With many companies turning to remote workforces to help them meet their business objectives, a large percentage of firms find themselves struggling to extract all the value they can from their BPO set-ups. In this blog post we discuss how to reap the highest possible ROI from a remote workforce and add the most value to your operations.
Maintaining ongoing growth and managing existing workloads can be tricky in today’s business environment, and utilizing outsourced teams is a great way to do just that. By utilizing offshore teams, companies are reducing overhead and staffing costs, scaling faster and maintaining the flexibility to move as quickly as possible with agile staffing solutions. Outsourcing gives companies access to highly-educated and talented employees that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to source locally to provide support in different time zones and languages.
Here are our top five tips for getting the most value out of your remote team:
1. Don’t: Be Inflexible
Different employees have different needs; not everyone works the same. While some of your staff might thrive working 100% remotely, others benefit from coming in person to an office every day or a few times a week to work distraction-free. As a business manager it’s important to keep an open line of communication with your remote team to see what is and isn’t working for them.
Mandating everyone on a remote team come into the office can make employees feel constrained and under-appreciated; it is vital to understand what does and doesn’t work for your staff. How do they stay engaged to reach their full potential, and how can you support them? Such a small investment on management’s side can pay handsome dividends in the long run.
2. Do: Take Advantage of Available Technology
The rise of Zoom and other video conferencing applications during the pandemic has proven to be a sticky business development, with more companies than ever turning to technology to improve collaboration on cross-team projects. Most companies now have policies in place to allow even local staff to work from home at least once a week as video chat and instant messaging make it easier than ever for managers to stay connected with staff at all times.
Aside from teleconferencing, popular work management tools like Asana and Trello make it easy to track work progress in real time, while Google and Microsoft offer a whole suite of free tools to keep your team connected at all times. The latter has even made its legacy Office apps on the web free!
3. Don’t: Skip Regular Check-Ins
While every manager hopes to hire staff that can get the job done with minimal oversight, even the highest-performing employee benefits from regularly touching base with management. These check-ins can be utilized to establish rapport and familiarity, discuss ongoing projects and engagements, troubleshoot issues as they come up and brainstorm solutions to keep projects on track.
Different team structures will require different check-in cadences:
- Some teams find a fifteen-minute status in the middle of the day every working day is a great tool to keep junior staff motivated and focused
- More experienced staff might benefit from a weekly or twice-a-week check-in
- One popular work set-up calls for a Monday morning check-in, followed by a Wednesday afternoon pulse check and a final Friday touch-base
During these check-ins it’s useful to work with a set agenda or project tracker displaying work progress, stakeholders, deadlines and relevant notes.
4. Do: Nurture Employee Potential with Training
With the pandemic driving everyone online to get their work done, many employees are finding more time for reskilling and learning new things through digital webinars and online tutorials. Providing your remote staff with fixed amounts of time during the week to become more knowledgeable on topics in their field shows them that you are committed to their development and promotes higher retention and loyalty. You will also start to see the benefits of an experienced staff that brings its newfound learnings to the workplace.
Setting up your employees for success contributes to your business’s bottom line: happy and capable employees stay longer, contribute more to the firm and help train each other. Strengthen your business by investing in your staff.
5. Do: Develop Outstanding Work Culture
The office isn’t simply a place to work – your employees spend a good chunk of their waking hours there, and if they don’t feel appreciated and welcomed, they won’t be motivated to get work done. Managing a remote team is more than just ticking boxes off a list: it’s about creating a sense of camaraderie around the work your staff do, celebrating achievements and recognizing the growth of every individual.
When your firm hits its milestones, share that with the team. If someone goes above and beyond to provide excellent customer service or an outstanding deliverable, recognize it at one of your status meetings. A little bit of recognition goes a long way, and appreciated employees are more likely to stay with your firm and provide high-quality work.
At Sara Call we love to invest in our staff and show them our appreciation with quarterly team outings. While these events help improve staff retention, they also provide employees chances to make new relationships and build a sense of community at work. With the top reason for people quitting being dissatisfaction with their manager or work environment, creating a positive work culture is vital to retaining staff and propping up the bottom line.
Looking for tips on how to best manage your remote workforce?
Sara Call’s BPO experts are here to help. We have been helping firms looking for talent in Albania, the Philippines and India for a decade, with experience in customer service, sales, lead generation and more. From helping you get started with dedicated virtual assistants, fine-tuning high-performing teams or sourcing remote workers, we are available to help your business meet its needs. Get in touch today!