How to Keep Teams Collaborating When Working from Home

Issues with remote collaboration

Some common areas where remote teams become dysfunctional include staying on schedule, meeting customer expectations, meeting a planned budget, adhering to specifications, and maintaining alignment with the goals.

Here are some common issues that make the collaboration ineffective for teams working remotely:

• Employees working remotely feel isolated and experience a lack of social interaction or getting in contact with other professionals.
• Remote work affects quality of communication for team members. Certain projects need more face-to-face collaboration to move in a fast environment. It really gets difficult when team members work in different time zones.
• Online meetings can be ineffective when people are interrupted if two people trying to talk at the same time or there’s a bad internet connection.
• Productivity reduces when working from home due to ineffective collaboration and communication between teams. It measures the output results and the overall performance of a team and it’s a challenge for remote teams to keep productivity consistent while overcoming inefficient workflows, bad habits and routines.
• The concept of team culture can diminish while working remotely. Since it requires rethinking all the conventions including recruiting, employee performance, collaboration, career progression, and project management.

How can remote teams collaborate effectively?

With the proper use of the right tools, telecommuting and virtual collaboration can become more productive, resulting in higher employee engagement and more unified communications among the team. So what can you do to help remote teams collaborate better?  

1. A virtual office for communication

Typically, a team can communicate through texting, emails, and chat messages. These methods are only sufficient for simple messages. Therefore, it’s better to adopt richer communication methods, such as telephone calls or video conferences, for more complicated messages.

Remote teams need a central platform for communication and collaboration where they can connect, discuss projects, and leave feedback. This way, individuals won’t feel isolated and will be able to collaborate more efficiently. Cross collaboration tools can also help recognize the efforts and achievements of individuals team members, building strong bonds between members through peer recognition without taking a lot of time.

2. A suitable tool for meetings

When multiple employees need to collaborate, it’s better to use a virtual meeting software than a video chat platform as it will allow users to present webinars, train employees, conduct online meetings, and collaborate on a project.

3. A platform for file sharing and project management

Teams collaborating remotely need a file sharing service where they can securely share, store and access files. Additionally, a good project management system will help with monitoring progress and organizing tasks effectively.

4. Automating where possible  

Certain tasks can be very repetitive and time-consuming, with little or no creative input, such as copying and pasting information, or transferring information from an email to a calendar. Therefore, automating simple tasks can help to alleviate employee pressure and enable to the business to become more profitable.

Overcoming remote working challenges

Modern technology enables remote teams to operate efficiently with real-time information delivery and immediate, reliable, and secure access. It guarantees stability while securing private data and the exchange of confidential information. It offers flexibility to automate processes, integrate third-party apps, and configure and customize workflows.

The concept of remote work is going to prevail in the future as it offers a lot of benefits. However, it has its challenges and takes real effort to build a remote team that can work together and collaborate successfully. A lack of human interaction and an increase in at-home distractions can potentially affect the productivity of employees.

It is possible to overcome these challenges by encouraging teams to communicate regularly, reward milestones, and ensure transparent management. With the correct knowledge and use of the right communication and collaboration tools, teams can make a difference even when working from home.    

Further reading

• How to Solve These 3 Remote Meeting Challenges
• Business Critical Collaboration in Today's Modern Workplace
• The Anywhere Worker Guidebook