15Five’s 1-on-1 feature is thoughtfully designed to enhance the productivity of employee-manager meetings. By simplifying the process of addressing priorities, challenges, and progress, 1-on-1s fosters alignment, motivation, and engagement among team members and their managers. The tool also equips managers with a solid conversation framework, enabling more effective communication. When you can’t lean over the cubicle wall to talk to your teammate, you need a software solution that enables real-time virtual chat. The best solutions also make it easy to send files, share images, and more. The following tools help virtual teams stay connected and productive from anywhere in the world.
Encourage team leaders and members to put in a little extra time to communicate with intention. Ask others to point out what’s not clear so you can clarify – and build a better message next time. That way, everyone can prepare what they need to say and know ahead of time.
Top Collaboration Tools for Small Businesses
For example, you might show an employee how their piece of content is ranking in organic search and how this leads to revenue for the company. Tying individual contributions to overall company outcomes can help keep employees motivated. It’s better to overcommunicate than under-communicate, but be careful not to fall into the realm of micromanaging. It’s hard to feel personally invested in your team members’ careers when you may have never had a face-to-face conversation with them before. Yes, employees will eventually return to offices, but the workforce will never be the same. You can applaud (or blame) the pandemic to some extent for this movement, but the remote trend was already on the up and up before COVID-19.
- Create space to celebrate birthdays, share photos of pets, or news stories about trending topics within the team.
- Digital collaboration platforms like Switchboard let you work side-by-side on any type of project and create meeting rooms to suit your specific needs.
- And they want to see a future at the company that allows them to grow and develop.
- Each person needs to establish or outline the goals they need to accomplish for the day, whether that’s completing a project or meeting a deadline.
- While most businesses have reopened their offices since the end of the pandemic, millions of employees are still working from home, and many plan to continue.
When team members are not physically together, it can be challenging to understand what tasks need to be completed, who is responsible for them, and when they are due. Therefore, it’s important to communicate clearly and regularly to ensure that everyone understands their tasks and deadlines. It’s hard to put your best foot forward when you feel like you don’t belong. Unfortunately, many hybrid workers start to feel like outsiders because of their “come and go” presence.
Why it’s hard to manage a remote team
Designate someone as a note taker during the meeting, or have someone jot down minutes on a Google Doc or sticky note within your virtual meeting room. Then, while the meeting is fresh in everyone’s mind, share a list of action points and takeaways so everyone knows what they need to do next. For example, if engagement in customer support is dipping, you might want to hire additional help to share the load. If your human resources department feels burnt out, you could consider revisiting their KPIs and setting more realistic goals. Your employee might not be underperforming because they’re lazy or incompetent—they might have obstacles getting in their way.
Engaging employees from afar will look different than some of your go-to in-office initiatives. However, there are overlapping strategies remote collaboration and many shared principles. For example, distance and differing schedules can cause misalignment and miscommunication.
How to Collaborate With Your Team Online
This helps you identify any stressors, brings visibility to current workloads, and shows everyone you care about their wellbeing. In Switchboard, you can upload the meeting agenda as a file or create a sticky note and paste it in. That way, people can review it beforehand and decline if it’s not useful for them. And, of course, you should also have the confidence to cancel the meeting if you think it can be summarized in a voice note, loom, or Slack message.
- Finally, make sure to use tools that have stress-tested features and are compatible with your team’s workflows.
- For instance, if you want software with recording capabilities, check the list of its features beforehand.
While the tools listed above should be sufficient for any team, you can add more collaborative solutions and remote team software to your stack. Ask for feedback during one-on-ones, team meetings, and through surveys https://remotemode.net/ to get insight on how your team members are feeling and identify ways you or the company can improve. Annual team or company retreats are a great way to bring people together in person for some deeper team bonding.