Since the Covid-19 pandemic turned the global workforce upside down, many organizations have chosen to embrace the remote work initiative as their long-term strategy.
With benefits like not having to pay to lease a physical office and eliminating the rush-hour commute, working remotely was an easy choice for some companies. And let’s not forget the improved work-life balance that remote work present. One study shows employees who work from home are 22% happier than workers who always have to report into an on-site office location.
Even with all its perks, it’s normal to struggle with making sure your remote team is as productive as they were when staff came into the office every day. To ensure productivity never takes a dip, consider implementing these five tips in 2022.
1. Educate Your Team To Recognize the Warning Signs of Scams and Online Threats
When your team is working remotely, the last thing anyone wants to deal with is IT issues or cybersecurity matters. These hurdles take hours, days, or even weeks to solve, and it throws a wrench in the productivity gears.
Managers make an effort to educate their team on how to recognize the warning signs of identity theft, online threats, and scams. Knowing these red flags save everyone time, energy, and money.
When it comes to identity theft, there are several signs you tell your team to watch out for so that their sensitive data never falls into the wrong hands. For example, signs of financial fraud include unfamiliar charges within their bank account or on their credit card statement and frequent phone calls from debt collectors, interrupting their workday. Make sure they also know to check their credit score daily, as a significant drop also indicate financial fraud and a stolen identity.
It’s also wise to let the team in on the signs of internet fraud. Instances like getting alerts regarding login attempts to specific online tools or social media accounts and receiving multiple emails alerting the team of a data breach that recommend changing their password immediately.
Knowing signs of identity theft is crucial to maximizing the productivity levels of a remote team.
2. Streamline Communication With Customers
Next, remote workers have a streamlined way of communication with customers. No matter where your team is located or where in the world customers are be working, a centralized software solution is what takes mediocre customer communication and elevates it to be exceptional.
For that, it’s in every company's best interest to consider a cloud call center, which distribute inbound and outbound calls over the internet. This makes it possible to have conversations with leads and customers anywhere, making them the perfect solution for remote teams.
Plus, a cloud call center is easy to set up -- all your team require is an internet connection, and they fire it up from wherever they choose to work.
3. Create a Roadmap for Your Efforts To Keep Everyone on the Same Page
Once external communication is under control, take a look at the internal roadmap used cross-functionally amongst your remote team. Members of the same team and within different departments are always on the same page regarding projects, goals, deadlines, and strategies -- whether they’re in the same city or spread out globally.
No matter what’s within the project pipeline, remote teams get a productivity boost with tools like Preceden timeline software, making it easy for workers to visualize what’s around the corner. Strategy and planning tools limit minute details, smaller tasks, and critical events fall through the cracks.
Plus, project roadmap tools make it easier than ever for teams to create, collaborate, and share timelines so that they feel empowered to spend more of their time focused, productive, and on-task.
4. Improve How Sales Follow Up and Track Your Deals
It’s one thing to have a handle on your sales team when everyone is in the same office, but what about when team members are working remotely?
In 2022, remote teams benefit from sales tracking technology, which provides the features and functionality to create new deals, assign tasks, and follow up with leads and potential customers as they move through every stage of the sales pipeline. Plus, because not all leads turn into customers, your sales department easily add lead scoring criteria, so time isn’t wasted nurturing leads that never turn a profit.
Additionally, having a cohesive dashboard that updates sales details in real-time ensures that everyone has access to the same information, no matter where they’re working.
5. Improve Internal Team Communication
As teams have shifted to working remotely, having days jam-packed with meetings is becoming increasingly common. To improve internal team communication, consider asking how many of those meetings are necessary. Are any of these meetings to be scaled back, reduced to bi-weekly instead of weekly, or removed altogether?
Once you’ve cleared up some space on calendars, look at the email inboxes. If your team's inboxes are slowly becoming cluttered, maybe too many emails are being sent, too. Instead, consider managing as much project-based communication as possible in a tool like ActiveCollab.
Having a tool focused on improving communication help eliminate deadlines that seem to appear out of nowhere while ensuring everyone knows where to start, what they’re responsible for, and what comes next. Effective communication give remote teams the collaboration tools to work cohesively, even when they’re not in the same room, successfully.
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Remote Work Guide
Taking Remote Productivity Up a Notch
No matter where in the world your employees are when they start work for the day, even your best worker benefits from these five tips to maximize productivity. From utilizing the right tools to protecting personal data, it’s always the right time to make sure your remote team members perform at their best.
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