Working with a virtual team is not only one of the most cost-effective ways to manage your team, it’s also one of the best ways to pass on those savings to your employees who now no longer have to pay for public transport or petrol to and from work.
Many people around the world have to travel for work, and there have been numerous studies published about the huge amounts of time wasted every single day around the world by people commuting.
Just to give you an idea of the impact of work travel, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and Alan Kreuger performed a survey on a group of women in Texas about their commute to work. It was found that from these 900 women, they hated their morning commute more than any other task in their life, including work, childcare and housework.
A study by Reuters found that one in five of us are travelling for work, and this number is hopefully only set to decline as more and more people embrace the awesomeness of working from a remote location.
To help you out in working with a virtual team, we wanted to provide some tips to make life easier for you.
Choose the right kind of virtual office space
You need to make sure that the virtual office you pick suits your needs. The key objective with your virtual office space is to ensure that it has a suitably prestigious address, and that you can hire boardrooms or meeting rooms when you need them. You can enjoy all of the benefits of a full-service office or commercial lease without having to spend exorbitant amounts. Take a look at the Servcorp virtual offices in Singapore for a great range of superior options.
Don’t isolate the team
While a key part of working remotely is working alone, it doesn’t mean that you should actually be devoid of all contact at all times. In fact, staying in touch with people while you are working remotely is a key part of ensuring your success. Make sure you are using things like Asana, Slack messenger, and any other project management system that you think will work to keep people organised and happy together. Having a virtual office doesn’t mean having an isolated team.
Organise your time
One of the key problems faced by people when they are working remotely, is that time organisation seems to slip away from them. A way to get around this is to use a time management program like Asana, or to have a project manager who is responsible for looking after everyone’s schedules. Make sure that you organise timeframes so people don’t burn out with long time-frame tasks, and make sure that you organise phone calls for a time zone suitable for your various members of staff around the globe.
Dress to impress
Even though you’re going to be working from home and no one is going to see (you except when you’re on Skype), it helps if you dress up as if you were going to go to work. Even if you just put on some smart casual clothing, it helps to make you feel more professional, and makes you more productive in your day-to-day work. Apart from anything else it makes sure that you get out of your pyjamas every day, and that’s a bonus if nothing else.
Good luck with managing your remote team. It’s sure to be a positive thing for your business and will certainly save you money in the short and longer term. Virtual offices are definitely the way of the future – so you may as well prepare for them!