How To Resolve Remote Team Communication Problems?

Jay•July 4, 2021

Remote team communication has become essential to maintain a smooth flow of operations, especially post-pandemic. Project Managers have been striving to strike coordination and collaboration with team members. Remote working was never anticipated for such a prolonged duration.

Did employees always yearn to work remotely?

According to Buffer, 99% of the respondents prefer to work remotely for at least some time for the rest of their careers. No wonder, work from home is the future.

As an employer, your responsibility is to arrange the required facilities for employees to accommodate for remote working.

Even though a remote team offers benefits like freedom and flexibility to work from anywhere, it also presents challenges, like the inability to monitor people and track their progress. So, one must understand the dynamics of remote working to ensure proper workflow.

Over time, companies have realized that the benefits outweigh the challenges and have embraced the remote work culture.

The burden of managing the remote team falls on the shoulders of the Project Manager.

Project Manager’s challenges with Remote Team Communication

- Miscommunication: If a message is not conveyed to the remote team carefully, mistakes are bound to happen. This is why Remote communication is of prime importance.
- Lack of accountability: A Project Manager must ensure the team is accountable for their work. Otherwise, the Project Manager has to take the blame for his team’s actions. Effective Remote Team Management is the key!
- Setting unrealistic deadlines: These kinds of deadlines pressure the team members to finish fast, which results in errors.

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Choosing a good Project Management Software: Software are a dime a dozen, but selecting the best out of them is a task for the Project Manager.
Challenges of remote teamwork: A team must collaborate remotely and this comprises people from different backgrounds and personalities. A Project Manager must collaborate effectively to make remote teamwork a success.

How to resolve Remote Team Communication Problems

Here are a few ways to resolve remote team communication problems when working from home.

1. Set the tone for Remote Team Communications

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Communicating and managing the team members has become complicated after the Covid-19 crisis. Organizing a remote team and remote work processes require different guidelines compared to on-site office rules for better working culture.

Don’t confuse them with numerous software – use a single remote working tool across the organization to maintain uniformity.
Set predetermined work timings so employees can plan accordingly.
Provide proper guidelines to be followed during working hours.
Set deadlines and evaluate the work frequently to ensure they are performing.
Provide standard protocols to follow in case of emergency.

2. Increase Remote Work Productivity

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Working from home is not as comfortable as working from the office, primarily due to distractions and family interruptions. In addition, unannounced office meetings and activities can affect productivity.

Try to schedule meetings and set a fixed time for any project discussions. It is essential to have an environment free from distractions at home and boundaries at the workplace.

3. Use Remote Communication Tools

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Without technology, collaborating remotely is impossible. The below remote working tools can make remote team communication seamless and faster.

Make most out of your team with the below remote work management tools:

Chat Tools: Slack, Discord.
Project Management Tools: Orangescrum, Asana, Trello
Video Conference Tools: Zoom, Google Meet.
Scheduling Tools: Calendly, Doodle.
Cloud File Sharing Tools: Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive.
Focus Tools: Krisp, Noisli.

Orangescrum integrates Slack as a collaboration platform and Google Drive and many other tools for easy file sharing capabilities.

Not all tools are created equally. So, research the remote work communication tools that fit your needs or requirements. Train employees on the selected tools to make sure they use them at total capacity.

4. Track the Progress of employees

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When you work from home remotely, it’s impossible to tell if an employee is working. Lack of work ownership can affect the company’s performance.

So there should be a system to track progress, motivate them to work promptly for managing remote teams effectively. Using project management tools like Orangescrum can help you to manage project details all at one place.

5. Encourage Online Group Activities

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From hiring a new remote team to experienced employees, they need to have a rapport with other group members.

To do that, conducting online activities which require their active participation is an excellent way to build rapport among them. Also, make sure the activities are fun and engaging to the members.

Make sure to give everyone a chance to speak up their mind without criticism. By doing so, you encourage them to have a positive relationship with the company.