The popularity of remote working has increased by 44% in the period of the past five years. With Coronavirus threat hanging on the head of the world, more and more companies are going remote to avoid the spread of the virus.

Coronavirus, which emerged from China’s Wuhan has impacted more than 2.2 million people around the globe over 4 months. To make sure that business is in operation, while the employees’ health is also not at risk, companies are shifting to remote working.

Meeting the client’s deadlines and keeping the productivity intact amid Corona has become one of the biggest challenges for companies in every industry.

While several business operations have to seize their working for time being to thwart the risk of a virus, the IT industry still has a chance to continue its operation by switching to the remote development team.

Here are quick tips to manage your remote team and keep your business in operation with maximum efficiency:

1. Give time for adjustments:

First of all, it is important for the employer to understand that working remotely does not mean that they have to compromise on project quality or delivery.

For sure, remote work means regular work. But, it is important to understand here that this is a transition for your employees too.

There could be employees who are not used to remote working or working from home, and they have to attune their infrastructure to bring this into reality.

You have to provide them some time to find their rhythm. Also, if in case you have parents/mothers in your team, then you might have to find unique schedules, given that their kids would be at home too.

2. Create Channels for regular communication:

When you switch to offshore remote development, it is a blended team of employees that you have to manage (i.e. office workers and remote workers).

To manage the task of every team efficiently, you can create messaging groups for different sub-teams. For example, you can have different groups for marketing, developers, creatives, finance, founders, etc.

Slack and Trello are some of the names when it comes to tools that help in maintaining smooth communication with a remote team. Other than that, there is also other software like Asana, ProofHub, Zoom, and Basecamp.

You can also connect with your team through group calls on a daily basis to maintain transparency and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

3. Utilize Video Conferencing tools:

There are myriad of Video Conferencing tools like Skype, UberConference, Zoom, Slack Video Calls, and FreeConference that help you manage work from home without inconvenience.

Just like WhatsApp, you can create separate room on these tools as per the needs of your project.

Here is what the respondents of the survey conducted by Lifesize say about video conferencing:

• 98% of the respondents say that video conferencing helps build a stronger relationship among the workers
• 98% of the respondents said that video conferencing helped in productivity
• 89% of freelancers support video calls as make them feel more connected.

Team leads and managers don’t necessarily need a lot of equipment and a separate conference room to conduct video calls with your remote team.

All you need is a computer and a good internet connection to start a video conversation.

4. Log-in and Log-off timings and catch-up calls:

One of the biggest barriers while managing remote working does not know what is the best suitable working hours for employees. To counter that head-on, agree on log-in and log-off board timings with the team.

You can maintain these records on spreadsheets that everyone has access to.

Also, just as in your current office style, there might be impromptu catch-ups happening whenever needed.

When you work with a remote team or blended team, it is good to plan some catch-up calls without any agenda, just too simply get updates and keep communication in-line.

Scheduling these into calendars will make sure that everyone is available for the virtual meeting at the same time.

5. Agree on deliverables for a week period:

Since it is a transition for not only you but also your team and in this locked down situation, they might be coming up with other challenges as well, it is better to agree on deliverables for a week or two weeks.

Use tools like Asana and Trello for task allocation, for reporting and to help everyone prioritize their daily work accordingly.

6. Communicate, communicate, and communicate:

Communication is the lifeblood of any organization, and it is important to maintain constant communication with your team while they are working in isolation.

Take the lead by sending across updates, task allocation and appreciation on the message groups and video conferencing.

You can also arrange fun activities virtually (either on messaging or video calls) where the team can hang out for a bit. This will keep you connected with the team even when you are sitting miles away from them.

Fun activities will also give them a break from the monotonous job and might make them feel refreshed.

7. Encourage deep working:

The problem with remote working is you have to keep communicating with the team over calls and messages. This might consume a lot of time; hence it is also important to create space for them where they can indulge in deep working without being disturbed.

Just ask them which hours they will be dedicating for deeply indulging in their tasks, so you also know when not to call them.

8. Keep calm and trust your team:

When you are working with a remote, you need to keep calm, and if you are not able to connect them for a while. They could be having Internet issues, might have taken a break or not be near their phone.

As a manager, it is important to build enough trust with your employees that you don’t have to supervise them closely to ensure work happens. Once you will practice this exercise, you will have an independent, disciplined yet communicative team.

This was all about the tips that can help you manage the remote team in Corona times. Enabling remote working can be fruitful even after the end of Corona. Remote working lets you hire talent without any geographical restrictions and you don’t have to spend in the `expensive office.

With Corona cases increasing exponentially all over the globe, companies need to make sure that they are seeking the remote development partner in the right country.

Here are the best countries to hire development partners amid Corona. Make sure you make a wise decision, which helps you in the long run.

Author Bio:
Sidharth Jain, Founder and CEO at Graffersid.com -a Website and Mobile App Development Studio that helps corporates to automate their processes and entrepreneurs to build their products from Ideation to being Investor-ready.
Before the hunger of making an impact took over, Sidharth has worked as an adept developer for 7 years in top MNC, where he has managed system for Fortune 500 corporates as well as for unicorn startups.

That is when Sidharth saw the gap between “What client wants” v/s “What client needed”. It is rare to find people who can really listen to the client, understand the requirement, and provide suggestions like it is their own product. This led to the foundation of Graffersid, which has now established its name for its unique approaches and customer-centric design principles. Sidharth, being passionate about tech and start-ups also manages a community of skilled developers and successful Entrepreneurs. Sidharth and his team have worked with clients from various domains and also with IT giants like Infosys. With their strategic approach and state-of-the-art products, they have managed to deliver products which got selected in Y Combinator, Google Incubation USA, BlueChilli Australia, Coca Cola Ventures Australia, and more.