Tips For Hitting The Ground Running With Remote Outsourcing

While there has been a lot of talk of “getting back” to normal or finding some new normal, the reality is that the world was already changing before COVID hit. In many cases, like in the proliferation of remote work, COVID merely expedited a transition that was already underway.

According to a survey conducted by Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), the permanent remote workforce is expected to more than double in 2021. Over 1,000 CIO survey respondents said permanent remote workers are expected to comprise roughly 1/3rd (34.4%) of their companies’ total workforces by the end of this year.

Basically, if you haven’t already started to adopt remote work policies and practices, you’re behind the curve. But transitioning to remote work is no simple flip of a switch for employers or employees. So here are some tips to help make your implementation of remote workers go smoothly.

1. Learn and Implement Collaboration Tools

Chances are pretty good you and your team already have some experience with at least one or two different collaboration tools like Zoom, Skype, or Slack for daily communications. If you’ve never heard of any of those, it’s well past time you studied upon them.

Other collaboration tools are more geared to project management purposes and work well in combination with communication tools like the ones listed above. Some of the more popular specialist tools like these are Jira, KanbanTool, and Trello, which are great for real-time collaboration and particularly useful for software developer teams.

Speaking of software development tools, if you aren’t already beefed up on GitHub, you definitely should get to it soon if you’re in the IT sector.

Even if you have used similar tools before, it’s a good idea to have some experience with each tool prior to implementation so you or someone you put in charge of the task can learn the tools well enough to onboard other team members easily.

There are a lot of programs and apps to choose from out there, but it’s often best to keep things simple and stick with one or two main tools: one for project management and one for communication/collaboration being the primary concerns.

Ultimately, the specific tools you use are much less important than how you use them and that you actually do use them—constantly. Communication was probably already one of your top concerns in a physical workplace, so it should come as no surprise that it’s just as essential, if not more so, for remote workers to be kept in the loop.

And this leads directly to the next tip for making the most of a remote workforce.

2. Find the Right Time

Perhaps one of the biggest issues that tend to get ignored is the reality of working with people from different parts of the globe. The word “globe” was chosen carefully as embracing remote workers essentially equates to having the entire world’s pool of talent from which to choose. However, it also means dealing with the reality of us all living on a ball with potentially wildly varying time zones.

But keeping up open lines of communication and establishing an atmosphere of collaboration is vital for your remote and local teams to thrive. This is why finding a good time for everyone (or as many people as possible) to have regular meetings is imperative.

It’s all too easy for people working in disparate parts of the globe at different times of the day to become disconnected from one another. But maintaining a constant flow of communication will ensure that no one is left adrift.

Ensuring that everyone stays on the same page can be hard when you’re all reading at different times. But finding a good time for everybody to touch base is key. And maintaining open lines of communication that flow throughout your entire organization is a critical business strategy that is even more essential for remote workforces.

However, it’s also important that you don’t bog people down in unnecessary meetings. So keep things quick and to the point, leaving plenty of room at the end for any and all feedback.

3. Make a Point of Making a Point

Recognition has long had its own praises sung in the corporate world. And for good reason: being recognized and acknowledged is a basic human need that feels great to have fulfilled.

Recognition for people who are working remotely will help them feel included as part of the team. A little bit of recognition can go a long way. As motivation and morale-boosting tools, awards and recognition engage your remote workforce, helping everyone feel more involved.

Whether recognition takes the form of performance competitions or informal call-outs of impact, make a point of showing people that you notice the hard work they’re putting in as a valuable member of the team.

4. Use a Talent Vetting and Matching Service

As is always the case, finding the right people for the right job makes all the difference. But finding reliable and hard-working skilled professionals is no easy task. And that’s why services like the kind we offer at Upstack are available to help organizations like yours find the remote developers you need.

At Upstack, we’ve made it our mission to help organizations find the right people for their projects. All of our developers are vetted not just for their technical skills but also their communication proficiency, making them perfect for the remote world of work.

We are growth pros. CONTACT US so we can help you scale your team with top 1% talent worldwide!