In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving business landscape, remote teams are becoming more and more common. With the rise of technology, companies can now collaborate with employees from all over the world. This provides many opportunities for businesses to grow and expand, but it also comes with its unique challenges.
Collaborating with a remote team requires different skills and strategies than working with an in-person team. In this article, we’ll discuss four tips that can help you collaborate more effectively with your remote team with the help of AnyHow, a virtual HQ where you can easily collaborate, create new projects, keep track of your daily and weekly tasks, make reports, send clients’ invoices and so much more.
Tip 01: Communication is Key #
When you’re working with a remote team, communication is essential. Since you won’t be in the exact physical location, you need to find other ways to stay in touch and keep everyone on the same page.
One of the most important things you can do is to establish clear lines of communication. Make sure everyone knows how to contact each other, and set up regular check-ins to keep everyone updated on the project’s progress.
Another important aspect of communication is using the right tools. On AnyHowHQ you and your team can easily keep communication flowing on various topics through our “Discussions” feature.
Here you can check in with your team, and as the name suggests, discuss meetings, revisions, holidays, or anything else that comes to your mind with real-time updates when viewing a specific discussion, filters, tags, and privacy settings. Find more in-depth details about our Discussions feature right here.
Tip 02: Build Trust #
Building trust is essential for any team, but it’s especially important when you’re working with a remote team. Since you won’t be seeing each other in person, it can be more difficult to establish a sense of trust and camaraderie.
One way to build trust is to be transparent and honest with your team. Let them know what you’re working on, what challenges you’re facing, and what your goals are. This will help everyone feel more connected and invested in the project and can easily be done on AnyHowHQ through the Discussions dashboard or even our Timesheets feature.
Timesheets are usually a great way to give your team members autonomy, while also having a peek at what they’re currently working on as it always them to keep track of their time spent based on client, project, role, and billing status.
If you’re also doing freelance work or currently working on multiple projects, don’t worry – Our timesheets feature, shown in a full-week view, supports multiple projects and roles in a single timesheet.
You can opt-in on having a timesheet approval workflow which is beneficial for admins, project managers, or really any manager in your organization. This will help you visualize and display the cost to the client, cost to your organization, and profit for organization for each project’s weekly row (Only admin). Learn more about timesheets on AnyHowHQ here.
Tip 03: Use the Right Collaboration Tools #
Collaborating effectively with a remote team requires the right tools, which will allow you and your team to communicate easily, share files, and ultimately work seamlessly in real-time.
At AnyHow HQ, we offer access to a wide range of collaboration tools that help you manage your workflow more efficiently. Our “Reports” feature provides detailed information on your company’s income, expenses, invoices, projects, clients and so much more. Here you can easily monitor budgets and easily provide automated status reports to clients on different projects.
As a manager or even a freelancer, getting paid for your hard work has never been easier. With our “Invoicing” feature, invoices can be created automatically, or manually, based on your company's timesheets. With this tool you can submit invoices to your clients directly from AnyHow, and even generate a shareable public URL for it, adding expenses and tracking whether or not the invoice has been seen and paid.
As transparency is definitely key for any team, you can provide your clients with a view of associated time logs for a given invoice, which essentially is a CSV downloadable file.
These tools help ensure that your team can collaborate effectively and achieve its goals. Learn more about Reports and Invoices right here.
Tip 04: Keep Your Files Safe and Found #
A remote team is not just about the number of people. It's about working together in real-time, collaborating on files and documents, and communicating with each other via email or chat, among many, many other things.
In order for your remote team to be successful, you need to make sure that everyone has their files where they need them — whether that's on their local computer or in the cloud. Luckily for you, AnyHowHQ is the whole package.
With AnyHow’s “Files” feature never lose an important file again. This is your central storage point for all your organization files that supports full tagging, filtering, permissions, sharing, and downloading. Here you can effectively and unlimitedly store all of your team and clients' files in the cloud while using tools like file tagging, which allows you to tag specific users, projects, clients, and teams, so they're easier to find later on when you need them again.
You can also set up permissions for a specific file to be private and therefore accessible only by those tagged, or allow guests to see the file. These can be shareable via secure URL's with external users. Learn more on how to use our Files feature to its max potential here.
Takeaway #
Ultimately, no matter your company’s size or the structure of your team, if you are tasked with collaborating with a remote team, these four tips will help you succeed. The ability to work with people from all over the world is a great organizational advantage, and it should be viewed as such.
AnyhowHQ becomes a valuable platform when you need to keep your remote team organized and on their toes. Maybe you’re short on time, or you want to ensure that all the tasks and deadlines that were agreed to are getting followed up. Maybe you want to tailor your keynote reports according to each one of your team member’s needs. Whatever the reason may be, AnyhowHQ is here to help.