5 Typical Remote Team Challenges and Solutions

Many teams began working remotely in response to the pandemic, and many of them have done so ever since. While your team adjusts to remote work, there are still many obstacles to overcome. You're not alone if you've experienced a few glitches. Fortunately, you can get over all of these and completely enjoy the advantages of working remotely.

The five most typical issues relating to remote work will be covered in this piece. We'll then explain how to approach them.

1. Interaction

Hubstaff is a platform for labour management that offers payroll management, time tracking, and proof of work to both local and remote teams. The main difficulty in managing remote work is a lack of communication, according to its 2021 Project Management Report.

Teams working remotely have fewer chances to communicate. When they do speak, they frequently employ a variety of platforms, including Zoom, Skype, and Slack.

Their use of several communication channels results in communication that is frequently fragmented and disorganised. Due to incomplete or fragmented information, this may result in misunderstandings and time wastage.

Teams with flexible schedules may experience greater communication issues. When team members begin and conclude their shifts at different times, managers frequently struggle to keep everyone on the same page.

What to do about it:

Set guidelines for team communication to begin with. Make sure team members are aware of the appropriate conduct expected when communicating with the rest of the group, including: • How quickly they should respond to messages; • Whether they should be available for communication at specific times of the day; • How to handle communication with team members who are located in different time zones.

Encourage team members to communicate a lot more than necessary. As a result, miscommunications and confusion will be reduced, and team members won't have to redo any work.

A set of straightforward guidelines known as a Communication Manifesto is used by Hubstaff to keep their totally remote, international team in continual communication. It is a written agreement that lays out precise guidelines for how and when to consult teammates.

The Communication Manifesto functions well because it is simple to comprehend. It serves as a quick reference for the team as a whole to review the rules, and supervisors utilise it to remind their direct reports of their responsibilities.

Leadership should be ready to constantly reiterate new rules as you introduce them to your team. After all, repetition is the key to learning.

2. Planning

Teams that largely rely on shift work could have trouble transitioning to a remote work style. Managers might not become aware of a team member's tardiness until they experience the effects of their absence, such as an exorbitant call wait time or a production bottleneck.

Even if your staff is completely dependable, working from home makes it more difficult to identify scheduling problems like uneven coverage.

Multiple time zones are used by many remote teams. There may be team members on those kinds of teams who finish their shifts before others on the team even begin.

This may make it more difficult for the team to agree on a time to meet and collaborate. It may also make the process of organising meetings more difficult.

Other scheduling problems could resemble this:

• Worker hours are suddenly much higher or lower than you would anticipate each week.

• It's difficult for you to keep track of when people are online and when they are offline.

• Despite the schedules you make, your team members disregard them.

Here's what you should do if any of them apply to you.

What to do about it:

To begin, figure out how much overlap your team actually needs to be effective. Real-time communication is frequently overemphasised by managers, even though an asynchronous approach is frequently more effective.

One of the best aspects of working remotely is flexibility, but getting it properly requires some tweaking to your leadership style.

Use asynchronous communication by default with tools like Slack. Meetings should only be held if they are really required.

In any case, most teams meet far too frequently. Consider whether a meeting is necessary before calling the next one to discuss the topic at hand. Is it something that an email or Slack message could solve? You really don't need to set up a meeting if it is.

However, if you do decide that a meeting is required, be careful to just invite the individuals that require attendance. If a discussion only affects three or four team members, it is not necessary for the entire team to be present.

Lack of visibility contributes to further scheduling problems. Use software to receive alerts when members of your team begin and conclude shifts. In addition, a great software application can automatically generate timesheets and handle payroll based on logged data and alert you when team members are inactive for longer than you anticipate during their working hours.

3. Workload Administration

When you share an office with someone, it's simple to notice when they're overworked or underutilised. It might be challenging to tell how team members are performing and whether they can handle their task when they work remotely.

If your team members aren't proactive about discussing their workload and communicating the possibility of missing deadlines, this could develop into a more serious problem.

Everyone on the team is participating, and no one has too much or too little work to complete, according to a balanced workload. This kind of equilibrium isn't natural, despite how straightforward it may seem. To ensure that you are allocating jobs properly and making efficient use of your resources, ongoing management is required.

An imbalance in workload can have a significant negative influence on your team's productivity, much way communication breakdowns can.

Your staff may experience more stress due to workload concerns. Someone may feel burned out or like they are being exploited if they feel like they are carrying a lot more weight than their comrades.

Finding the issue and then balancing the workload are the two steps to solving this problem.

How to handle it: Project management and time tracking systems like Hubstaff Tasks and Hubstaff can make it easier for you to manage the workload of your remote workforce. Watch how many tasks are allocated to each team member, how much work is pending, and how long it takes each member of the team to complete a task.

With the aid of these tools, you will be better able to comprehend what team members are doing during working hours and how much time they require to complete their to-do lists. When you employ technology to assist, rebalancing workloads is also made simpler.

You may alter the team member allocated to a task in a decent task management programme, and since the history is all in one location, it's simple for them to catch up. Make sure that everyone has plenty of space to take on new work by planning ahead with the help of your time tracking data.

Also, don't be afraid to collaborate with independent contractors. Your remote staff will occasionally not be able to complete all the job themselves, whether this is due to inadequate planning or unanticipated events.

Use Fiverr to look for specialists you can hire to do tasks and projects in these circumstances.

There are times when you simply have more work than time. Setting priorities is essential because of this. So that your remote team members can focus on the most crucial tasks and projects first, clearly express the importance of each work and project.

4. Increasing Trust

Even if you share an office with your coworkers, creating a culture of trust within your organisation requires time, attention, and a lot of work.

Building trust within a remote team can be challenging because there are less possibilities for social contacts between team members.

Building trust with your distributed workforce is essential, though. Without it, culture building and employee engagement will be difficult.

Teams with high levels of trust have members who are less stressed and more energised at work. They also produce more and miss fewer days of work due to illness.

What to do about it:

Create online activities for team-building that allow participants to unwind, enjoy themselves, and communicate with one another informally. Movie nights, trivia contests, and virtual happy hour are a few examples.

Hubstaff has had a lot of success with setting up online team retreats. These are online competitions where teams engage in a variety of enjoyable activities over the course of one to three days.

Team members competed in online multiplayer games, learned how to make delectable dishes from one another, and even had a murder mystery party at the company's most recent virtual vacation.

Real connections can only be developed through these social interactions. But those are only the beginning.

Reliability fosters trust. You must demonstrate your reliability by acting in your team's best interests at all times, doing what you say you'll do, and responding to requests for assistance.

Create a means for people to contact you anonymously if the trust in your team has already been compromised. Officevibe is used by Hubstaff for this.

Then, take prompt, decisive action in response to the comments you get. You may need to put forth extra effort in order to show your team that you genuinely care about their success and well-being.

5. Keeping A Healthy Work-Life Balance

The distinction between work time and free time might become hazy for those who work from home. This may lead to a lack of work-life balance and overworked team members.

Even if your team putting in additional hours might not seem like a huge deal, this practise raises the risk of burnout since it gives your team the impression that they can never unplug and take a break from work.

One prevalent concern during high-stress remote transitions during the epidemic was that it seemed more like working from home than actually living at work.

People who work late into the night, check their email during off-hours, or stop to complete a few tasks after supper are more likely to develop a workaholic behaviour. Workplace addiction is a severe issue that can affect one's physical and emotional health. The effectiveness and job satisfaction of the team members may also suffer from it.

You should think about how to enhance your company's work-life balance if you see that you receive a lot of messages outside of regular business hours or if you arrive at work to find that some individuals spent the evening at their desks rather than spending time with their families.

What to do about it:

Encourage team members to take time off first. Companies should probably do more to encourage employees to use up their vacation days as a lot of vacation time is left unused.

Setting a deadline for time-off requests is one approach to encourage your employees to take time off. Team members should be compelled by this to schedule some time off as soon as possible. You can also think about restricting or prohibiting rollover of vacation time.

Offering flexible work hours is another strategy to assist team members in maintaining a more balanced work-life balance. Your employees will be able to arrange their day more effectively as a result.

Additionally, it will allow them to work when they are at their most productive.

The most important thing is to lead by example.

Avoid sending emails outside of business hours. Instead, arrange for them to be sent on Monday morning or at the time that individual is expected back at work.

Take a break and share the enjoyable activities you did while on vacation. Encourage others to take time off for their mental health, and admit when you need one for yourself.

Keep in mind that it's possible to work hard and still live a happy life outside of the office. The balance enters at this point. Find your personal equilibrium and aid your team in doing the same.

Get your remote team's problems solved.

There are several difficulties with working remotely, but these may be overcome. You can utilise Hubstaff and Fiverr as venues to address various issues facing your remote crew.

To manage your remote crew more effectively, take advantage of Hubstaff's time tracking, productivity measurement, and payroll administration services. Then, use Fiverr to employ remote specialists that can assist your staff in managing their workload and consistently meeting deadlines.

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