A company with remote workers is able to hire employees from all over the world. Often distance doesn’t create barriers, but the company will face new challenges. Your employees have to collaborate within a virtual office instead of gathering together in a physical space. A company with a virtual office has to focus on how everyone in the company can communicate and collaborate with each other. Therefore, we got a few hacks for team collaboration in your virtual office!
Start the day with a team meeting
The best way to start a day at the virtual office is with a team meeting! Depending on how big your remote team is, you can have one meeting with everyone or have your employees meet with their coworkers with whom they are working on a project or in a team. Start a day with a quick check-in to see how everyone is doing and set the goals for the day. While explaining what the goals for the day are, it is important to distinguish important from less important tasks.
Such a ‘morning meeting’ is also a moment for your employees to speak out about problems they are facing within the company or personal problems. Difficulties within the company can relate to being stuck on a project or issues with a client. This way, coworkers can share experiences and think along for a solution.
Make sure everyone’s updated
To establish a wonderful and productive collaboration between your employees, it is essential that everyone in the company is aware of important developments. Within a virtual office this can take the form of a channel on Slack for example. All the important announcements will be posted in that channel and this way the information is easily accessible for everyone.
Another possibility is to organize weekly, monthly, or quarterly meetings with the entire remote team. In this meeting you can bring up the announcements again, have a brainstorm session about it or update your employees on other matters. Make them aware of how it’s going with the long-term goals of the company.
Establish a communication policy
Collaboration starts with communicating. One of our team collaboration hacks for your virtual office is to make sure your employees are using effective programs to communicate with each other. It is best to use one main form of communication, so employees don’t have to constantly check different apps or platforms to see if there is any news. Naturally, multiple programs will be used within your company. Provide your team with a communication policy, so they know which virtual office app is used for which purpose.
Also assign roles to each employee and make sure they’re well-defined. This way, everyone knows what their role in the company is. If everyone is aware of their own roles and the roles of others, your employees know what issues they can turn to whom for.
Leave space to socialize
A working day should only consist of working for many employers. Instead, stand out from this and give your employees the space to get to know each other better. Especially within a remote team it takes longer to create personal bonds between coworkers. Your employees will find out more about how they can rely on each other. If you encourage friendships in a virtual office, the collaboration in work-related projects will also benefit. Give them 15-minute breaks to have nonwork related meetings with each other.
By using these hacks in your virtual office you can improve the team’s collaboration. So make sure you check in on everyone regularly and keep them updated on important matters. This way, you know what is going on in their lives and during work, and they know what is going on within the company. Also establish a communication policy, so they know what way is best to communicate with their coworkers. But most important is to give your remote team the space to get to know each other, since there are no real coffee talks in a virtual office.
