A Global Workplace Analytics survey showed that at least 50% of the global workforce works in some sort of telecommuting role. Further, 80-90% of the respondents said that they would like to work remotely, at least for a few days in the week.
On the other hand, with the competition for finding the right workforce at an all-time high, more and more companies are now looking at building remote teams in different countries. 
Without the restrictions of hiring only from the local talent pool, companies can leverage foreign talent, and significantly reduce operational costs at the same time. However, there are still companies in the West who are skeptical about working with remote offshore teams or even remote teams in general for one primary reason. They just don’t know how to make it work.
Will it hamper productivity? What if the project fails? Is it efficient to build a remote team? These are some of the many questions that are contemplated over. This blog post is the answer to all those questions. In this post, we highlight five tips, which, when implemented, will ensure maximum collaboration and productivity with your remote team.

1. Be intentional

Your local team is the team that you see every day. You either pass them by in the halls, eat lunch with them, or hang out together at the local restaurant after office. They’re the people that are always around you and can easily reach out to you when they need to. On the other hand, imagine you build a remote team in a country like India – hundreds and thousands of miles away from you. Your remote employees cannot stop by at your desk or meet you every day. And that’s where being intentional can work wonder.

2. What does it mean to be intentional?

Simply put, this means to take extra efforts to make your remote team feel like they belong to your organization – that they’re not unlike your local team.
When an employee, remote or otherwise, feels appreciated or recognised, their productivity automatically increases. Simple things like responding to them as quickly as possible, creating virtual spaces for socialising, or always remembering and celebrating birthdays and work anniversaries may seem insignificant, but can be extremely gratifying. Make each team meeting as an intentional opportunity to engage with your remote team, and find new ways to contribute towards a healthy collaboration.

3. Use cloud-based project management tools

If remote employees cannot find an important document, struggle to download files because there’s no system in place, or forget when an important task is due, you’ve failed to address the basics – implementing task-tracking and project management tools. Some famous project management systems include Wrike, Trello, Basecamp, Zoho Projects, and Clarizen.

4. Practice transparency

When working with remote employees, it’s easy to keep them away from the big picture. Sitting in a different country, they may not always know what’s happening at the local office and vice versa. However, employees often look to their managers and leaders as an example of how to behave in a work setting. If you are open and honest, there is no reason why they aren’t going to do the same.

5. Visit your remote team


You can’t expect your remote teams to feel connected to your company if you can’t make that happen through action.
Visiting your remote team – even just once a year can build real cohesion within your team. During your visit, you can conduct short one-on-one meetings to review each individual’s goals and analyse their performance. You can even organise a work vacation, where your local and remote teams together, visit a new city or country.

This time can be used as an opportunity for the teams to connect on a personal level. Team-building activities, socials, brainstorming, board-games – whatever works best for your team! 
Source: thescalers.com