Guide to Remote Work Collaboration

Now, companies need to be intentional to develop remote cultures that are just as impactful. It’s easy for remote work to turn into daily monotony, but recognition gives everyone a chance to step back and soak in the details. When possible, use scheduling features with email and messaging applications to deliver messages during your employees’ working hours. While we often tend to regard human predictability as a defect, few qualities are more sought-after at work, especially in virtual collaborations.

In an effort to preserve team members’ autonomy without sacrificing productivity, he recommends introducing a time monitoring tool, so people can manage their time while staying on schedule. In the downloadable versions, you’ll find space to add notes for each practice, so you can jot down ideas. Instead, employees always have a place to interact, brainstorm ideas, work together on tasks and projects, and see when their coworkers are active or contributing to a project.

Provide the right tools

However, the switch to remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has made traditional collaboration much less common. With a tool like Float, you can track team capacity and instantly see when team members are overloaded or underutilized. Float provides a bird-eye view of planned work alongside time off so you can understand your team’s capacity at a glance. You can tailor each resource’s availability with custom work hours or use tags to highlight whether they’re full or part-time.

If you cannot make a video call, resort to over-explaining by providing detailed information in the message you are typing or by elaborating the matter over an audio call. This way you can clearly convey what you are thinking to others without them misunderstanding or questioning you. The safest way to avoid this is either by meeting your co-worker in person and explaining things or over-communicating with the platforms you’ve got.

Best collaboration tools and platforms for working remotely

This might sound a bit intrusive, but with the quick setup of background images and blur settings, turning on a camera is simple and private. And it’s not asking too much—you’d just like to ensure everyone is engaged and present rather than making breakfast or watching soccer highlights. Consider having daily check-ins on Slack or initiating more collaborative group projects. Teams that don’t see (or chat) with each other frequently will struggle to form meaningful connections. Many employers have reduced their office spaces since 2020, but that may only compound issues with distractions if employees are returning to the office.

This will help your employees get on board with the shift back to in-person work. Overly rigid mandates will drive the best and brightest employees—those with the most employment options—away. The future of office work is hybrid, and the winners will be those who work with their employees instead of making demands of them. Studies have shown the push to return to the office is one of the leading causes of attrition, and these office mandates are making recruitment more difficult. While there are times when in-office work is beneficial for all, the challenge for employers is finding ways to ensure hybrid work drives engagement and productivity.

Got More Tips?

Video calls can be draining for many employees (dubbed “Zoom fatigue” or “virtual fatigue”). The reasons for this may range from distractions and increased cognitive load to unnatural levels of eye contact. Managers must understand the particular challenges they need to address within their specific team. https://remotemode.net/blog/10-best-remote-team-collaboration-practices/ Identifying each one is the first step in improving team collaboration. Efficient, collaborative meet-ups are essential if your team is remote – so make sure you have a plan for every meeting you call. Managing and measuring work performance gets more challenging the further away team members are.

• Perhaps most important, effective practices improve team productivity, which makes for more efficient output.
• To overcome this challenge, encourage regular virtual brainstorming sessions, collaborative project management tools and designated communication channels for idea sharing.
• It should take into account the work activities and tasks that are better suited for being onsite.

Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics. Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.