Bantter BlogBy Amanda Winstead
Managing a remote team can meaningfully improve your employee’s wellness and boost their daily productivity. However, if you want to make the most of remote technology, you’ll likely need to make a few changes to your leadership style.
Altering your approach to leadership is particularly important if you work in project management, where meeting deadlines and hitting pre-established goals is key. A few simple changes to your management approach can empower your employees and help everyone get more done in the workday.
Adopting agile work principles can boost employee morale and reduce turnover. Employees around the world are quiet quitting their remote jobs in search of greener pastures; employers must work hard to keep talent content. You can reduce the risk of turnover by embracing cutting-edge methodologies that keep folks happy and increase their productivity.
Funding Agile Workstations
Many remote workers already have established home offices that support their productivity and help them get more done in a day. However, folks who are newer to remote work may still be working from the kitchen island or dining room table. This is almost certain to derail their productivity and leave them unable to utilize agile methodologies.
Rather than expecting folks to fund their own home office, set your team up for project success by funding the conversion of ancillary spaces like garages or sheds into home offices. As a project manager, you can introduce remote employees to your company by teaching them how to convert a garage into a home office by:
- Decluttering the space.
- Picking up necessities like power strips, heating/cooling units, insulation, and proper security.
- Setting up lighting to boost focus and reduce eye strain.
- Funding furniture like PC chairs, standing desks, and coffee bars.
- Adding small personal touches like artwork and vinyl graphics.
Ultimately, your employee’s workstation is their own to take care of. However, new hires are sure to thank you for investing in their health, well-being, and productivity by funding some portion of their office while they attempt to create a functional, agile workstation. Just be clear about your budget and give folks advice while they search for new items.
Utilizing Your Collaboration Applications
As a remote project manager, you probably won’t ever meet your employees in a physical workspace. That means you need to make the most of shared collaborative applications like Monday. This software is essential for any remote workflow, and underutilizing the tools available will surely impede your agility as a team.
Get off to a great start by ensuring all of your applications integrate properly with one another. This will make your tech stack appear seamless, as folks won’t need to bounce between applications in order to track ongoing projects or update their coworkers on market trends. For example, if you’re using an application like Monday, you probably want to opt for complimentary tools like Asana, Salesforce, and Google Drive. Properly leveraging integrated workflows and collaboration tools boosts agility by:
- Improving your team’s coordination.
- Reducing the risk of costly human errors.
- Simplifying the management process.
Utilizing cutting-edge tools like Monday increases your security, too, as these firms invest millions into maintaining the security of their software. Doing so is crucial, as a data leak is costly and will set your project back weeks, if not months.
Many of these programs also use cloud-based software to revolutionize project management. Working synchronously on shared documents is central to your efforts to enhance operational agility, as people can work that much quicker when they are working from the same page. Likewise, if you allow flexi-work, you can empower your employees by ensuring they can pick up where their coworkers left off. This can be transformative if you manage folks in different time zones and want productivity to remain high around the clock.
Remote Scheduling
It’s easy to see when employees are available for meetings when working in a physical office, and you’re far more likely to catch up informally when working together in real life. However, when you move to remote work, you must intentionally create time to check in with your team. This can be a real headache, as scheduling meetings at inappropriate times will undermine your productivity and agility.
You can reduce the risk of meeting overload and improve your project management skills by using tools that help you see your staff’s schedule. You can also use the data-driven application to track productivity throughout the day and identify when your team is at peak productivity. Workflow analytics means you can schedule meetings at more tactful times and reduce the risk of burnout amongst your employees.
Conclusion
Effective remote project management can empower your team and boost your business’s agility. However, before you set folks loose on collaborative tools, you’ll need to create a great work environment that supports their productivity. Get the ball rolling by setting aside some funds for remote offices, as your employees will perform that much better when working from a cool, comfortable workstation.
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