Remote teams: The benefits and how to get the most out of them.
Over the years, the ways companies have been working around the world has changed, from big corporations to startups. These changes have brought new ways of working smarter and better. Baby boomers would never think of seeing non-production companies (companies without production facilities) with workers around the world in remote spaces, where the companies have no real presence. Entrepreneurs would work in their garages, but you would not hear them talk of collaborative working spaces and getting help from a virtual assistant or going to a website to hire freelancer.
Technology has made the world more connected than ever, and has made it possible to have remote teams. You can have a meeting with an employee in Hong Kong, another one in the USA, and a third one in Brazil without a problem, working together on the same project. This is not something new, as for years, big corporations have had manufacturing plants around the world in order to get a skilled workforce and save money.
A remote team is a team of employees that works outside the traditional office, sometimes working from a remote coworking space. Some people also refer to them as virtual (as these employees are not on the company office space), but to the extent of the word they’re not “virtual” as the team is “real” and works 100% for the company, just from a remote location.
With the appropriate help, tools, and processes in place, it is easy to assemble a remote team and take advantage of all of its benefits, the main ones being the following:
Savings are everywhere, from office space, time, money spent on transactional HR, and labor costs. Depending on the country where your remote team is located, savings can be up to 60%. When businesses have a company, like Remote Team Solutions, helping run the team for them, they can save even more.
The companies that run remote teams pick the best cities and their main focus and core business is the team. The employees are more motivated and produce better results. Companies are seeing that their remote teams usually go the extra mile to get more done.
Better communication
Being away from the main office obliges the employee to master his or her communication skills, using tools and time more efficiently. This is due to the fact that because the remote employees now that they won’t have many face-to-face communications with the onsite team, they have to perfect their communication skills and get the most out of every meeting, call, or email.
These are just a few of the many benefits that companies of all sizes can achieve from having a remote team. You can see more benefits here:
To get the most out of it there are a few important points to have in mind:
Be clear on what you expect from the team and team members. Have detailed job functions, processes, policies, metrics, and goals in place.
Choose a good partner to help you start and run your remote team. This way they can help you hire the best candidates and take care of all of the HR transactions and processes as well as office space and utilities. With this approach you can focus on your core business, getting the most out of your team.
Don’t forget to have good tools in place for monitoring, collaboration, and meetings. There are lots of software programs that can help you manage your team. If you choose a company to help you, they can help choose the best ones.
Don’t forget to follow up on their projects. If it’s necessary you can also use special software to track the time that every member is working, what are they working on and even tale screenshots.
The location of your remote team is really important. Choose a city where there’s a lot of qualified talent, a place that has a good quality of life and work, and most important, a place that has the same values as your company. Remember, your remote team should be an extension of your company, understanding and living out the company’s values and culture and working together to achieve company goals.
Having a remote team, whether you are a big company or a startup, can clearly help you to acquire a competitive advantage. You can have more qualified talent with big savings, scale quickly, set up, and run a temporary remote team for a special project.
This is why every year more companies use remote teams. Great examples of companies that run mostly on remote teams include Basecamp, Buffer, GitHub, and Zapier. This is becoming the new reality of today’s workforce.
