Forem: vicky209

What are Employers Looking for in Candidates for Fully Remote Jobs?

vicky209 — Thu, 13 May 2021 04:36:58 +0000

More and more companies are seeing the benefits of remote workers far outweigh any potential drawbacks. And, in part, that’s why so many jobs are now becoming fully remote.

It’s often cheaper both for the employer and the employee if the employee works from home. But not everyone has what it takes to be able to work fully remotely.

Employers are looking for candidates who are:

effective and efficient communicators
have good time management
independent and trustworthy
tech savvy
work well independently for long stretches of time

Candidates looking for remote jobs who have these traits are most likely to get hired.

5 traits employers are looking for in candidates for remote work

[Remote working culture])(https://quire.io/blog/p/productivity-tips-during-lockdown.html) has entered a new phase.

That phase being there is a large remote work force worldwide. And even when the COVID-19 pandemic is over, many companies and organizations are saying they will probably never go 100% back to how it was.

So how can you land yourself a remote job? There are 5 traits that employers are looking for. Ideally, you want to have all five to be a standout candidate.

1. Effective communicator

You have to be an effective and efficient communicator. Because working remotely means staying in constant communication with your team. Which is done through email, video calling, and messaging.

With the written word being the primary form of communication, it’s vital that you can clearly and succinctly convey ideas in writing.

Also: it’s very easy to sound curt/rude in writing, so if you can show tact and subtly in your writing this will go a long way to helping your job prospects.

2. Good with time management

Time management is a very broad term that can cover motivation, proactiveness, and organizational skills.

So, how good are you at staying focused for long stretches of time? Are you able prioritize your tasks and follow-up team members and managers when necessary?

If you said yes to these, then you’re likely a good fit for remote work.

After all, these traits are important even if you’re working in an office. But working remotely, they become vital. And if you can demonstrate that you have these traits, you significantly increase your chances of gaining a remote job.

The other part of time management is working under pressure. Because sometimes deadlines can be brutal. And if you’re not able to work remotely, and under pressure, you may find that remote work is not right for you.

3. Trustworthy and independent

These ties into the above point.

Independent employees have to be self-motivated and proactive. Because, unlike an office environment, most of your work day will be spent unsupervised.

You’ve got to be able to show that you can be productive from your home office (even if your home office is your bedroom or lounge room), and that your employer(s) has made the right decision in allowing your to do remote work.

Trust is one of the biggest reasons many employers were—and some still are—reluctant to let their employees work from home. And this is partly for another reason: control.

When employees are in the office it’s easy to see what they are doing. It’s easy to see who showed up on time and who is late. Who’s slacking off and who’s got their nose to the grindstone.

With remote work, all you can see is the communication (messaging and emails) and the results. Depending on the size and structure of the company, remote working doesn’t provide the same level of observation on an employee’s day-to-day doings.

Which bothers some employers. Your trustworthiness and independence are huge factors in determining if you’re a viable candidate for a fully remote job.

4. Good with technology/tech savvy

Effective remote working relies on the latest tools and technology to run smoothly. This is why it’s necessary that you are good with technology, a faster learner, and/or are quick to adapt.

This isn’t to say you have to own the latest gear—the most recent Apple Mac or PC, the latest model.

There are some good software tools out there to help track tasks, communication, and KPIs. As well as provide enhanced video conferencing experiences.

Software tools like project management software have really come into their own in the last few years.

When the pandemic hit, more and more companies realized the importance and value of a project management software tool that could help organize projects, tasks, and employees.

With projects being broken down into tasks, and then those tasks being organized by priority—and by team member—it does make ensuring everyone’s one the same page a straightforward process.

There’s also the communication aspect. Many project management software tools (like Quire) have messaging options in the platform. Which allows team members to leave real-time comments on tasks as well as communicate via the message app.

Familiarity with project management software tools can be a big bonus when applying for fully remote work.

5. Can work long periods in solitude

Make no mistake. This is a very solitary job. You will be—physically—on your own.

And this trait ties back into what we’ve already discussed in points 2 and 3 (time management and independence). If you have no problem sitting at your desk for long periods doing your work, then you will have little problem with a fully remote job.

But if the idea of sitting alone working—with only email and messaging for company—then a fully remote job may not be the best fit for you.

However, if you have no problem sitting at your computer in a comfortable environment working for 8 hours a day then this will definitely help your candidacy for remote work.

The traits employers are looking for in candidates for fully remote jobs

The new remote work culture is here to stay. And if you want to succeed and thrive in this culture you need to be able to show employers that you are the ideal candidate for a fully remote job.

Employers are looking for motivated, independent, reliable, and trustworthy candidates. And if you fit this description, and you can demonstrate it to prospective employers, you have a far greater chance than most of landing a remote job.

Quire joins forces with Google and Zoom to offer free accounts for Nonprofits

vicky209 — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 02:02:10 +0000

The last couple weeks have been surreal! A lot of economic experts have predicted the global recession has slowly begun and global authorities have rolled out the Covid-19 economic rescue package. Pandemic leads to panic everywhere, people start hoarding food and other necessities of life. Social distance and work-from-home have been implemented as mandatory policies to help slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus.

We understand your struggles, and we would like to share the burden with all of the Nonprofits who have been suffering financially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Quire will offer completely free accounts for Nonprofits during the outbreak, no strings attached.

In recent years, Quire has the honor to help thousands of remote teams collaborate from all over the world and ensure the business’ long-term success. Our communities have risen stronger than ever, and this is the time for us to return the favor to our users. Though Quire has already remained free since its launch, this time we went an extra mile for the Nonprofits and Education Institutions. During this challenging time, we decided to remove the quota limits for eligible Nonprofits’ accounts. We hope to help Nonprofit organizations achieve their missions while still staying within budget.

Amid the outbreak, mobile working helps slow down the spread of the virus and prevent public exposure to the infected persons. Thousands of businesses have immediately adopted a project management software to cope with the remote working situation. Nonetheless, most of the tools in the market require a big check for the whole team to use the software and filing for a budget in such short notice seems to be a problem for Nonprofits.

“Helping people achieve their dreams has always been our core value and we thrive to provide a transparent and reliable platform for everyone to collaborate from anywhere in the world”, said Tom Yeh, CEO at Quire. “It’s our responsibility to contribute something to our community and society and help businesses grow in this difficult time.” In the spirit of sharing, Quire offers free accounts for every Nonprofits users without any strings attached, lifting the users’ quota limitation and providing unlimited resources for Nonprofits teams to collaborate.

In addition to the free accounts offer, Nonprofits and any businesses can also reach out to the Quire Support team and schedule a free demo session. It is critical for employees and businesses that are not familiar with a cloud-based collaboration tool to have a detailed and thorough step-by-step demo to be productive in a remote working environment.

As the COVID-19 pandemic now becomes a global health and social emergency, we commit to do our part to support businesses to the fullest extent during this challenging time. We want you to know that you’re not alone in this crisis. This too shall pass and spring is awaiting for us! We are all in this together, and we will get through this together!

Stay calm, wash your hands and let Quire help you achieve your missions from a distance!

Best 5 tips to Use a Digital To Do List for Remote Teams during a Virus Outbreak

vicky209 — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 09:21:30 +0000

If you are following the news recently, you already knew about how 2020 kickstarts with the worst epidemic ever. While we are all hoping for the best that the current Coronavirus outbreak will not accelerate to a pandemic phase, many international corporations like Twitter and government authorities have embraced the remote working culture in order to stop the virus spreading.

Working remotely has been a trend for dynamic companies and will continue to grow in the upcoming years. Many managers have mistaken a global remote team means having a stable internet connection; however, internet and trust issues are just half of the remote working equation. One of the challenges for collaborating with remote teams is to ensure the team productivity and work efficiency.

Imagine your team is working from different locations with different time zones, what is the best way to communicate and keep everyone on the same page? Despite what’s going on with the virus outbreak, you cannot tell the Director Board the reason why your team cannot perform at the highest levels is that they work from home most of the time.

Virtual collaborations will soon become the work trend for this new decade, even when the outbreak is over. Managers have acknowledged the power of remote work and started to operate the companies across time zones. Since remote collaboration and communication don’t come with a handbook, this article will share with you how to use a simple digital to do list to keep your team connected.

1. Keep the to-do list neat and let go of the micromanagement

One of the worst mistakes that managers make when preparing the to do list for their team is to give out too much unnecessary information. Maybe it’s the micro-management style that a manager has to observe closely to the smallest details, but remote working culture isn’t about controlling the subordinates or teammates.

A digital to do list can be optimized in the virtual working environment if managers or team leaders remember to narrow down their lists to these four critical information:

Project objective: what is the ultimate outcome of this project?
Important milestones to achieve: be specific about tasks, the due date and due time, clearly define the definition of done
Person-in-charge: who should do what and report to whom
Feedback and reports: create detailed guidelines for common roadblocks

When listing down the tasks for your team, be specific with what exactly you expect them to complete and attach only the necessary resources to help them achieve the project goal. Never create an information maze that does nothing but drive your team insane.

2. Tracking team performance and communicate more often

Most of the to do list apps can help you track the project’s progress closely and how each team member performs. Though micromanagement is proven as a poison for productivity, it’s always a good idea to stay close to your team and give feedback when necessary. Communicate before it’s too late.

Remote teams usually struggle with communications - instead of barging in your supervisor’s office, you have to schedule an appointment and wait until the time slot is open. When you are working with a team that is located all over the world, face-to-face meetings are nearly impossible. But you still have to create an environment for your team to voice about their opinions and as receive honest feedback and suggestions from managers.

A good to do list can help a remote team collaborate seamlessly by replacing all of the meetings in real life with a stable platform to engage team members and support team bonding through virtual offices.

3. Customize different sublists for each team member

It’s no longer a myth that we do our best work only when our minds are clear and focused. Collaborating on a shared task list can fail to improve productivity as there are too many distractions and irrelevant information. If you feel lost too often with your team’s shared to do list, chances are your productivity will drop like a rock.

So what’s the solution here? Besides a “master to do list”, you should always create your own customized sublist. Start off with the easiest tasks or the ones that have the most recent due dates. Split the team’s complicated task list into a simpler, smaller and easier to accomplish to do list.

Now instead of looking at a huge to do list with too many people working on it at once, you can have your own little view to focus. If something else comes up in the master list and you think it’s relevant to your job, just simply drag and drop the newly added task to your personalized to do list.

By working side-by-side with two to do lists, you are fully in control of how you want to handle your tasks and in which way you want to tackle the to do list.

4. Share a weekly agenda with the team

There is one simple way to make sure to keep everyone on your remote team on the same page is to send out a work agenda every week. Quire is an example of how a to do list app should handle the weekly updates. For a project, a team leader can sort all of the tasks by Due Per Week and share the tasks block with the team members. Now that everyone is clear about when to do what and who is the person-in-charge for each task, productivity slump can never be a problem anymore.

5. Take advantages of an automatic documentation system

Remote working culture means a lot of memos and digital notes instead of the traditional yellow patch. If you are a super organized person, congratulations! But if you are having troubles with finding your notes every time your boss asks for it, try to embrace the automatic documentation system of a to do list app.

As complicated as it sounds, actually an automatic documentation system means gathering all of your important notes and key discussions then uploading to the shared to do list app between your team members. All of the documents will be saved securely and it’s so much easier to share and reference those information later.

One of the reasons why a digital to do list is the future for team productivity is the search function. All documents can be easily searched for and the information transparency can be guaranteed.

There is no big secret when it comes to focusing your mind and getting things done. We’ve already made it through a fifth of the 21st Century and it’s time to embrace the remote working culture as a new trend to boost productivity and ward off unnecessary distractions. Building a global remote team can take a village, but talented people from across the world can still successfully collaborate as long as leaders can choose the best platform for the team to thrive.

Quire Sublist: Bridge the Gap between Team To Do Lists and Personal Productivity

vicky209 — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 07:33:20 +0000

Do you ever think how amazing it would feel to make the tasks in your to do list disappear and accomplish everything you set out for the day, so you can go home early then continue where you left off with your favorite Netflix show? However, more often, life won’t go as planned, especially when you are working on a complex project with so many team members. By day’s end, the team’s shared task list looks like a matrix and no one would ever know where to get started. With so many team members working on the same list, it's mostly impossible to identify your tasks and how to connect all the dots together.

We know you’ve tried your best to optimize your productivity, but sometimes life gets in the way. At Quire, we never let the stress win and make you feel less of yourself. It's not you, it’s the way your team works with the to do list. Today, in order to solve the frustration and distraction problems once and for all, we introduce you with the ultimate Quire Sublist - the feature that will change the way you deal with your task list forever.

Personalize the Way You View Your Team Goals

We’ve all been through this: sitting in conference rooms for hours on end where nothing gets done. Everyone has the same proposal and same action plan, but somehow you look at the eye of your teammates and you realize you two share the same feeling: I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

Lost in translation happens more often than you thought. No matter how good your communication skill is, everyone has very different ideas when it comes to interpreting a to do list. The tasks that matter to a manager may not mean that much to a staff. Letting team members have the ability to create a personalized list is the secret to getting things done.

Tip: You can create as many sublists as you want and set different view permission for each sublist.

For one project in Quire, you can have as many sublists as you wish. For example, you might create a sublist named Design Reference and put all of the tasks/subtasks that are related to the task of Design Reference. Instead of creating a matrix of tags that drive all of the project members crazy, with your own personalized sublist, you can focus on the right tasks at the right time, without getting distracted by everything else.

And when you are working with the sublists, you can always switch back to the “master” list at any time to view all of the tasks shared between team members and the big picture of your project.

Tackle To Do Lists As a Winning Team

We encourage you and your team to dream big but keep the to-do list relevant and straight to the point. If you have too many things to look at, you will end up not knowing where to focus on. Same thing with your to-do list, if there are too many tasks laying around, you will get lost before you even start working on your list.

You can build in as many tasks as you want, your team members can also contribute to the task list and eventually create a big picture on how to achieve team goals. The brainstorming process can last forever until your team gets on the same page. However, when your team sits down at the desk and start working on the task list, you can use Quire Sublist to create a shorter version of the ever-growing list and focus on the tasks that matter to each individual only.

Tip: You can select the same tasks and create different sublists.

There are often some team members working together on the same section of the project. Quire Sublist was born to help you create a focused view for yourself and moreover, for the project members and even the external team that share the same workload. If you are a team manager, for example, you can select several crucial tasks related to the Phase 1 of the Product Development and create a sublist named Phase 1 then share with your team members. This way, everyone is kept on the same page and they all know which tasks are relevant to the milestone.

The key to productivity is to get focused on what should be done, instead of being worried about everything all over the place. With the combination of Quire MyTasks II and Sublist, now your team can be more proactive to stay on top of the deadlines.

Be Ambitious but Stay Realistic with Your To Do List

When Quire was born, we shared our philosophy to the world: every great dream needs a doable starting point. You can dream the world but without laying out the groundwork, you can never make your dreams come true. Quire is one of the few if not saying the first to allow users to create unlimited sublists within a master list. Productivity is all about getting focused on the right tasks at the right time. Nested task list, Kanban Board, Sublists are the powerful trio to help you visualize and accomplish your dreams.

We hope Quire Sublist can be a part of your successful stories, whether you are planning for your company trip or building a rocket. Helping you improve productivity, get things done and achieve your dreams is always our mission from day one.

Best New Year's Resolutions that You Can Actually Keep in 2020

vicky209 — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 01:37:16 +0000

January has been proven to be the busiest time of the year for fitness and productivity tool industries. Funny how for the last 365 days, not so many people think of starting a healthy diet or practicing a proven productivity method to get things done. However, in the first day of the New Year, people around the world are beginning to reflect on the past year and start making resolutions hoping to achieve all of their dreams this year.

The common problem with New Year’s resolutions is that it’s always easier said than done. You are determined to buy your first house by the end of this year, you swear with your friends that your favorite jeans will come off a bit easier in the next three months, you promise yourself that your credit card installment will be settled by July… whatever the case, after a few months into the New Year, you might realize, in your mind, everything tends to work out for the best and you always win, but somehow it doesn’t look that way in real life.

To prepare for this year's resolutions, you started to google “What are the easiest New Year’s resolutions to keep?” or “Top 10 New Year’s resolutions” or “How to stop failing and stick to New Year’s resolutions?”. You wonder what you could possibly have done wrong in the past. The good news is, you are not alone. Research shows that 60 percent of us make New Year’s resolutions while only 8 percent can actually achieve them. Probably in the last several years, the odds just aren’t in your favor.

Well, 2020 should be different as it marks a brand new decade. We want to kickstart a decade with a clean slate. Instead of keep making general resolutions as “losing weight” or “saving up”, we will tell you some awesome easy New Year’s resolutions that are not too difficult to keep for you to be more productive in 2020.

1. Stay committed to your to-do list

It’s already 20 years into the 2000s, stop being a hoarder and trying to be Superman. Don’t keep adding up on your to-do list and by the end of the day, your own list will discourage you from achieving your goal. People tend to fall into the blue funk when they think there’s no point in moving on with the to-do list while there is so much left to do.

Everyone wants to move mountains, but you have to start small in order to achieve a big dream. Years ago, we have proposed you should abandon your to-do list since we realized a to-do list no longer serves its original purpose when the number of tasks is large enough to render them equally important. You shouldn’t have a plain list, use a hierarchical to-do list instead to break down your goal into digestible tasks.

Take time to step back and evaluate your current to-do list. If there are more than 10 tasks for your everyday, chances are you might give up on your own list in the next couple weeks. Stay minimal when it comes to setting up a new goal. You have to work on your goal constantly, just like Rome wasn’t built in one day.

2. Treat yourself better and say no to stress

Everyone is obsessed with the fast-paced life, “make more money, it’s better to cry in a Ferrari than on a public bus” - they said. After all of the extra hours you are putting in at work hoping for a better paycheck by the end of the month, you might as well ask yourself if everything is worth the stress.

It’s not always just your body, sometimes your mind breaks as well. You are always on the race to complete as many tasks as possible. Your happiness seems to depend on your quarterly KPI. In 2020, be your own hero by starting to take care of your mental health and put yourself first.

One of the favorite tricks from famous entrepreneurs to achieve higher productivity at work is that you can start your day with a simple task and accelerate from there. Try not to think of a big goal that might stress you out, just pick up some routine tasks to ease yourself into the process. Keep yourself happy instead of busy.

3. Keep a journal and count your blessings

If you always feel doomed and unhappy with your life, whining about it won’t make any difference. You cannot sit still and expect life to eventually make sense one day just like some of the best-selling self-help books write. There’s something called “personal growing process” and it means you need to give yourself some time to grow and achieve your goals.

Keeping a journal can help you reflect on yourself and see how much you’ve changed and improved. You don’t have to write a whole 1000-word essay for your journal entry. Keep it short and straight-to-the-point. Just write some short entries everyday even when that day is uneventful and plain. The point is to jot down a couple of thoughts and things that happened and how you might feel about it.

If you are not fond of writing, taking photos and put them into an organized list can also do the trick. Your to-do list doesn’t have to be a real to-do list, be creative and use the task as a daily journal entry. After a while, you can revisit your journal and realize even when you don’t think you made any progress, everything actually has changed and you’re no longer standing in your original spot anymore.

4. Do something different at least once a month

Boredom can not only kill your joy but also kill your productivity. But a lot of people are hesitant of changes. The problem is when thinking about changes, everyone thinks of something huge, like moving across the country or learn how to skydiving. You can get excited for a couple of days (or weeks!) but soon after the honeymoon phase is over, welcome back to the loop of hell!

Instead of breaking your routine all at once, start with some small details: try to take another road on the way home from work, dine in a new opening restaurant nearby, wear a colorful shirt to work instead of suits and ties, etc. Happiness can come from small details that sometimes go unnoticed.

5. Stick to the resolutions even if you fail several times before

There is no particular reason when it comes to the reason why people tend to keep failing their resolutions. Life happens and your busy schedule gets in the way. A lot of people sign up for a fitness program and after accidentally skip the cardio class once or twice, they start to give up for good. If you don’t want to start over, don’t quit. But even if you quit several times, starting over seems better than doing nothing.

Whatever in your New Year’s resolution list, just start right now for your trial period. Don’t procrastinate and wait until January 1, 2020 to start going to the gym or opening a saving account. Who cares if you binge over the holiday break or miss a few leg days, just stick to your diet whenever you can. Train your mind to be committed to your ultimate goal and your resolutions’ list.

Every December the internet will be flooded with thousands of articles to tell you how to keep your New Year’s resolutions and you will keep telling yourself this year would be different. Most New Year’s resolutions will be broken during the first month. We hope you are strong enough to force yourself to stick to your goals through March at least, then you will notice it is easier to keep this resolution when it becomes a habit.

No matter what resolution is on your list this year, we hope you will achieve your dreams in 2020.

Does multitasking really work or is it just a myth?

vicky209 — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 07:48:08 +0000

One of the most common traits that I've always seen in candidates' resumes is "Ability to multitask". For each time, I really wonder why people always pride themselves as multitaskers? The myth of multitasking takes over a huge part of entrepreneur culture that makes everyone believe that they can only be successful in their career if only they know how to multitask.

However, does multitasking really work? Does multitasking equal efficiency optimization and productivity?

Break the myth of multitasking

The truth is, multitasking only works if those tasks are second nature to you. For instance, if you're driving, you can listen to classical music at the same time since listening to music doesn't require heavy brain process. However, if you're listening to Google Maps telling you where to go, it's mostly impossible to listen to a song with lyrics at the same time.

When your are prone to multitasking, you might damage your brain and the quality of your work as well. According to some studies from University of Sussex in UK and University of London, multitaskers have less brain density than the one who doesn't multitask. Also, research participants who multitasked experienced lower IQ score than the ones who do not.

How to appropriately increase productivity without multitasking?

1.Set up your own goal for each day.

Instead of trying to squeeze everything on a Friday afternoon and "multitask" your work, you might want to set up your daily goal and optimize the resources for one day only. Don't try to overachieve or outdo your task list. Staying consistent is the key.

2.Track your progress

There are thousands of to-do list app that you can use (personally, I use Trello Kanban board and Quire nested task list to track my work) to better manage your work. If you spend too much time on a task, try to figure out what the obstacles are and improve the productivity.

3.Create your own time block

What I enjoy doing during my 9 hours at work is to create the time block for each task. I will move all of the tasks that need my full attention to morning from 9-11am when my morning dose of caffeine just kicked in and I can focus on those tasks. In the afternoon from 4-5pm is reserved for routine tasks.

Hope you will stop thinking multitasking is an asset to write in the resume :)

8 Best Tips for Remote Teams to Boost Productivity at Virtual Office

vicky209 — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 07:49:14 +0000

We are living in a fast-paced society where everything needs to be done quickly without any hassles. Nothing kills joy and productivity more than being chained to a desk for 8 hours a day and 5 days a week. Managers have found a better way to boost productivity and save infrastructure cost by supporting remote work for full-time employees. According to OwlLabs research, “companies that offer remote-friendly options see 25% less turnover than those who do not.”

Everyone is happier when they can take initiative at work. Employees can choose to work from home or at a rustic coffee shop, no matter if they are night owls or early birds, they have different options to make the schedule work best for their creativity and productivity.

Though it is inevitable that remote teams can deliver many benefits for companies overall, it still remains as a challenge for managers to ensure productivity for the whole team. Given the fact that each team member has a different work schedule, team collaboration can suffer if not handled carefully.

We have put together some tips to help entrepreneurs manage high-performing and productive remote teams.

1. Adopt an effective collaboration tool

It is critical for the whole team to have a platform to share the work and collaborate together other than using email loops and messaging. One of the top challenges for remote teams is to keep track of the progress and streamline workflow with the time and location differences. A cloud-based project management software is a perfect option to help teams coordinate and collaborate. Everything is laid out neatly within a single platform where anyone can access and be in sync with the whole team.

2. Set a clear agenda

One of the worst nightmares for remote team collaboration is to get lost in the information loop, especially if you are dealing with an international team who speak different languages. Important messages can be easily lost in translation. As an entrepreneur or manager, you should set a clear objective for each project and create different milestones so that your team can easily check in and track the progress.

3. Digitize the workflow

Not only you need a good project management software to keep everyone on the same page, you should digitize every communication channel or file storage system as well. There are tons of productivity apps that guarantee to actually make differences to teamwork efficiency. By making every information available and accessible with an internet connection, you have saved hundreds of hours for the team to find the note sticking somewhere on the desk or arguing about the project deadlines.

4. Schedule conference calls and video-based coaching regularly

The perk of being a virtual employee is to have a relaxing working environment, but sometimes it can backfire on the productivity. It is very easy to get lost and mess up the whole plan when you cannot run into your supervisor’s office anytime to ask questions or just turn the chair around to discuss with your teammates. Many remote teams swear by a good video conference app to enhance their face-to-face communication. Just schedule a weekly or monthly call, get everyone join the session from anywhere and discuss the projects. Even 10 - 15 minutes can make a huge impact on the team productivity.

5. Build the trust among team members

Some people have trust issues, it is completely understandable. But an entrepreneur that wants to embrace a remote workforce cannot have trust issues. There is always uncertainty about whether or not your team members are working or they are actually lying in Hawaii with a glass of Maitai on a Wednesday afternoon. Some remotely working guidelines should be established, such as standard response time, time-tracking tasks, regular updates and reports, etc.

6. Have time for 1:1 feedback

It is difficult to manage a team that locates literally everywhere in the world. A company that supports work-from-home culture should really take feedback seriously in order to establish close bonds between team members and provide guidance when needed. Managers should schedule periodical 1:1 review session with the team members (the meeting can be easily conducted with a conference call app) to learn about the concerns or suggestions that might fly under manager radar or give out support when necessary.

7. Data analysis is the key

If you are managing a remote team, chances are sometimes you will find it very challenging to evaluate the workforce performance. Without the face-to-face conversation, monitoring employees’ productivity can be quite tricky. To get deeper insight into worker efficiency, data analysis can help you spot which projects need immediate attention or which employees may need some extra coaching effort. You can also share the data analysis with the team so that everyone learns more about their productivity and how to improve if necessary.

8. Remove the remote once in a while

Working remotely can sometimes make employees feel isolated. Once in a while, you should get the whole team together and spend quality time to share the work experiences or just having face-to-face conversations. Team collaboration can be greatly benefited with some interactions among team members. It helps build strong relationships, create trust among workers, boost productivity and enhance team adaptation.

Remote team becomes a trend that a lot of enterprises embrace in order to expand their international market. A remote team can be an invaluable asset to the whole company. However, if managers fail to handle the working remotely culture, productivity can suffer and might result in revenue lost. Managers should be the one who glued the team together, and with the above tips, remotely working should be a very relaxing experience.

What is the best free project management software?

vicky209 — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 09:33:16 +0000

My team has 8 people, we work remotely most of the time, we have to track our projects closely on daily basis.

Our team exists based on the university funding, so we cannot afford some high-end solutions like Asana or Omnifocus or Wrike.

We have some people who are NOT tech savvy AT ALL, which means we need to find a solution that is easy to use without a steep learning curve.

We don't need Gantt Chart, task dependency or timer. We just need a good tool to collaborate with each other.

Any recommendations?