Working remotely?

If you haven’t experienced much work on a remote basis, especially for an extended period, you likely have questions and concerns.

Here are two challenges I’ve experienced as a contractor and solutions that have helped me prevent or address issues:

• Team inclusiveness — Physical proximity makes teamwork easier, due to the chance for spontaneous conversations, the immediacy of sharing products or materials, opportunities for ad hoc meetings, and other advantages.

The best solution I’ve found is to regularly communicate one-on-one with multiple team members. Ask plenty of questions, including ones such as, “Is there anything else I should know about regarding the team or this project?”

• Feedback about projects — It can be common to feel like you’re working blindly at times as a remote worker. You might submit a report, parts of the project or other deliverables and receive inadequate feedback or even silence.

The only solution I’ve found to resolve this is to directly ask for feedback, sometimes on a very specific level. For example, instead of just asking, “What do you think about this deliverable?” I might ask, “Have I missed anything?” and “Do you have suggestions to improve this deliverable?”