instant messaging.
Use Effective Software
Onboarding and off-boarding staff who are working remotely can be difficult and many businesses avoid it entirely. However, if you want to efficiently manage your remote teams without on-boarding them in the office, there are options such as cloud service orchestration software. This software can be used by all parties and can keep things running smoothly. You can ensure workflow is in check and keep everything automated that needs to be.
Set Reasonable Goals
When you are managing a team in this way, you need to make sure that you are allocating work effectively and fairly. Some work might require collaboration and this can be tricky for teams who are working remotely to achieve. For this reason, you should ensure that all work is allocated fairly and that the remote workers aren’t left with everything to do. Consider using software that allows checklists to be created as this can be very effective.
Bring The Team Together
As we have already mentioned, communication is very important when it comes to managing an in-house and remote team. However, you shouldn’t just be communicating about work matters, you should also find ways to bring the team together. It is possible that remote employees could feel isolated from the rest of the team, especially if some employees are in the office together. Consider holding team nights virtually for everyone to get involved.
Final Verdict
Managing a team that isn’t right in front of you can be tricky. If you have some team members in the office and others working remotely, you need to make sure that you give them an equal amount of attention. Use any special tools at your disposal to ensure everything goes to plan and the team works as efficiently as possible going forward. Hopefully, things will be back to normal soon.
