It’s very common for companies to maintain the smooth functioning of their customer service, marketing and tech teams to use workers in remote teams, spread across various locations.
As well as this, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some companies did not have the option of “working from home” and had to quickly rethink their work culture and establish remote teams.
Even before the pandemic, remote teams were gathering popularity as our technology made it easier for workers in regional areas to access the same type of job opportunities as their city-living counterparts.
Coworking spaces provide the perfect place for your remote team to be based. Here are our tips for how you can establish a successful remote team from a coworking space.
Tips For Establishing A Successful Remote Team
A great place to start when setting up a remote team is WHERE your team will work from. At JAGA we have many remote teams working together from our spaces who meet up with their Head Office bosses whenever they are in town.
Remote working is becoming more popular as technology advances to the stage that living regionally or living away from the main city centres no longer stops workers from engaging in bigger business opportunities.
As JAGA is an ACT, Canberra based business, we have many regional businesses who see their remote workers based in Canberra. And coworking spaces around the world mirror this trend.
Once you have decided where your team will work from (and if they’ll work together from a coworking space) or separately from home offices, or separate coworking spaces you can dive into the nitty gritty.
Some of the factors to consider to make remote working a success for your company are as follows:
- Communication
Any streamlined, successful remote team needs to know when, how and where to communicate with each other. Will your team do daily check-ins? Will you use Video conferencing? Will you have a group chat on whats app or another platform? How will the team be able to stay in touch.
The key to success with remote teams is to make communication easy. - Projects
How will the team keep up to date with projects and productivity? How often will the team need to update on a project. Is there a system for letting the team know when a project is winning or heading off course? Your team can use a software solution like Asana or Trello, where everyone can see a project’s status, comment and add work items into the project where necessary. - Leadership
A team will only go where it’s lead. Clear leadership is key for any remote team to successfully come together and win. Who’s in charge? Who do the workers come to when they have an issue? Who is making sure the daily check-ins or project updates happen? - Face-To-Face
Whilst remote work, working from multiple offices and from coworking spaces is super flexible and offers workers the best of both worlds, at some stage face-to-face interaction will be necessary. There is so much value in seeing the rest of your team, your leaders and possibly clients face-to-face. So whether you organise a bi-montly in person meeting, a quarterly meeting, a yearly conference or employee get away together; whatever it is, put it in the diary and stick to it. - Connection
Introducing some uncomplicated measures to help your remote team feel connected and create a cohesive work environment can improve all team members’ proficiency and performance. How will you add connection to your team each day? Is it a morning coffee huddle from your coworking kitchen? Is it a team lunch every Friday? Whatever it is, make sure it’s consistent and provides the connection each team member needs.
How To Step Up Your Remote Team’s Performance
This one is really simple: it comes down to goal setting. For a remote team, the single most important thing they need to know is what goals have been set for them.
It sounds so simple, right? But it’s often forgotten about. Or it’s known by the leaders, but not shared with the team. So a team needs to know whether they’re on-track or off-track and that comes down to knowing what goals they’re working towards each day.
When your team is working remotely, you need to set up goals and expectations that your team members do not find extremely complex or unachievable. The most common issue that individuals working remotely face is distractions. You will have to consider that when your team works from home, the environment will be different from that of the office. By gathering your remote team together in a coworking space (like ours at JAGA) you will see a few things happen. More productivity for one! More cohesive team for two! Better work relationships and friendships for three!
Now, setting goals is the fun part. Communicating the goals to the team is the second part. The third part is all about tracking the goals. This is where your project software will play a big role in running your remote team.
How Can Coworking Spaces Help You Build A Successful Remote Team?
Whether you’re just starting a remote team, restructuring a remote team, or bringing a remote team that has been working from home together to work together – a coworking space can be your best vehicle to facilitate that exercise.
Managing a remote team can have its hurdles, but you negate so many of the risks by basing your remote team from a coworking space like JAGA. Coworking spaces have the world-class amenities (which your team will love), the purpose built office space designed for performance and productivity, the access to other like minded professionals that your team can connect with, collab with and learn from.
PLUS basing your remote team from a coworking space versus a traditional leased office space is going to save your company big bucks. Seriously. Read more about that here It’s a win-win.
To set up your remote team from JAGA today, call our team – we are here to help you achieve your remote team goals.