There is a lot of hype in the world of business surrounding remote work, at the moment. Loads of companies around the world are moving their teams to work from home, and you can find countless articles around the web that tell you just how good this sort of work can be. Of course, though, while having a remote team can be a great way to save some money, it can also come with its own challenges.

To help you out with this, this article will be exploring some of these issues, giving you the tools and know-how to get over them.

Health & Safety

Health and safety is a priority for businesses of all sizes, and you need to make sure that your team is kept safe when they are working. Of course, though, this is a challenge when they work from home, as you won’t be able to control their environment as effectively as you can at work. Things like long-term strain caused by the furniture they are using can be influenced, and you can get office chairs for each of your team members that will make their home office a lot safer to use for months on end. You can also train your team to make sure that they are following healthy work patterns and not pushing themselves too hard.

Physical health and safety are important, but you also have to keep the mental health of your team in mind when they work from home. People will always be more productive when they are happy, but working from home can come with challenges that will easily hurt someone’s mood. For those that live alone, life can become quite dull when they’re not going into an office anymore. This makes it worth holding regular meetups, giving your team the chance to catch up and spend time with one another, while also maintaining the rapport they have with one another.

Getting Work Done

Alongside making sure that your team is in good health, you also need to make sure that they are getting their work done. This is easy in an office, as you’ll have the opportunity to check up on people and make sure that they’re working as hard as possible all the time. At home, though, you won’t have this sort of luxury. Tools like Asana can help with this, providing your team members with a breakdown of all of the work they are expected to do. Of course, this will mean that you have to set the whole thing up and make sure that you’re always assigning work to people.

It can also be very helpful to have regular meetings with your team members to make sure that they’re on track. This could involve a simple Zoom call, going over the work they’ve done for the week, and giving them targets to reach for on the next one. Alongside this, you can use tools like online notarization for business to make your most crucial jobs easier, giving you the chance to rely on digital services to do your work.

Communication

Communication is vital to all businesses, but you won’t be able to have a quick chat with the team members you have working from home, and will need to find other ways to get in touch with them. Phone calls can be good for this, and services like Skype can be used practically for free, nowadays. Alongside this, though, it can also be very helpful to have tools like instant messenger and group chats available. Most companies have strict rules in place that force their employees to check things like emails and messages on an hourly basis, and this is something you could do for your team.

Security

Finally, as the last area to consider, it’s time to think about security, and how your remote team could leave your company open to trouble. The computers, internet connections, and other security features at your office can be controlled to ensure that no data is allowed in or out without being checked first. Your remote team won’t have this to protect them, though, and this means that it can be worth giving security training to your team to ensure that they know exactly how to handle this side of the business.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of managing a remote team. There will be a lot of challenges that come with work like this, and you need to make sure that you’re working to overcome them every step of the way.