While the pandemic catalyzed a massive economic shift toward Remote work, the shift was already in motion even before 2020. This has been proven in the last few months — pandemic restrictions have died down, but many companies are still employing workforces who work from home part-time or full-time.

It’s no real surprise. Remote workers are skilled and efficient, and this flexibility can contribute to job satisfaction and increased productivity. Still, this new work environment has created fresh challenges for HR teams as they try to build and manage distributed workforces.

In this article, we’ll go over several strategies your HR team can leverage to more effectively manage remote teams.

Challenges for modern HR teams

The benefits of remote work are repeated often by managers and their employees. Remote work allows employees to enjoy more schedule flexibility, saves resources, and lets employers draw talent from around the globe rather than being limited to one locale. These are among the reasons why remote workers now contribute over $1 trillion to the US economy each year.

However, modern HR teams now face Hybrid team management challenges thanks to the shift toward having more remote employees. These challenges include:

• Communicating clearly and efficiently to meet project deadlines and goals
• Increased security risks with mobile devices
• Managing team members around the globe, especially those who will never set foot in the office
• How to hire and reliably pay remote employees

And these are only a few. Let’s take a look at each of these challenges one by one and offer some solutions to better manage remote teams.

Towards better team management

Team management is just as important when it comes to remote workers as it is for local employees. In fact, it may be even more important; employees must feel as though they are part of a team and that they belong to a broader organization even if they don’t see their coworkers in an office environment. Your company’s HR team can learn to support and manage remote employees by focusing on management best practices and collaboration strategies.

Leverage team-building exercises

One of the best ways HR departments can ensure everyone feels like they are on the same team is to leverage daily huddles and regular team-building exercises. These can be anything from trial projects to games to dedicated “after-hours” work parties held on Zoom, Slack, or elsewhere.

The more your employees bond with each other, the more they will feel connected to the same goals and company values even if they don’t see each other in person. In line with the above, an HR department may try to foster a “video first” work culture, emphasizing face-to-face interactions wherever possible rather than relying on text communication tools.

Measure output and efficiency

Additionally, HR teams will need to adjust their measurement metrics and reports for employee performance. It’s no longer appropriate to measure employee suitability for a position based on the pure hours they clock — after all, even time-tracking software has its limitations.

Instead, many HR departments or managers may wish to measure output and efficiency in different ways. Project or deliverable output is oftentimes a better measure for the performance of an employee — and their suitability for a raise or promotion — than other metrics. Furthermore, output and efficiency can be measured even from afar by leveraging the right strategies.

Looking for a solution to keep track of your remote team’s performance and productivity? Give ProofHub a try.

Focus on employee engagement

Though remote work can be more productive in some ways, it can also be less productive due to a lack of employee engagement. To that end, HR teams should emphasize employee engagement practices like surveys, regular check-ins — perhaps even daily meetings between employers and their immediate supervisors — and more.

Maintaining high employee engagement is key to ensure that your distributed workforce is actually efficient and functional rather than merely appearing to be functional. Without someone looking over their shoulder, many employees will consciously or unconsciously “check out” of work, even when they are on the clock.

You may also wish to leverage time tracking or similar software to make sure that employees are at work when they are supposed to be. Or, use an all-purpose employee management system to help your disparate team members track progress and handle complex tasks efficiently.

Cybersecurity for remote workforces

In addition to the above elements, your HR department will need to leverage cybersecurity tools and practices to ensure that data breaches don’t become more common. Cybersecurity threats are more prevalent than ever — and remote workers face heightened security risks — so all of your company’s employees must be aware of them.

To that end, HR teams should implement “cybersecurity hygiene” seminars and training sessions for global employees, which include:

• How to use SSL certification
• How to set up encrypted email, VPNs, etc.
• How to use malware scanners
• How to appropriately use cloud storage or other data sharing tools
• How to guard employee identification information

Collaborating across time zones

HR departments within organizations will also need to foster a sense of collaboration between employees who work in different time zones and across different cultures.

Overcome communication challenges

When working with employees around the globe, HR departments or other employees may face communication struggles, particularly if two employees come from different cultures.

For example, some cultures are “low context” and rely more on literal or direct uses of language. Some of these cultures include the American, Canadian, Australian, German, and Dutch cultures. Other cultures are “high context” and rely more on inferences or nonverbal communications like Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and many Middle Eastern cultures.

HR departments can work to bridge the gap between people in the organization by explaining these concepts and helping employees meet each other in the middle. In this way, there will be fewer misunderstandings and everyone will feel connected by their shared purpose rather than divided by cultural differences.

Make multiple meeting slots

While remote work can save resources, it also saps resources and other scenarios. However, HR departments may wish to not try to force everyone in a company to attend the same meeting if it requires them to be at work during inappropriate hours, such as the middle of the night.

In many cases, it’s better to have multiple meetings for different employee groups based on their time zones. This will allow everyone to be on the same page and will help ensure that employees feel heard and appreciated no matter where they are.

Hiring and paying remote employees

HR departments, in addition to their other response abilities, must also streamline and secure the hiring and paying of remote employees.

Consider offering benefits

Your remote workers will often need insurance — in fact, insurance is one of the best ways to get freelancers to stick around. Given that good insurance is available for less than $25 per month, there’s no reason not to offer this benefit to your employees. Not only will this draw remote talent to your organization, but it will also help your company retain that talent over the long term.

Also, consider incentivizing employee productivity with perks that make remote teams feel like part of the organization even if they work from home. For example, you can provide gym memberships, mental health and wellness services, and online education options for remote employees to access.

You’ll also want to include remote employees in retirement plans like 401(k)s. What’s more, Americans invest earlier than ever these days — in fact, more than half of Gen Z adults start investing before they’re 25. Assisting employees with investing will help them to think about their financial futures and their futures at the company.

Use the right tools

There are many technological tools that HR performance can leverage to ensure smooth hiring and pay for employees. These include:

• Onboarding tools that can take care of training and teaching of introductory concepts for new hires
• Video interview platforms like Zoom or Skype, which allow recruiters to meet job candidates face-to-face before hiring them
• Training software to make sure each new hire feels comfortable rather than overwhelmed when they start their position
• Payroll software and accounting software to ensure HR department is always up-to-date when it comes to payment of wages

Finding it challenging to manage your distributed team? Switch to ProofHub today and keep your remote team on the same page.

Conclusion

All in all, it can be difficult to overcome the challenges of building and managing a distributed workforce. But those challenges can be tackled through the combination of new technology and smarter management practices. We recommend integrating all of the above tips into your team management to ensure that your global workforce is as efficient and functional as possible.

Author Bio

Nahla Davies is a software developer and tech writer. Before devoting her work full-time to technical writing, she managed — among other intriguing things — to serve as a lead programmer at an Inc. 5,000 experiential branding organization whose clients include Samsung, Time Warner, Netflix, and Sony.

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How To Overcome The Challenges Of Building And Managing A Distributed Workforce was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.