Starting remote work? Here's what you need to know

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The transition to remote work can be a painful process if your team has no reliable collaboration tools. It does not matter whether you move your office from offline to online, start a new remote job, or hire a remote team to work in a virtual office, it is important to take into account all advantages and disadvantages of a remote job and be prepared to face all the challenges of working from home.

The main advantage of a remote job is its positive impact on employees:

  • Better work-life balance
  • Increased productivity and focus
  • Less stress
  • Flexibility
  • Comfortable work environment
  • Cost saving

At the same time, employees working remotely may face the following challenges:

  • Communication gap
  • Loneliness and isolation
  • Lack of visibility
  • Worse team collaboration
  • Unhealthy habits
  • Onboarding and training challenges

How to deal with remote work challenges

The transition to a remote job requires thorough preparation and readiness to face challenges. The organization of a virtual office is not as simple as it seems to be. It requires not only a quiet and convenient place for employees, but also certain steps from the employer. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies were forced to switch to remote work, having to go through the process literally overnight. Such a rapid and unexpected transition was a challenge for both workers who were adapting to a new environment and companies trying to manage the sprawling chaos. However, at present, businesses setting up a virtual office know exactly what they need to focus on:

Smooth and reliable communication

While working in the office, all team members had a shared place of communication. However, in a virtual environment, smooth and reliable communication is the core of success. There are several reasons why you need to organize a communication hub for your team:

  • Managers can effectively organize a working process if they know what everyone is working on and when communication is carried out in one place.
  • Employees can better self-organize if they know what their co-workers are working on.
  • Communication helps to overcome isolation, improve productivity and emotional state.

Today, various vendors offer business messengers for secure and reliable communication. Virola business messenger is one among them. It provides the ability to store chat history, exchange files of any size, run video and audio conferences, and communicate in group and private chat rooms.

Efficient collaboration and task management

In the office, there are many things around that remind employees of the work they have to do. While working remotely, it is important to minimize distractions from a steady stream of emails and messages from colleagues and managers. Here are some tools that help organize remote work processes and ensure that every remote employee always knows what to do, what the current goals are, and where the company is going:

  • Task board. The task board shows all tasks and their status. This way, employees and managers see the tasks that are being worked on, completed, and backlog.
  • Task and project management. Such platforms significantly facilitate working on projects, tracking team performance, and managing workflow.
  • Work hours and productivity trackers. Such trackers are useful both to small and large teams. They help to evaluate workload and distribute tasks among team members. Moreover, they help to identify the best employees to grant them a bonus based on their performance.
  • File sharing. Having a secure space for file exchange is not a modern trend, it's a necessity today. Virola business messenger provides the ability to send files in chat conversations without limitations. These files can be easily accessed by chat room members whenever they need them.
  • Video conferencing. Today, it is hard to imagine any workflow without video conferencing. Employees use it to communicate and discuss various tasks. At the same time, it's a great tool for webinars and training. With a video conferencing tool integrated directly into a business messengers, employees can join meetings with a couple of clicks.

Training and onboarding

Onboarding new employees and their further training is one of the toughest challenges remote teams face today. While in-office training was clear and familiar, remote training and onboarding have become a new challenge for many teams. However, with the right tools, this process can become quite smooth and productive.

Isolation and work-life balance

Many people who work remotely work alone. Though isolation is good for concentration, employees can feel isolated. To overcome this challenge, managers organize video calls and communication channels, where employees can talk with one another, discuss office news, and just feel surrounded by other team members.

Maintaining work-life balance is another challenge for remote employees who cannot separate their private life and work. They continue answering calls and chatting with other employees outside working hours. This leads to burnout and reduced productivity. To avoid such situations, employees can change their statuses in business messengers to show they are busy or their working day is over.

The bottom line

The transition to a remote office may be either a painful or pleasant process. Everything depends on the strategy you choose. Just bear in mind that a lack of proper communication and collaboration leads to chaos. At the same time, remote work can be no less productive than onsite one.