5 myths about offshoring remote teams
If you still think that you’ve gotta have your employees sitting next to you everyday, think again. Gone are the days of being cooped up in your cubicles! Nowadays, you could be working with employees and colleagues from across borders and time zones. You might call these people remote employees or remote teams.
Previously, we talked about the tips and tricks of offshoring to Indonesia. Well, remote teams are pretty similar to that idea. Essentially, remote teams are a group of people with complementary skills and talents. The catch is that these people do not operate within the same office, and might be spread out across the globe! Nonetheless, this group of individuals share the same objectives and responsibilities as a typical onsite team would.
Remote teams have gained traction in recent years, with tech tools such as video-conferencing helping to make remote work seamless for modern employees. Nowadays, the number of freelancers have doubled, with productivity increasing by almost 13% for employees that work from home. But the best part about having or being part of a remote team is the opportunity to work with talent from all over the globe!
Even though offshoring remote teams has become more prevalent, many employers are still hesitant about the jump from traditional office spaces. That’s why we’ve come to dispel five myths about remote teams today!
Au contraire! This argument is unfounded. No matter whether a worker is remote or in office, there will always be chances that you’ll meet a bad employee. So it doesn’t matter if your colleague or worker is right beside you, or across the pacific ocean–work quality isn’t determined by distance.
According to a study done by Cardiff University, more than a third of people who mostly work from home often work additional hours to complete their tasks, in contrast to less than a quarter of employees in traditional office spaces.
The best way to ensure quality workers is to amp up your hiring process. Make your interviews more tailored towards the exact people you want on your team. For example, try creating several interview rounds, or include task-specific tests in your hiring process.
Of course the idea of working at home makes it seem that remote workers have more time to slack and laze around. But the label of a slacker is wholly untrue. Although working from home or somewhere that isn’t necessarily an office gives people more flexibility, it doesn’t mean that they skive off their work.
Some 86% of people surveyed on remote.co said working remotely allowed them to hit maximum productivity! The rise of telecommunication services has also helped remote workers to complete more work in less tim. If that isn’t efficiency, I don’t know what is.
One thing to note: if you have the right people on your team, you won’t have to be anxious about slacking. This adds on to the point above! As long as you nail your hiring process, rest assured that the efficiency of your team will not be a problem.
Having people in your teams operating from different time zones could be a double-edged sword. On one hand, having teammates from all of the world could cause a horrid imbalance! But on the other, time zone differences could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Having people working from all parts of the world can double your productivity. Essentially, you’ll have a team working round the clock, solving issues and generating ideas.
Adding on to the previous myth, most employers are also afraid of wasting precious time on communication. Undoubtedly, time differences can be a dire issue if there’s bad organisation within your team. Having 13 different time zones with everyone having different schedules is certainly going to be a problem!
We recommend grouping time zones together for a start. For example, if your time zone differences have a relatively small spread of four to six hours, have your team agree to work at the same time. This makes communication and workflow more fluid as a whole. If your time differences are more spread out, say eight to 10 hours, you can double your productivity by creating specific timings for employees to be online.
What we’re essentially suggesting is to have a ‘day shift’ and ‘night shift’. This helps to smoothen out communication, and also gives clients the assurance that someone will be online to cater to their needs. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to their problems all solved?
Hmm, the awkward elephant in the virtual room. As remote teams aren’t employees you meet in the flesh, you might be worried that they would feel like a fish out of water when it comes to company culture.
Honestly, what is culture? We believe that company culture is made up of like-minded people with the same goals. As the head of your team, you’ll be the one to steer your remote team into the right waters—that includes culture too! Some ways you could foster team spirit would be to have casual meetings instead of work related ones. Put aside half an hour a week to catch up with your remote employees.
Are you ready to give offshoring remote teams a shot? We understand your reservations about this new endeavour, but don’t fret! If you follow these three simple steps, offshoring your remote workers workers will be easy-peazy.
A rigorous hiring process can ensure that you’ll be able to form your dream team. We suggest doing three rounds of interviews: A get-to-know session, a test related to their solution and a formal interview or discussion.
Strong hiring processes can help to curb any anxiety of employee quality. You’ll also be able to get a sense of the personalities of your potential hires and see if they’re aligned with your company’s vision.
Effective communication is extremely important when it comes to handling remote teams. With so many time zones, balance and crystal clear communication lines are your best bet for efficient workflow.
Try your hand at holding weekly or monthly meetings, usually at the start of the week or month. A short meeting can help to set the agenda for the week or month. This is important as it helps your employees (not only the remote ones) to have a clear direction or task flow for the next few days or month. In addition to daily or monthly check-ins, we recommend using apps like Slack to keep in touch with your remote team. This, way, it’ll close the distance between the both of you—even if you’re separated by 3,000km of ocean.
Of course many of us rely on online sharing apps and drives for better work efficiency. Although online document sharing services are a one-stop platform for many teams to consolidate work, we suggest making assignment tracking more accessible. Here at Glints, our team relies on Trello to help us keep track of our tasks.
Trello’s workboard is extremely user friendly: simply drag and drop the specific tasks into different columns such as ‘Editing-round 1’ or ‘Published’ as you go along. Notifications can also be turned on so employees in charge of specific sections know when to check in on their tasks. An alternative workflow app you could check out is also Asana. The calendar and checklist design of Asana’s interface is also a sleek and simple way to monitor workflow within your team.
The idea of offshoring remote teams might sound rather… remote. But with the advent of technology, this is becoming a more efficient and flexible for companies. But the biggest perk of offshoring teams has gotta be the amount of talent you get to reach.
You’ll get to work with the best people from (literally) all over the world! In the end, the best resources you can invest in will be people. So don’t let the jitters stop you.
Interested in offshoring remote teams for your company? Click here to access TalentHub and let us give you a leg-up today.
