A Remote Work Guide: Learn How to Best Manage Your Virtual Workers

It’s no secret that remote work is all the rage these days. But unlike ripped jeans and butterfly clips, this trend impacts more than just our closets. With the after-effects of the pandemic, many companies are favouring a remote or hybrid workplace. While having a remote, borderless workforce sounds great, many business owners ask themselves, how do you manage remote workers? If this sounds like you, don't worry! We’ve created a remote work guide that reviews what remote work is, what the benefits are and how to combat the challenges.  

What is remote work?  

Put simply, remote work refers to a professional environment where employees can work from home or any other location outside of their company’s office. This often involves creating an alternative workspace such as a home office, a coffee shop or if you travel often maybe even an airport lounge. In recent years, tools such as Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have helped to create a strong virtual workplace, allowing employees to work remotely and collaborate on the go.  

Here at STEPS, most of our team works remotely, and we use Microsoft Teams to help us stay organized and host meetings.  

The Benefits of Working From Home

In a fast-paced and highly digital world, companies need to be more flexible than ever before. Remote work can help aid with this and allows companies to be more adaptable to the changes in their industries. As well as adaptability, having employees work from home has other benefits such as improved well-being and lower costs. Let’s review some of the other benefits of remote working.  

1) More efficient communication 

Work management software can make it easier to get everyone on the same page. All communication, files and projects can be easily accessible in the same place. This works to eliminate confusion and boost efficiency. Here at STEPS, we use Asana to assign tasks and projects. To learn more about how to efficiently communicate with your employees remotely, stay tuned for next week’s blog post! 

2) Increased productivity  

By working at home, employees have fewer social distractions. I’m sure we’ve all had moments where we are working on a task but found ourselves distracted by talking with a coworker. Working from home also allows employees more opportunities to take necessary breaks. Everyone works differently and having the freedom to take breaks whenever it best suits you can help to improve performance, motivation and creativity.  

3) Improved employee health and wellness  

With remote work, employees can customize their workspace to make themselves feel most comfortable. This could include elements such as preferred outfits, tech setup or food options. By personalizing their workspace, employees can better meet their physical and emotional needs.  

4) Wider talent pool  

Remote work allows employers to hire talent outside of their local area. This increases the chance of finding a candidate with the exact skills, experience and personality that best suits your company. This also helps to diversify your workforce by bringing in perspectives from different countries and cultures.  

The Challenges of Working From Home

1) Time zone differences 

A geographically diverse workforce comes with differing time zones. This can result in difficulty when trying to figure out a meeting time that works for everyone. Collaboration is crucial for the success of remote work and can help boost employees' morale and work progress.  

How to solve this: 

A great way to work around varying time zones is to use project management tools to help cut down on the meetings needed to discuss projects. But when team check-ins are needed, try to vary the times of meetings so that everyone can attend at least some of the meetings.  It is also important to send the meeting content to those who were unable to attend. 

2) Security risks  

Remote work can open up a company to potential security risks such as security leaks, online hacking or external breaches. Remember that with remote work, the majority of communication is happening online. This can lead to unintentional data exposure when employees are using personal laptops and smartphones to complete their work.  

How to solve this:  

To protect your company’s data from vulnerabilities it is a good idea to store all corporate data and files in a single cloud work management platform. Inform employees that no information should be stored on their laptops or hard drives. You can also give employees online security training to review best practices and remind them of the importance of ensuring that company information remains secure.  

3) Unclear expectations  

Sometimes with remote work, employees can get confused about the amount of work that is expected of them. With everyone setting their own schedules, miscommunication can occur regarding workload. This can lead to missed deadlines, late email replies and an overall decrease in efficiency.  

How to solve this:  

The best way to efficiently communicate expectations is to create a work-from-home policy. By clearly defining elements such as working hours, projects and meetings, you can eliminate uncertainties. This policy also creates a document that both you and the employee can refer to if there is any confusion. To learn more about how to write a work-from-home policy, stay tuned for our later blog post! 

So, there you have it! A general overview of remote work and its various benefits and challenges. Since working remotely does not seem to be a passing fad, you must understand the virtual workspace and equip your team to avoid any remote work challenges. That said, managing remote employees is a whole new ballpark and it can be helpful to have the advice of professionals who specialize in employee relations. Here at STEPS, we offer small business support services and would be happy to work with you to help you better manage your virtual team and the processes and procedures involved in remote work. To learn more about our services visit our home page or reach out to us on our contact page.