Remote working has become all the rage as of late, with many a business looking to incorporate workers from across the globe. It can help save on office costs, make it much easier to launch a business, and it can attract some of the most qualified workers who are increasingly looking to escape the office grind. However, when you’re working with a remote team, you have to work extra hard to ensure that standards and communication are shared across the board.

Here are a few ways you can keep the team cohesive.

When Working With A Remote Team

Make sure that you’re there for them

First and foremost, you should make sure that when they need support and guidance, your team knows that you (and whatever managerial team you have) are there for them.

This doesn’t just mean occasionally letting them know that you have an open door for them. Weekly update emails from you with a call-to-action for people to get in touch, and proactively addressing any issues that you have spotted can make your messaging seem a lot more genuine. Otherwise, most workers are going to assume that any instance of bothering you or the managers for help is going to be met with annoyance rather than open collaboration.

Of course, this has to be balanced with routine communication, as well. Email alone isn’t enough.

Get talking

Indeed, staying in touch with your remote employees is crucial, regardless of what kind of structure your team is using. Aside from the email as mentioned above, you should be actively talking with them rather than just engaging in one-sided communication. A lot of remote teams have routine meetings, be it through voice alone or through a webcam. This not only allows for more organic conversation, but it can help to build something of a personal connection with your workers. When people are able to put a face to a name and build a real rapport, then they are going to be more invested in the people that they work with and more invested in their work, as a result.

Make it easier for them to collaborate

Of course, you should make it easy for the various members of your teams to keep in touch with each other without having to set up a meeting. To that end, you can help by setting certain standards for how your team keeps in touch. Otherwise, some might use direct messages, some might use emails, and various communications can get missed entirely because people are using different mediums or platforms. One easy way to prevent that is to set the standard for everyone using team communication tools. The best of these can allow people to set up one-to-one conversations, team message boards, project workspaces and much more in one platform, streamlining communication which can lead to much better collaboration across the board.

Set standards for file management and organisation

In most cases, remote teams are going to be using the Cloud to store and share files with one another. When you do that, however, you have to make sure that team members aren’t just saving files wherever it’s convenient. You want to create a shared file structure and hierarchy. Different folders in this structure can be dedicated to different teams, projects, or common file formats, and the names should make it easy for people to search for the specific file they’re looking for, as well. Otherwise, a collaborative space can get very messy with poorly named and organized files very quickly, indeed.

Have some rules about files formats too

Aside from where and how your documents and files are shared, you should keep in mind that the format of those files matters a lot, too. For instance, some people might be a lot more comfortable working with doc files and some might prefer pdf files, but certain files come with additional complexities, like how many people experience that Preview freezes whenever they try to edit and save a pdf. To that end, you should consider which file types are relevant and best for different operations and make sure that team members across the board follow these standards so there are fewer instances of people having to go back and edit a file to make it more accessible for the team.

Set and track goals clearly

One of the common problems that leaders in remote teams experience is that they feel that their workers don’t properly engage with the goals and directions that they set. This is easily done if those goals are only outlined once in an email delivered to them. While you might have expectations of what work your team is doing, they might have their own expectations, and when those don’t meet, someone is going to end up disappointed. Work to set goals with them collaboratively, improving their accountability and helping them get a better idea of the execution details that matter most to you. Using KPI trackers can also help team members get a good idea of exactly what your standards are, but you should be mindful of the added pressure they can bring to a remote work environment.

Something everyone should learn to do whether they work remotely or not is to relax after work, these tips will help you with some activities to relax your mind and body after a hard days work.