Remote working benefits tech startups and businesses. However, it also comes with a number of challenges. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees were forced to work from home to prevent the spread and exposure to the virus. As a result, numbers of remote workers surged, and interviews with HR leaders/managers were conducted to show that they found it difficult to monitor who is working remotely and who was not. It was hard to track the progress of project completions, and there were staggers in approvals-
The main challenges faced by teams when working remotely are:
- staying connected,
- keeping engaged,
- maintaining productivity,
- transition from onsite to remote work setup.
Remote working benefits employees by maintaining work-life balance and avoiding traffic from commuting. For the business owner or the management on the other hand, they can save a lot by providing a remote work set-up because it is cost-effective. The business would be saving energy and utility bills through working remotely since employees will be using their own in their homes.
This article will discuss the difficulties that teams encounter when working offsite and will provide solutions like the platforms to use as a resolution for these hurdles.
There are many challenges faced by teams when working remotely. I have listed the top four.
1. Staying connected
There is an issue with remote employees getting online and staying connected with their teams to discuss work, updating progress with their workload and projects, and providing feedback for employees. There are various apps and tools you can use to maintain communication when remote working and these are avenues for quick communication and collaboration across teams.
As a solution to this problem, developers created the Savah, so you can easily communicate design with your teams, request for feedback, and you will be prompted once your teammate has commented on your work instantly. It is a platform that enables you to create prototypes without using codes.
2. Keeping engaged
Employee engagement is a two-way employer-employee relationship and a strong predictor of an employee’s positive organizational performance. It is a struggle for employers, human resource managers or business leaders to keep remote employees engaged while working offsite. Not getting employee engagement leads to poor performance and lesser productivity so, it is imperative to make sure that all employees are engaged.
For remote working, companies use HR employee engagement apps like Blink, Energage, Glint, Honestly, and Impulse to improve engagement across teams in your company. And you can also use the platforms like HiFives for Employee recognition, PeopleForce for human resource management or onboarding operations. Bitrix24, Virkware, etc. Other companies use the Facebook Workplace as an avenue to celebrate company wins and to recognize employees’ exemplary performance. Employees would be engaged to know more about company updates, workflow processes, and what they contribute to reach target goals.
Savah, so you can easily communicate design with your teams and request for feedback.
3. Maintaining productivity
Productivity is one of the biggest challenges faced by companies when monitoring remote employees. It is defined as the ratio of output and the amount of goods generated (input), including the quantitative and qualitative amounts. For tracking work progress or task completion to those employees who are remote working, tech startups and other businesses use online tools to boost productivity.
It is crucial to veer away from any distractions that could hinder focus while working remotely. Most companies implement rules regarding clean desk policy, or the need for clearing desks with unnecessary objects that are irrelevant for work. No one is exempted in the policy and everyone has to comply, otherwise, those who will not abide by the policy will receive a warning and a sanction, and may even be grounds for termination. By setting these types of rules, you are setting the remote working employee’s expectation that working hours should be allocated to productivity and completion of jobs and that time should be used wisely.
Most tech startups use platforms like Trello, for organizing and assigning tasks to team members and for effective project management or Slack, for keeping all communications with your teammates in one place and for sharing files and documents.
4. Transition from onsite to working remotely
The transition of work setup from onsite to remote work has startled many employers and employees due to the abrupt change of routines. It was a challenge for both sides to keep everyone updated and maintain communication with team mates because when working onsite, communications were easier to get support from line leaders. For example, if employees/employers prefer a face-to-face interaction, to provide instructions on the tasks or to discuss new processes, working onsite is ideal, but for those who can work productively with minimal supervision, but are easily adaptable and flexible, they can opt to do remote working.
For those remote employees who are having the difficulty to adapt with the sudden shift from onsite to work from home during this covid, managers use apps like Microsoft Teams for constant communication. Developers and designers for tech startups utilise a lot of medium for their design communication and collaboration tools.
Use Savah to streamline your feedback request and get quick feedback from your colleagues and clients to your design prototypes and also, add instant comments to your teammates’ work to simplify your team’s process.
Conclusion
Remote working has its advantages and disadvantages for employers and employees. It is important to know the challenges that may hamper the company’s productivity and engagement. Tech startups and other businesses should identify these challenges which may cost them money, employee disengagement or turnover.
At worst, there could be staggers in approvals, design revision requests, and companies should be prepared by using the tools that would help their jobs become easier and seamless. The challenges faced by teams are staying connected, keeping engaged, maintaining productivity, and the transition from onsite to remote work. These hurdles can be overcome by choosing the right tool as a solution to your company’s problem. Hopefully, this article helped you in deciding which tool is necessary to address your company needs, when remote working, especially during this pandemic.
