Nine Steps Leaders Can Take To Make The Most Of The Growing Remote Workforce

Last year’s challenges were too many to count, but one of the most ever-present ones was the shift to an online workforce. Remote workers are nothing new—they’ve been around for at least a decade in some form or another. However, they’ve been mostly contractors and freelancers, not full-time employees.

With the widespread focus on remote work still necessary, business leaders need to find a way to capitalize on the growing remote workforce. To help, nine professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss practical ways business owners can make the most out of this revolutionary change.

1. Support Your Remote Team Financially

Remote work brings a lot of disconnection. More communication and empathy from employers is critical. For developed countries, remote employees will see a hike in their bills, especially for electricity, while the company will typically see lower costs. These savings should somehow be used to subsidize employees’ remote work expenses. For developing countries, employers should find a way to get their employees power banks, support them to install stronger internet connections or just pay some form of subsidy to fuel their generators. Also, there will be a growing need for more virtual work rituals to keep people together. Online meetings should always be held with video so it’s easier to know when one is disconnected. – Chimezie Emewulu, Seamfix Limited

2. Leverage Good Communication Tools

There can be some growing pains when transitioning your business into a remote work environment, but there are many helpful programs and services to make the transition easier. First, it’s essential to have a good communication platform to keep everyone in contact with each other. I’ve used Slack for several years now for this exact purpose. For complicated tasks that require multiple people to complete, Trello is another extremely helpful resource to keep things organized and track each team member’s contributions. – Bryce Welker, CPA Exam Guy

3. Improve Your Documentation

An underestimated yet vital step that going remote forces you to take is improving your documentation. When you have a remote team and are trying to onboard people from different time zones and places, having documentation becomes essential. It also saves time. Documenting your work processes will become a priority, which then makes it possible for your business to continue operating even if your team members change. Use a cloud-based tool like Google Drive to share and maintain your documents. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

4. Hire Talent Across The Country

I’m an in-person manager and the transition to a virtual environment was hard at first, but we’ve been able to hire talent all over the country, which has helped us grow through the pandemic. Keeping a regular schedule of short check-in virtual meetings has been important. We have a morning standup that lasts about 15 minutes and an end-of-day wrap-up that lets us blow off some steam and have a few laughs. It’s nothing like the in-office laughter and connection, but it helps keep our different teams communicating even when the work doesn’t connect them daily. – Kara Brown, LeadCoverage

5. Keep Tabs On Managers

Companies with more than 20 or so remote full-time workers are hard for a single executive to manage. Compartmentalizing your company into teams (e.g., Sales, Marketing, Engineering) and having daily video check-ins with the manager or director of each team will help you monitor the progress and development of every team member. To keep the team feeling cohesive, consider having a weekly or biweekly all-hands video conference call with every employee. This way, your employees know who you are and feel like they’re included in the decision-making and executive function of the company. After all, you want your company to look, feel and function like a genuine team, and not a fragmented conglomerate of several teams working independently of one another. – Amine Rahal, IronMonk Solutions

6. Maintain Consistent Communication

There are some challenges to managing a remote team. You need to maintain clear communication about goals and expectations. When people are working from different locations and don’t meet in live meetings, there are potential problems such as miscommunication, redundancy and a lack of accountability. The most important thing is to start with a definite plan and make sure everyone knows their role. Consistent online video calls are the next best thing to meeting in person, so make use of them. Each team member also needs to check in at regular intervals to make sure they are on track. In general, I’d say the best approach is to use the tools and methods that make remote work as much like traditional in-office work as possible. – Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting

7. Keep Track Of Mental Well-Being

In remote workforces, it’s critically important to keep track of (and improve) team dynamics and overall mental well-being. Though everyone can usually find a way to manage “working from home,” the difficulty many of us face is that we are actually “living in the office.” There is no longer a separation between home and office, and we find ourselves distanced from both families and co-workers at the same time. Leaders need to empower their employees to shut down and spend time with their families, while at the same time providing more opportunities for bonding with their teams with events, programs and, if at all possible, recreating water cooler discussions among colleagues by using video chats to humanize the workforce and define a sense of “remote togetherness” within the business. – James Behmke, Behmke Innovation Group LLC

8. Experiment With Virtual Reality

For Christmas this year we are giving all of our employees virtual reality headsets and starting to run meetings and events in various VR applications. Zoom fatigue is real and taking a toll on many businesses. Additionally, being in a creative industry, it is incredibly difficult to do brainstorm and ideation sessions in 2D settings. While we’d prefer to do these in person, VR offers a surprisingly pleasant experience for things like whiteboarding and sticky note exercises. The quality has been going up and prices coming down so now it costs less than a plane flight to equip your team with this new tool. My staff is really enjoying this change and I think we are going to see more and more businesses adopt it. – Tony Scherba, Yeti

9. Create Clear Metrics And Review Regularly

It is important to remember who is on the other side of the GoToMeeting or Slack call. Employees are nervous that they don’t look busy enough. Managers are nervous that their team is falling behind on goals. The most simple step is to create metrics that drive behavior you want and review them at least weekly. -Marjorie Adams, Fourlane