The pandemic has pushed businesses into a strange, new world, where remote work is the biggest reality. When it first broke out months ago, organizations had to make a sudden switch to the work-from-home model because letting people operate from the office was fraught with danger. Even as businesses were allowed to open, many opted to embrace the remote model in the long haul. During this critical phase, some companies were able to ace virtual collaboration, while others are still struggling to get it right. It is vital to ensure that your remote workers are able to connect and collaborate seamlessly so that operations are efficient and uninterrupted. Fortunately, things are much clearer than they initially were, and businesses have actionable insights about addressing issues with virtual collaboration. If your employees are still having a hard time collaborating, here is a list of best practices for successful virtual collaboration that you can implement for your business.
Best Practice #1: Start by identifying objectives
Every business has short-term and long-term objectives, and defining them clearly is vital all the more when teams are operating remotely. Better virtual collaboration is all about identifying these objectives at an early stage so that teams can focus on goals, deliverables and quality of output. It will help them stay productive even as they work from home and also work as a single unit towards achieving a common goal. Apart from ensuring that everyone knows their main deliverables, business leaders should also define responsibilities.
Best Practice #2: Have regular check-ins
Since teams are not in the same physical location, virtual check-ins are all the more important. Encouraging regular check-ins between team members fosters a good corporate culture for the crisis phase. When it comes to processes, messaging, emails and voice and video conferencing are the best means for the teams to connect. Video conferencing is great for virtual collaboration as it fosters deeper connections. It prevents potential miscommunications because communication through visuals involves nonverbal cues.
Best Practice #3: Prioritize documentation
With the teams going remote, it is no longer possible for people to clarify doubts by simply walking over to someone’s workstation. Right now, they have to collaborate over multiple communication channels. Distractions make things only worse, and there are chances of communication going all wrong. The best way to deal with the concern is by prioritizing documentation for better clarity. Encourage people to bring clarity in documents by setting up common practices for documentation that everyone must follow.
Best Practice #4: Stick to apt communication methods
If you want the team to collaborate well enough, encourage them to use the right communication tools at the right time. Text messages may be great when you need to pass over simple information, but it lacks personal touch if communication has to go beyond conveying data. A video conference is the better option if you want to get in touch with a larger group and do not want the conversation to be cluttered as it may happen over group chats.
Best Practice #5: Go the extra mile with training
Now that virtual collaboration is here to stay, regular training for the team to ramp up their capabilities is essential for every business. Tools and technologies are evolving, and your employees need to keep pace. Ensure that they know everything about every single aspect of remote collaboration, from how to take a screenshot on mac to how to set up a group meeting over video conference, and more. Every time you implement new technology or process, hold virtual training sessions for the team. Have a dedicated support team that is always there to resolve queries and address concerns.
Best Practice #6: Stick to schedules and avoid distractions
When it comes to best practices for successful virtual collaboration, you cannot overlook the importance of creating schedules and sticking to them. When people work from home, they struggle with distractions and shifting priorities, and being called for sudden meetings can overwhelm them. It even affects their productivity and causes mental stress, which are the last things you would want to happen. It is best to block out time for meetings and sessions and let people know in advance so that they are better prepared. Setting structure within collaboration hours is vital to ensure availability and comfort.
Best Practice #7: Do not encourage multitasking
Even as you want your employees to give their best remotely, do not expect or encourage them to multitask. It can be a killer for collaboration and cause chaos and disputes. Once collaboration hours are over, let people get back to individual priorities rather than waste time bombarding each other with trailing emails. If they try to multitask this way, they will only end up wasting time and even making errors in their tasks. So make sure that virtual collaboration is not overdone.
Best Practice #8: Be willing to experiment
A sudden transition to virtual work wasn’t easy for organizations, and new challenges still come despite the passage of time. It is important to be flexible and willing to try new things rather than look for a one size fits all solution. Don’t expect different teams to work the same way. Let them try different ways of collaborating through diverse tools and methods, and understand what works best for them.
Best Practice #9: Invest in team-building activities
A cohesive team is the best practices to achieve success with virtual collaboration because they will be able to understand each other better and arrive at a consensus easily. The best way to bring cohesiveness is by investing in team-building activities as a part of remote operations. Encourage social interactions in addition to work conversations. Find ways to connect people through virtual games and contests.
Best Practice #10: Celebrate small wins
Keeping people motivated is the key to winning with remote work. Celebrating the smallest wins goes a long way in strengthening teams and fostering mutual trust and loyalty towards the company. Pick small occasions such as the completion of project milestones for celebration and commend people for their good work. It will boost motivation and drive them to do even better.
Achieving success with virtual collaboration goes beyond only embracing new technologies. Instead, it is more about bringing people together and making them work towards a common goal. As teams learn to work as one, they will be able to build new practices for taking projects forward and completing them successfully. So, these were some of the best practices you can opt for successful virtual collaboration between teams. Let us know what do you think about it, we would love to hear your feedback in comment section.
