Take advantage of tools for communication and working together.

Never before has communication been so important. In a world where people spend less time together in person and more time working from home, sending emails back and forth is not enough. Teams now must work together across many different apps, even for the simplest projects. Adding extra steps to a process that used to be simple can make even the most basic tasks less efficient and slow down the whole operation.

Investing in the new digital collaboration tools that are taking over the business world is the best way to manage a virtual team. These can make communication quick and easy by using easy-to-understand visual displays, live updates, and performance analytics that measure each employee's productivity.

Software like Slack, Asana, and Trello, as well as cloud-based file-sharing services like Google Cloud and Microsoft OneDrive, let your company streamline all communication through a central hub, easily transfer files, and edit living documents in real time. Every user can make changes, and many of these services show which changes each team member made. These kinds of software make things more open and help hold everyone responsible for doing their jobs.

Set reasonable goals and be responsible for reaching them.

Transparency is very important for businesses that don't have a physical office. Productivity is how well time is used, and just because there are more hours in the day does not mean that those hours will be useful or even used. The first step is ensuring employees put in at least the minimum hours. Tools that track when your employees sign on for the day will let you know they are there and working the required hours. If you can't keep track of this information by hand, you can install time-tracking software like TSheets to do it for you.

Help workers make the most of their day after you've confirmed that they are putting in the required hours. Giving employees clear daily goals or targets will boost morale and increase productivity since people tend to work better when they are focused on a clear goal with a clear deadline.

How do you set a goal like this? By working backward, you break it up into smaller goals that are easier to achieve. Reverse-engineering the process will help you figure out what you want your employees to do and give you a list of possible results.

For instance, let's say you want to ship 100 chairs by the end of the week. First, figure out where a chair needs to be in the production chain on Friday morning for it to be shipped that weekend. Do this for your product every day of the week or every week or month for long-term goals. This makes detailed rules with clear expectations for both you and your workers. This process can also help you know the more difficult tasks your staff has to do and give you a better idea of each position's monthly, weekly, and daily goals.

Set up good conditions for work.

Google and Facebook invest a lot to provide great workplaces because they recognize the importance of employee satisfaction for productivity. Being productive includes organization and being prepared. That doesn't mean you have to turn your office into a full-fledged gym. Researchers found that raising the temperature in an office by just a few degrees can make people more productive. The change here has a big impact despite its small size.

If your employees work from home, they might be unable to use office amenities like the high-end heating system you just bought. If this is the case, think about virtual alternatives. Was the pizza party at work every six weeks a big hit? Send your employees a small coupon for lunch, and set up a video call for one afternoon so you can all eat together. When a team feels important, they are more likely to work hard and reach its goals.

Eliminate things that waste time.

You and your workers need to pay attention if you want to get more done. Even the most enthusiastic and involved employees will allow their thoughts to stray and spend an additional five minutes on social media. Every hour spent at your company has to be valuable.

To stay productive, limit the number of times you can get sidetracked. Delete distracting phone apps or put them on mute at work. Please turn off your phone's alerts, or even better, turn it off and put it in your desk drawer. Use tools and resources that eliminate tedious tasks.

Encourage your workers to keep a notebook where they can write down any thoughts that are getting in the way and then let them go. This visualization exercise helps you get rid of thoughts that are getting in the way of your work so you can focus on it.

Most importantly, reassure your employees that they shouldn't be hard on themselves if distracted. Instead, they should help them get back to work gently.

Maximize automation.

Many tasks and procedures still need human labor, as anybody who has worked in the company for any time will attest. Most of the time, these are small but important tasks.

Suppose you could automate these processes so that you and your employees could devote more time to complex tasks and procedures. By analyzing your company's operations and investing in software that automates as many of those procedures as feasible, you may complete the tedious job quickly while allowing your staff to concentrate on other duties. Because of the demand for mobile infrastructure, more of these solutions are available now than ever. As a result, now is the perfect time to evaluate which of your job functions can be eliminated so that you can devote more time to important tasks requiring higher critical thinking.

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