Your team can work from anywhere, and you can hire people from all over the world without ever having to provide an office space for them. Sound ideal? A remote team has its advantages—but you have to be organized. You will have to replicate the various ways you would communicate in the office. Free tools like Skype, Gotomeeting and Google Hangouts allow you to communicate with your team wherever they are. Be sure to provide clear instructions about what you expect from their work, and set deadlines to ensure everyone is completing tasks in a timely manner.
Use email as little as possible.
We’ve come to rely on email as the dumping ground for every communication. But email can’t easily distinguish co-workers from friends, strangers or people who want to sell you computers in Cuba. It’s not very good for organizing information by type or subject. It’s a horrible (and unorganized) way to conduct a rapid-fire exchange. As a rule, keep email for communicating with people outside your office.
Have regular meetings.
They’re essential for structuring the workday. Make sure that everyone starts the meeting on time—even a delay of two or three minutes can be irritating for people waiting on the line, and it adds up to lost productivity. Remember to listen to each worker and make notes or record the session so you can check back on what has to get done.
Use both audio and video for your virtual office meetings.
Seeing people’s faces while they talk makes the communication much easier—you can see who wants to speak, who doesn’t, and how people are reacting to each other, all of which are vital cues.
Share documents.
The online equivalent of a filing cabinet or library is your virtual office’s shared brain and cultural repository. Create a structure of folders and make sure everyone knows how to use it properly. Learn how to set reading and editing permissions and work out a system for who should have access to what. Dropbox and Google docs are great places to start organizing all your information.
Having a virtual office and remote working team can advance your business tenfold, allowing you to invest more time and money into the development and execution of your business objectives. This will help you achieve your short term business goals faster and allow for more growth in the long run. Legacy Office Centers specializes in creating virtual office packages to make your remote team work like a team. From mail handling, to local receptionist phone answering and secretarial support, Legacy Office Centers staff will be a part of your remote team, professionally running your virtual office. Call or click today to get started.