You may wonder how to improve collaboration and engagement among your remote team. Before the pandemic, many online companies and organizations functioned just fine. But, working with a remote team can be a challenge if it is new to you.
There is a constant struggle to keep your team together, motivated, and collaborative. If your team fails, your business is not likely to survive in this competitive environment.
But not to worry, because if you have recognized the need to build collaboration in your team, you are not very far from implementing it either. Here are some practices that you can incorporate into your team to improve collaboration, remote working software
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Clear and frequent communication
The secret to improving remote team collaboration is effective communication. It is crucial to actively connect with team members in a remote setting. Make sure everyone is properly acquainted with chat and video conferencing solutions and is making use of standard channels for communication.
No more than one day of a gap should remain in communication with the team. Frequent communication is just as important as clear communication. Communication must be to the point, avoiding any unnecessary information and the potential for miscommunication.
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Set goals and assign tasks
Leaders and managers should stress the need of providing concise goals. It is important for remote workers to understand their roles and how to collaborate effectively with their colleagues. If team members don’t know what they’re working towards, then the collaboration tools are useless.
To keep things running smoothly, it’s important to hold frequent virtual team meetings and keep everyone apprised of their accomplishments and assigned duties. Weekly sprints, or monthly and bi-monthly milestones are also suggested to keep the team at the top of tasks.
Make sure your team has access to learning resources as well to utilize and grow while they work on their assigned tasks. You can always use digital tools like Bridge Learning that aid learning and development of employees but also promote connectedness and alignment with the team.
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Build transparency
Trust is essential between the members of any team. What builds trust is transparency. You need transparency with your team members about what work they are doing today, how they are feeling, and the challenges that they are facing so you can help them as needed.
Regular check-ins will allow you to keep the team’s productivity high and get an insight into their well-being. This will give you more structure to plan agendas and calls with members.
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Use a discussion channel
Live chat is a great way for remote teams to communicate, but if every conversation goes through the same channel, information will get lost quickly. Also, people can stop paying attention if they keep getting a lot of information that has nothing to do with them.
Use multiple channels to keep different discussion topics separate so you can keep track of your online communications and avoid getting too much information. You can keep one channel for daily tasks, one for problems and challenges, and one channel each for project teams. You may also keep a quirky-named channel for social communications and chill activities for the team.
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Have an ice breaker
Consider implementing activities into meetings to achieve transparency and clear communication. Start with ice-breaker sessions so the entire team can participate. Keep it easy and relaxed so that everyone is encouraged to speak. Once the team feels comfortable with each other, you can start playing interactive games during monthly meetings. For example, escape rooms, virtual trivia, or murder mysteries are fun activities to enhance collaboration and co-worker bonding.
Good ice-breaker sessions and games can add fun and excitement to mundane work meetings.
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Using time zones to advantage
Do some of your developers work at night while others sleep? This is a one-of-a-kind chance for your team to be productive “around the clock”. When a team member’s day is over, they can give their work to someone who is just starting their shift. Also, if your developers work in a different time zone than your reviewers, their work can be looked over during their off hours. This cuts down on delays and speeds up the process.
Any team that wants to succeed must work together in collaboration. But when your team works remotely, it can be hard to make and keep a collaborative environment. By using the six tips above, you can make it easier for your remote team to work together. This will help them be more efficient and productive, which will lead to more successful projects.
