5 Strategies to Improve Your Remote Team Management

The concept of outsourcing is not new in the global entrepreneurial market. This process of hiring one or more remote employees for your work projects has become very popular for the big stack of benefits it brings along to your business. Some of these benefits are cost savings, higher productivity, quality services and easy scalability. The impact of COVID-19 has further laid emphasis on the working model of outsourcing as it has become a necessity for many businesses to survive and thrive today. Business owners from across the world are adopting the trend to hire remote employees from India. But there are several challenges of managing remote employees that need to be averted for a successful outsourcing experience.

If you’re already outsourcing, or planning to do so in the near future, learning the art to manage a remote team is extremely crucial. It might be difficult at first, but with the passage of time, you can pioneer the skills required for virtual team management. Your virtual employees are sitting miles away from you and it’s important to bridge this gap efficiently so that the quality or quantity of your work never suffers. Here are some tried and tested strategies to help mitigate these issues and make your outsourcing experience, a flawless one:

1. Minimising time zone hitches

In case you are operating from US or UK, and willing to hire remote employees from India, they might be sleeping when you are working and vice-versa. Communicating with them to share your requirements or feedback properly can become really difficult in such a scenario. To avoid this, it’s best to use online meeting platforms like Skype or Google Meet to discuss your everyday plans at a common meeting time. This will help increase the response time and attention required to accomplish essential tasks, make important decisions and resolve bugs.

2. Being on the same page

One of the biggest challenges of managing remote employees is to keep them on the same page as your in-house employees. In business, every decision and achievement counts, and thus sharing them with your team members is a good practice. Sharing about minor decisions and accomplishments can also make a major difference in making your remote team feel like a valued member of your organisation. Besides establishing a transparent work culture, this will also encourage your team members to deliver their hundred percent in making your business grow.

3. Building a reliable rapport

Having a solid rapport and personal connection with your agile remote teams is very important. You can make face-to-face video conferencing a regular part of your team management exercise. Also, try to talk freely as you would with your in-house employees, and talk about things other than work too. This will help you build trust and boost morale among your dedicated virtual team members. You will also be able to minimise missed expectations and ease up self-organisation this way. Wrapping your head around things is not easy for both the parties and hence, allowing some amount of time is required to establish a healthy work relationship.

4. Using right technology at right time

As already discussed, video calling is an inseparable function to manage a remote team effectively, but it might not be the right solution for every little thing. It’s best if you can restrict video calling for regular meetings or crucial face-to-face interactions. However, you need to comprehensively study about the latest tools and technologies available in the online world to streamline your tasks and dealing around outsourcing. For example, if you want to document an everyday thing or fix a minor issue, you can make use of other methods like internal social networking platforms, e-mails or phone calls. Trusted outsourcing vendors also offer employee activity tracking tools to assist you in monitoring your remote employees during their work hours.

5. Avoiding micromanagement

Business owners often hire remote employees from India but fail to focus on their tasks and the positive side of work. The outsourcing experts suggest to offer flexibility in your remote team’s working routine. This implies that you shouldn’t strictly keep an eye on all their activities if they are working efficiently and submitting the deliverables within the prescribed time frame.

We sincerely hope that the above-mentioned points help you uncomplicate your outsourcing experience and master the art to manage a remote team.