Having a clear overview of how your business is running on a day to day basis isn’t always easy when the majority of your workforce are based at home.
Creating a smooth, optimized and efficient workflow will not only give your company the best chance of success, but it will also provide your workers with all of the tools they need to do their very best in their role.
You may find that there are certain things getting in the way of productivity, and this can have a knock on effect on your daily workflow.
Having a consistent and consistent well-oiled workflow is important to any business because it creates an opportunity to make more money using less manual effort, energy and time.
Communicate Regularly
It’s no big secret that effective communication is the key to a smooth and optimized workflow.
After all, if your team doesn’t know what is expected of them, what the deadlines are and the outlines of the project, they won’t be able to perform at an optimum level.
Your methods of communication are completely your choice, and will be dependent on the type of work style you adopt. You may wish to hold daily or weekly online meetings to get your team up to speed with the latest tasks.
On the other hand, you may need an active instant messenger to provide more regular updates to your remote employees.
Ultimately, it is up to you and your managers to discover the best mode of communication to keep everyone in the loop with the latest happenings in and around the business.
Once your communication improves, you will notice that your workflow starts to become more effective too.
Seek Out the Best Technology
Technology, software and online tools are invaluable when it comes to providing a stellar service to your clients and optimizing your workflow.
Your remote workers need to have access to all of the documents and data they need to carry out their tasks and complete projects in a timely manner.
This may require you to do some research and find the right type of online tools to benefit your team.
Whether you need office to pdf sdk or you require accounting software to stay on track with client payments, there are so many useful and accessible tools you can use.
Technology is continually enhancing and improving, hopefully you can always stay in touch with the latest innovations for your company.
Set Goals and Expectations
When you work remotely on a regular basis it can often be unclear what is required from you at any given time.
Having an open line of communication and setting clear goals and expectations during weekly meetings and catch ups is a surefire way to improve your workflow in a significant way.
Unfortunately, when employees feel as though they don’t have anything specific to work towards they may begin to slack in certain areas. This can result in mistakes, delays and costly workflow issues.
As soon as you start to set manageable goals and create clear expectations you will start to see a notable improvement in how your business operates on a day to day basis.
Offer Rewards, Incentives and Recognition
Nobody deserves to work hard at a task and receive absolutely no rewards or recognition in return.
There are so many ways in which you can show your appreciation to your hard working team members which doesn’t involve a monetary bonus.
Simply sending someone a congratulatory email when they have worked extremely hard towards a project is often enough to give them a boost in confidence.
When they know that there are rewards and recognition at the end of the tunnel, they will keep this momentum going and carry it into their next project with ease.
Provide Regular Feedback
When your remote employees are working towards a task or they’re due to finish an important project, it is so important to give them feedback as they work through it.
Depending on the type of industry you’re working in, you may find that regular feedback is an effective way to improve your overall workflow as it prevents mistakes from occurring.
Nipping issues in the bud before they get out of hand is an effective technique as it allows your workers to rectify issues before they become a real problem to the business.
All in all, there are so many ways in which you can provide effective feedback to your employees who work remotely.
Whether you’re catching up with them on the phone, email or instant messaging platform, you should stay in touch with them to provide support, feedback and advice whenever it is required.
Create Professional Boundaries and Stick to Them
Your business workflow can quickly go into disarray if there are no set boundaries in place.
Boundaries can come in all sorts of different shapes and forms, but some of the most common boundaries you need to set are based around communication and working hours.
Setting expectations and boundaries with regards to communicating with your team should be very clear.
Although you don’t want to instill a negative attitude, you need to make sure that your culture and work style is made evident from day one. This includes working to your contracted hours and taking regular breaks whenever needed.
Believe it or not, a well rested team is a much more productive and happy team so you should always encourage your remote workers to take screen breaks.
Once they find a happy balance between working and taking time out you will find that your workflow is much more efficient as a whole.
When you stop taking action and making improvements, your workflow optimization is ultimately going to suffer.
Being aware of what’s working and what isn’t working for your business is the only way to truly improve your company from the back-end.
Your remote employees may be doing everything they’re supposed to, but it’s up to you to put continual improvements in place so that your workflow is always at the highest possible level.
Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich
