Maximize Remote Team Productivity in 5 Easy Ways!

Remote team productivity indirectly translates to quality + quantity with a steady workflow of your projects. Maintaining a work-life balance becomes a hassle when adjusting to the new normal of remote working.

Owl Labs surveyed that nearly 70% of full-time workers are working from home since COVID-19.

The lack of constant face-to-face monitoring has taken a toll on productivity levels.

This being said, staying on tasks, scheduling, and focusing on them has called for more improvements in the overall workflow.

Can managing a remote team still prove to be productive with team members spread across the globe?

Let’s find out—

Strategies to Improve Remote Team Productivity –

1. Avoid Micromanagement

Micromanaging translates to a lack of trust in team members.  If you want to build a successful team, micromanaging is a strict no-no.

Of course, given the current remote working conditions, craving control is very natural.

How to tackle this?

• Set clear expectations right from the beginning.
• Maintain Google Calendar reminders for the team.
• Use feedback from team members to understand the patterns of remote workplace challenges.

A lot of remote work tools help you monitor the workflow and project progress of each team member.

These come with some exceptions—

What should you do if someone under performs?

•  Simply increase their supervision and detect their work.
•  Instead of weekly updates, get them to submit daily updates.

Leaving this exception, the trust in your team gets them to thrive and succeed.

2. Restructure and Streamline

Process improvements and having a good system in place are essential when your team suddenly goes remote. If you’re undergoing rigorous work procedures that consume a lot of hours, it’s time to streamline processes.

Adjusting current processes and procedures can ease heavy workflow.  Losing track of your remote team’s performance goals can lead to a loss of focus and demotivation.

How to tackle this?

• Remove unwanted stages in a workflow and adapt to steps that ensure faster delivery of projects.
• Restructure work on a per-day basis to achieve tasks faster.
• Standardize your workflow by building processes as simple and short as possible.

It’s better to identify the areas that could hurt your remote team productivity. Work on procedural parameters that can help you achieve smaller goals before it’s too late.

 3. Time Tracking Tools

Time tracking for remote workers is another story.

According to Terminal’s 2020 stats, 78% of managers believe their remote employees are overusing time tracking tools.

Now, this is good news!

A Project Manager needs to analyze the performance and the average time taken by a resource to complete a task. No wonder, time tracking is a daunting task.

How to tackle this?

• Identify time wasters per team member.
• Time tracked per task helps to determine the loopholes, challenges, and improvements.
• There are endless features in time tracking tools like GPS tracking, Productivity monitoring, Invoicing, etc.
• Get a time tracking tool that automatically calculates your daily efficiency and productivity.
• A smart time tracking tool gives detailed downloadable reports.

Looking for an all-purpose Time Tracking system that tracks time on individual tasks for a week + analyses a variation in similar task types?

A remote team requires a time tracking tool no matter what task one is working on.

Relieve yourself from this false notion of workaholism and start tracking your lost time!

4. Remote Team Collaboration Tools

Remote work demands flexibility and employee autonomy.

While the whole world works from home, it becomes difficult to get the rest of your team together due to different timelines, break hours, and unexpected hurdles.

How to tackle this?

In times like this, robust remote tools for improving productivity come to the rescue. These tools are designed for easy collaboration and communication across different time zones. They also help to manage processes and increase efficiency.

Working from home becomes a piece of cake when you have great collaboration tools to improve remote work management.

Orangescrum integrates Slack that communicates real-time with your teams in one place.

5. Inspire with Company Culture

Do you agree that a company is made up of people?

An employee’s commitment to a company speaks volumes about their productivity and dedication. If this element goes missing, remote work productivity takes a toll in a big way!

How to tackle this

• Reward employees that exude the company’s core values through their work.
• Practice as the company preaches—If the company policies mention 5 pm as the end of a shift, never email employees after 5 pm or even over weekends.
• Celebrate little wins that motivate employees to achieve the next milestone.
• Give a virtual back pat to team members that struggle with achieving difficult tasks. This highly skyrockets the motivation levels of just about anyone!

When team members are spread across different locations, it becomes difficult to foster work relations. In times, like this, it’s best to remind remote employees of the company culture.

Is Remote Team Productivity your next Goal?

Remote teamwork has reduced overhead expenses for businesses. However, it has also posed a challenge to managers for improving the productivity of remote teams.  With the right Project Management software, it’s easier to hit maximum remote productivity.

Orangescrum is the perfect tool for companies and teams that believe in the big picture of Remote Team Management.

Increase your Team Productivity today!