Hi and welcome back.
This bite is all about HR and the distributed workforce.
And the top five tips on how to best optimize
working apart together.
Stay tuned.
The rapidly growing aging workforce
is forcing companies to look at options
other than hiring full-time onsite employees.
At the same time we often see younger generations of workers
increasingly choosing to work on their own terms.
Hence preferring freelance, temp,
or other types of contingent contracts
over permanent employment.
On top of that, those people who do still
want to work old-school, so to speak,
still expect their employer to offer them
the opportunity to work remotely.
So one way or the other the distributed workforce
is here to stay, which means HR will have to find a way
to make this working apart together thing work.
But how can you do this most effectively?
Here are five best practices.
One, hire the right people.
First of all, remote work isn't for everyone.
According to Buffer, loneliness, collaborating
or even a lack of collaboration and distractions at home
are the main things remote workers struggle with.
Secondly, for a distributed team to function,
its members need to have a high degree of self-discipline.
After all, they're not surrounded by hard-working,
inspiring colleagues, at least not physically.
Nor is there a manager around whose presence would be enough
to finally get them started on their tedious task.
So here's a tip, when you're recruiting people
to work in a distributed team, check if the applicant
has previous experience with remote work
and let them do a test assignment.
Number two, clear expectations.
Hiring someone to join a distributed team
is different from hiring someone
to join a team that's based in an office together.
Make sure your job advert is as unambiguous as possible
to avoid people getting the wrong expectations
about the job.
Once a new hire has joined your distributed workforce,
it's important they know exactly what is expected of them.
Therefore, it can be a good idea for their team manager
to let them know what their goals are for the coming week,
let them know what tasks they ideally complete
on a weekly basis, let them know to whom they can reach out
if they have an issue, let them know when they're expected
to respond to emails and when they should be reachable.
In a nutshell, make sure all team leaders
communicate their availability to the distributed team,
when can people reach them and via what channel.
The same thing goes for team members,
they should also share when they are available.
Number three, the importance of communication.
Clear expectations and communication go hand in hand,
and it's always important to communicate
with your employees.
Especially when your organization is working
with a remote team.
After all, your distributed team doesn't physically
share the same space, so if on top of that
there's little to no communication
it's easy for them to start feeling forgotten,
become less engaged, less productive, and eventually leave.
So here are some simple rules and tools
you can implement in your company's remote work policy.
A team messaging tool, like Slack for example,
is indispensable.
Have regular team meetings and always use video for them.
Regarding those regular team meetings,
try to hold them at different times.
This is particularly relevant for distributed teams
that are based in different timezones.
Number four, face time.
A big part of our communication is non-verbal.
Hence the importance of video calls.
Especially if your entire team works remotely,
managers will miss out on a lot
if they don't at least regularly see their members
on a video call.
Last but not least number five, team building.
When it comes to a distributed workforce,
the team building that used to take place in the office
has to take place online, or at least part of it.
As HR professionals it's important to think about this
and to come up with a plan.
That plan will without a doubt include
a combination of technologies, like video and chat tools,
but also face-to-face office parties,
if we can still call them like that,
a couple of times a year.
And that's a wrap.
In today's bite you've learnt five best practices
about making a distributed workforce work.
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