May 2016
Working from the Beach: How to Make Remote Working Work for Your Business
In recent years, the idea of working remotely has become a dream for millions of 9-5 workers the world over. It provides individuals with a sense of freedom that can reinvigorate their passion for their career, all the while ensuring employers are still benefiting from the skilled employees they’ve invested in. And let’s face it: the idea of working from a tropical beach makes it a very appealing prospect! But before you shut down the office and prepare your team for a workday consisting of free Wi-Fi and unlimited lattes, we recommend taking a moment or two to read the following tips to make sure you’re making remote working work for your business.
Create Clear Boundaries
As soon as you decide to put remote working into action, you need to set some very clear boundaries and hold your employees accountable against them. This means defining work times and expected workload to ensure you’re still getting value from them being a part of the business. You’ll find that setting these boundaries instantly makes your efforts more valid and sustainable, and goes a long way to building the right relationship between the business and its remote employees.
Keep Communications Open
Many employers worry that with remote working their employees won’t be communicating amongst themselves as effectively. Using specialised software – such as a bespoke CRM, built on the Cloud – to keep the team talking to each other will quickly put those fears to bed, and keeps people talking even when they’re not sitting next to each other in the office.
Share and Share Alike
It’s all well and good providing boundaries and keeping your remote team in touch with the office team, but without access to the business’ resources, remote working is prone to falling flat. A bespoke CRM solution, tailored to the business’s needs, will enable much better sharing of customer data and behind-the-scenes information, allowing everyone to stay in the loop whether they’re on the other side of the office or the other side of the world.
How Well Does It Work?
Many businesses have already embraced some degree of remote working – and some of them are bound to have learned the hard way that it simply doesn’t work for them. Before rushing in, take a moment to observe how successful remote working has been for others in your industry or for your associates and onnections, as well as assessing the pros and cons for your own organisation. Be careful, though: you need to undertake a thorough and fair assessment for an honest appraisal.
Trust Your Team
Finally, remote working requires an abundance of trust between you and your team: you have to trust they’ll get their work done, and they have to trust that they won’t be left out simply because of geographic distance. If that trust is missing, then it’s recommended that you hold off on any plans of remote working until you feel more confident.
Do you have any remote working stories to share – good or bad? We’d like to hear all about it over on Twitter – you can follow us here.
Bring your team together no matter where they are with a bespoke CRM solution tailored to your business’ needs. Get in touch to find out more and arrange a free demo!