5 Remote Work Productivity Tips That Surprise You

Many businesses have decided to adopt the remote work initiative as their long-term strategy since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the global workforce.

Working remotely was an obvious choice for some businesses because it offered advantages like not having to pay rent for a physical office and avoiding the rush-hour commute. Not to mention the better work-life balance that remote work offers. One study found that remote workers are 22% happier than those who must regularly report to an on-site office location.

Despite all the benefits, it's common to encounter difficulties ensuring that your remote team is as productive as they were when employees were in the office each day. Consider putting these five into practice to make sure productivity never declines.

1. Educate Your Team To Recognize the Warning Signs of Scams and Online threats.

Nobody wants to deal with IT problems or cybersecurity issues when your team is working remotely. These difficulties slow down productivity because they take hours, days, or even weeks to resolve.

The goal of managers is to inform their staff of the warning signs of identity theft, online threats, and scams. Everyone can save time, effort, and money by being aware of these warning signs.

There are a few indicators of identity theft that you should alert your team to so that their private information is never compromised. For instance, unfamiliar charges in their bank account or on their credit card statement and persistent phone calls from debt collectors that interfere with their workday are indicators of financial fraud. Make sure they are aware of the importance of checking their credit score regularly, as a significant decline may also be a sign of identity theft or financial fraud. 

It's a good idea to inform the team of any indications of online fraud. Examples include receiving notifications about attempted logins to particular online services or social media accounts, as well as receiving numerous emails warning the team of a data breach and advising them to change their passwords immediately.

To maximize a remote team's productivity, it is essential to understand the telltale signs of identity theft.

2. Streamline Communication With Customers

Next, customer communication is streamlined for remote workers. A centralized software solution is what elevates average customer communication to exceptional, regardless of where your team is based or where in the world customers are employed.

Because of this, every business should think about using a cloud call center, which routes incoming and outgoing calls over the internet. This is the ideal solution for remote teams because it enables conversations with leads and customers anywhere.

Additionally, setting up a cloud call center is simple; all your team needs is an internet connection, and they can start it from wherever they choose to work.

3. Create a Roadmap for Your Efforts To Keep Everyone on the Same page.

Once external communication is under control, look at the internal roadmap that your remote team uses cross-functionally. Whether they are located in the same city or dispersed across the globe, members of the same team and within different departments are always in agreement regarding projects, goals, deadlines, and strategies.

With tools like Preceden timeline software, remote teams can more easily visualize what is coming up, increasing productivity regardless of what projects are in the pipeline. Smaller tasks and important events are missed due to the limitations of minute details imposed by strategy and planning tools.

Furthermore, teams can create, collaborate on, and share timelines more easily than ever with the help of project roadmap tools, giving them the confidence to devote more of their time to being focused, productive, and on-task.

4. Improve How Sales Follow Up and Track Your deals.

Managing your sales team when everyone is based in the same office is one thing, but what happens when team members are located remotely?

Sales tracking technology, which offers the features and functionality to create new deals, assign tasks, and follow up with leads and potential customers as they move through every stage of the sales pipeline, will be advantageous to remote teams in 2022. Additionally, your sales department can quickly add lead scoring criteria to avoid wasting time nurturing leads that will never result in revenue because not all leads convert into customers.

Everybody has access to the same information, regardless of where they are working, thanks to a unified dashboard that updates sales details in real-time. 

5. Improve Internal Team communication.

Meetings filling up entire days are becoming more common as teams have shifted to working remotely. Consider determining how frequently those meetings are required in order to enhance team communication. Any of these meetings should be trimmed back, switched to a biweekly schedule instead of a weekly one, or eliminated entirely.

Examine the email inboxes after making some room on the calendars. Perhaps too many emails are being sent if your team's inboxes are gradually getting clogged. Instead, think about using a tool like ActiveCollab to manage as much project-based communication as you can.

Having a tool for improving communication helps reduce unforeseen deadlines and makes sure everyone is aware of where to begin, what they are responsible for, and what will happen next. Remote teams can collaborate effectively even when they are not physically present, thanks to effective communication.