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Integrating Your Remote Team With Your Office Staff

OUTSOURCING TIPS  |  November 5, 2021

Managing a team is challenging. In fact, not everyone, not even the best employees, is fit to be a manager. It takes a certain level of expertise, skill, and communication capacity to direct employees and maintain rapport. The difficulty is only doubled if you are working with in-office staff and remote teams.

Engaging remote teams is complex because all forms of communication are mediated. There is a lot that is lost when discussions aren’t made face-to-face. If you are a manager or a business owner working with remote teams, you are responsible for keeping your workers engaged and maintaining the company culture.

Thankfully, you don’t have to go through the process alone. Before are a few ways you can engage and integrate your in-office staff and remote personnel:

 

Use Technology to Your Advantage

In this day and age, it is easy to keep you in-office and remote workers connected. There are plenty of applications and software that you can use to open communication channels between you and your employees. Aside from chat, be sure to take advantage of video conferencing. After all, video calls can put faces to the names and avatars. Your employees would feel more at ease with you and with each other if they were familiar with who they are talking to.

 

Encourage Social Interactions

Working from home provides plenty of perks to both employers and employees. However, one big drawback for remote workers is not having peers to talk to especially when work is getting tense. Loneliness is a complicated issue to surmount on your own.

Encouraging social interactions between your employees is a great way to prevent burnout. You can create a virtual water cooler wherein workers can talk about non-work-related topics with freedom and ease.

 

Engage One-on-One

As a manager, your job entails more than just minding your subordinates’ productivity. It is your responsibility to build a professional relationship with them that is grounded on trust and care. It is good practice to engage in one-on-one conversations with your remote team members. Ask them about their lives and check up on their workload. Showing your workers that you care can go a long way in engaging and managing them

 

Facilitate In-Office Days

If possible, arrange for in-office days with your remote team. Make it memorable by planning a team lunch or an after-work activity with the entire department. Interacting face to face can do wonders for your relationship with your employees. Likewise, in-office events can build your workers’ rapport with each other as well.

Keeping all your employees engaged, remote or otherwise, is key to keeping them happy with the company for longer. After all, happy workers are productive workers. As a good manager, finding a healthy middle between efficiency and rapport is a crucial responsibility. The tips above are a great start to building that relationship with your employees.

 

Need help building a new team? Or looking to find new members of your outsourced department? We at Dojo can help! Our staffing and outsourcing services are the solutions that you need to find the right people. Contact us today at [email protected] to learn more about what we can do for your business.