3 Ways to Increase Transparency While Working with Remote Teams
Working with remote teams can allow for tremendous flexibility — not only for the employees, who get to enjoy more convenient workplaces, but also for the employers who are able to create teams with richer skill sets and global connections. However, despite these benefits, managing a remote team does take some finesse on the part of the team leader or manager, to ensure productivity.
One of the major considerations of remote teams is having enough transparency to ensure that the team can work well together. Some teams may encounter difficulties with working in different timezones, others simply don’t know exactly the best ways to connect so that team members have adequate access to each other while working, and that updates and changes can be easily made to projects in a timely manner. Productivity can suffer when transparency is not present. Here are three ways that a team leader can make transparency a priority, and increase productivity at the same time.
1. Simplify communication:
Ensuring that all team members are able to quickly and efficiently communicate with one another throughout the lifespan of a project will help make everyone more productive. There are many options for those working in a virtual workspace, but determining exactly how it should look for your team is important. For example, real time video chat may not work well if your teams consist of members around the globe in different time zones. Email may lead to delays in responses or team members being left off of threads.
Fortunately, there are tons of helpful apps that can help keep track of all team members’ contributions, comments, and questions. If all team members make it a habit to check in daily, then ideas and issues can be addressed seamlessly. Another option is to keep a chat room constantly open, and have each member of the team stay logged in to communicate with others who are on simultaneously.
2. Insist on accountability
Each team member, although working flexibly in many cases, should be able to report on their work output in a manner that is easy for all team members to access. Tracking progress is important for any project, and increasing transparency by making team members accountable for their work output can help keep team morale high and productivity at good levels.
3. Use the right software
Workflow management software apps are helpful for keeping things on track. Sharing documents, allowing for simultaneous editing, collaborating, and having conversations can all help to organize virtual teams and keep projects progressing. Again, these are tools that help to increase transparency, without which many projects stall or tank completely.
Having transparency for virtual teams is critical in today’s digital workplace. With increasing numbers of employees and contractors working remotely, ensuring that they are performing the required tasks, as well as ensuring that they feel connected to the team, will help to increase work output and make your business run more smoothly. Use these strategies to increase transparency, and watch how your teams are better able to interact and get the job done.
