Over the last few years, remote work has been growing rapidly in popularity and brands globally have slowly been adapting to hiring remote workers. However, the COVID-19 pandemic vastly accelerated the need and ability to have remote workers beyond any expectations.
Brands and employees alike were shown that remote work was possible and it changed the workplace for good. Click To TweetWhether you are now working with a fully remote team or working in a hybrid work environment, it is important to know how to effectively deal with remote employees.
HR reps and team managers globally have expressed certain challenges that have come with managing remote, freelance teams. With this in mind, we have taken a look at several ways that you can streamline this process and make it easier to manage your remote freelance workforce.
Get a Management System in Place
One of the first ways that you can prepare your company for managing a remote workforce is by getting a decent freelance management system in place. But, you might be wondering what is freelance management system solution and how can it help you? The answer is it can make your life so much easier.
The fact is that hiring, managing, and paying foreign independent contractors can be more complicated than managing an in-house team, and you need a management platform to help you effectively manage each aspect of the business.
So, look for a solution that allows you to streamline the hiring and management of independent contractors. In the same breath, they will also help your organization overcome many of the problems associated with scaling your freelance talent pool.
The right platform will also allow you to:
- Process freelancer invoices;
- Pay your freelancers;
- Store freelancer information in a centralized, searchable database;
- Generate tax forms;
- Create expense reports;
- Create and manage Gantt chart to visualize project timelines
and dependencies.
Make Use of Collaboration Tools
The one thing that many project managers and team leaders struggle with is having an insight into the status of various projects with remote workers. The solution comes in the form of platforms like Trello and Monday.com, which allow you to have a full insight into what is going on with tasks and projects that the remote team is working on.
You are able to allocate individuals to the tasks, set deadlines, share vital information, track the progress, add and remove tasks, track time and communicate efficiently with the team—even if they are living on a different continent.
What is more, these platforms integrate seamlessly with other platforms. So, if you need a real-time communication tool, you are able to integrate it with the collaboration platform. This allows you to receive real-time notifications about any of the progress on the projects and engage directly with the individual, team, or even company instantly if you need to.
Don’t Forget to Incentivize and Reward Your Remote Team
One of the top mistakes that companies do globally is forgetting that their team, whether in-house or remote, actually needs to be rewarded and appreciated. Companies globally have gotten used to doing month-end awards, in-person socials, and team buildings for their teams. There are many virtual team building activities like online office games, bingo games or trivia. But, the fact of the matter is that this needs to be taking place for remote teams too.
Consider rewarding and incentivizing your team with various virtual options. Rewards such as online gift cards, subscription boxes, or subscriptions to various sites or platforms. You could even consider vouchers or tickets for various events or activities in their area. Just because they are not there in person, does not mean that they do not deserve recognition for their hard work.
You will certainly reap the rewards of it too. Workers who are incentivized and feel rewarded usually end up being more productive and loyal. So, you are likely to see an increase in staff retention and increased levels of productivity.
Make Sure You Provide a Work-Life Balance
This concept has started taking center stage for companies globally. Not only has the pandemic increased the amount of remote and hybrid workers but it has also put emphasis on the need for more of a work-life balance for the employee.
4-day work weeks, flexible hours, and the emphasis on employee physical and mental health have increased considerably and this is starting to reflect for remote workers too.
In many cases, companies have been expecting their employees to be online at all times of the day, however, this has started to change, and if you want to maintain your remote staff, you will start focussing more on work-life balance too.
The Bottom Line
The world of digital platforms and tools has made it easier to manage and incentivize employees. You simply need to keep on top of the latest technology and HR trends.