The COVID19 pandemic changed the paradigm of business operations, as remote work became the norm across many firms. With offices closed and social distancing measures in place, employees abruptly started working from home, which had its share of issues as well as new prospects for firms. While this change was beneficial in certain ways, one of the struggles most organizations faced was the employee productivity levels, which usually falls when employees are working away from the office.

Luckily, firms can make this adjustment without any hassle. The right tools and strategies can empower and engage remote teams. In this essay, we discuss how companies can manage and monitor remote team productivity for free during the Work From Home (WFH) period.

1. Managing Work from home:

Remote teams pose immense challenges as motivation, productivity, and engagement are bound to decrease without proper direction. Managing a remote team requires an entirely new set of skills and understanding different approaches that can work effectively for the team. The course Managing Work From Home is designed to tackle these areas and deliver actionable advice for managing a remote team:

Getting Everyone Together

Keeping the team aligned and understanding clear communication paths is the first challenge for remote workers. The lack of direct interaction in remote work can leave people hard of hearing or even isolated. The course seeks to solve this by analyzing various communication tools that remote teams can use such as video conferencing tools like Zoom or Google Meet or even instant messaging platforms like Slack. While these tools do not represent the pinnacle of engagement, they do keep employees connected and in the loop regarding meetings, updates to projects, and assistance.

Work Allocation

The remote aspect of teams poses challenges in the proper allocation of work and subsequent monitoring of its progress. With the dissolution of a common office, the assigning and management of tasks becomes more complex. The course discusses management of tasks on the web using tools such as Trello, Asana, or Click Up, which are all free or have free versions. These tools allow managers to assign tasks to specific employees, determine deadlines, and check progress all without previously scheduled meetings. Also, these applications help in maintaining the task allocation ratio and transparency in the system so that each member is responsible for his or her part.

Online Collaboration

One of the greatest hurdles of working remotely has to do with collaboration. In the absence of an office, in person interactions are limited, which puts overreliance on digital solutions. The course highlights the need for utilizing Google Work Space (Docs, Sheets, etc.) and Microsoft Teams, which are free collaborative tools. Employees can share ideas, documents, and even edit and brainstorm together in Realtime from different locations. These tools facilitate collaboration within a team document, the ability to work on touchpads, and the virtual environment with Microsoft Teams makes creative and joint work of the team possible at any time.

Continuous Oversight

One of the important components of managing a remote teams work performance is to ensure that employees are meeting the desired levels of productivity in real time. Leaders need to track if team members are completing tasks on schedule and staying productive. The course looks at tools Toggl or Clockify which helps tracking time allocation on various company tasks. These tools also help diagnose workflow sponsors bottlenecks and areas that require improvement in productivity.

Remote Customer Support

Remote work also changes the company internal structure, but it also alters the way the businesses communicate with customers and clients. The teams should also provide high standards of customer service while working remotely. The course covers the software used to ensure customer satisfaction such as CRMs like HubSpot and live chat systems like Tidio. This software ensure that remote teams are able to respond to customer claims, solve problems, and be in touch with clients proactively.

2. Course Professor: Mr. Sanjeev Jain

Mr. Sanjeev Jain is an experienced professional in the fields of productivity and automation and head instructor at the course. CEOITBOX, a firm that helps businesses transition into the digital area, is directed by Mr. Jain. He has worked for many years with remote teams, and his experience in effectively optimizing business processes is quite extensive. Mr. Jain’s experience enables him to navigate the multifaceted challenges of remote work easily. He is held in high regard for the practical advice he provides businesses on how to tackle these issues headon.

3. Benefits of the Work From Home Course

The Managing Work From Home course provides many advantages to leaders as well as employees, especially if an organization decides to enroll in the program and attempt its implementation:

Train and Manage Remote Teams:

The course helps managers understand the nuances of leading a remote workforce and how to use inexpensive solutions for effective training, onboarding, and supervision of employees.

Track Employee Performance:

Learn how to utilize free resources to track the progress and level of productivity of employees and evaluate their performance base on metrics.

Streamline Workflows:

How to operate smoothly when employees are located in different places while attempting to provide maximum effective outcomes.

Ensure Productivity:

Prepare yourself and your team so that productivity levels are optimal and deadlines are accomplished outside of the office.

Key Takeaways

To effectively use a remote team during the WFH time, the course gives these key takeaways:

• Using free tools such as time trackers and task management software, companies can monitor their team’s activities without investing too much money.
• Make sure that your team has all the required tools and skills in remote work so that they remain focused, motivated, and collaborative throughout the day.
• With a proper plan, remote work can be equally or even more productive than working from the office. Using these tools and methods, companies can effectively develop a remote workforce that actively participates and gets work done, all while keeping in touch with each other.

This course serves as a how to guide to managing remote teams while ensuring that businesses are proactively exposed to the challenges and possibilities of the WFH environment.

Categories: Work from home