The following is a sponsored blog post:
We love working remotely. It’s one of the best ways to get more done, in our opinion. You don’t have to put up with constant interruptions from coworkers, and you get to make yourself comfortable at home or in a coffee shop while you work away at your laptop. While many offices (most, in fact) are still working on the model of having people in house, the idea of remote companies is growing in popularity as more and more businesses adopt this model.
It helps, of course, that there has been a welcome increase in the number of convenient solutions for remote working, like virtual offices. Virtual offices make the whole remote working process so simple, as they allow companies all over the world to have a physical address – without actually having to rent a commercial premises and pay huge costs for an office. If you want to know more about virtual offices you can read about them here: www.servcorp.com.sg/en/virtual-offices/.
Employers and business owners now have the freedom to hire staff from all over the world, and can realistically work from anywhere. Virtual offices are an inexpensive and hugely effective way to maximize the advantage of a remote team set up. How? You enjoy the benefits of a prestigious address without the costs, and your remote team can work from anywhere knowing that they never have to get public transport to work!
After all – one of the most mentioned reasons as to why companies invest in a commercial lease is because of the prestige of having a good address. But now, you can get the address at a fraction of the cost and enjoy all the benefits of a remote team. Win-win!
If you’re feeling uneasy at the prospect of a remote team then consider this: Upwork found that it takes 43 days to on-board an in-house team member, compared with just three days for a remote worker. Not to mention the fact that when you’re open to remote work you’re not just limited to hiring people from your local area – you can hire people from ANYWHERE.
So to help you face the prospect of remote work with your team we have outlined some simple tips. Take a look.
How to get tech
You need to make sure that you are investing in the people who are in your remote team as actual team members – not contractors or freelancers. As such, you need to ensure that you are covering the technology required to make them a key part of the team. If you want people calling into meetings you don’t want half the meeting time taken up with a struggle in technology. You want to be up and running easily and quickly. So, you need to finance the right kind of IT to make remote work easy for both you and your staff.
Communicate
Knowing what makes for good communication in a face to face office environment is hard enough – let alone when you’re communicating from what is potentially halfway around the world. You need to ensure that everything you say is clear to avoid things being misconstrued, and if some of your team have English as a second or third language you must be mindful of this.
Go above and beyond
When you’re working in a physical office with all of your staff you make an effort every month or so to have pizza or to get out with the team and build that magical element: culture. When you have a remote team you need to go the extra mile sometimes, which can mean travel or it might be as simple as home delivered flowers to make your team feel special.
Whatever you choose to do to keep your remote team strong, make sure you do it 100%. The benefits of a remote team are not to be understated, and with the right communication and technology behind you nothing is impossible.