The effects of the 2020 global pandemic have been both positive and negative across a wide range of industries. In the business world, it was first, majorly, negative since businesses were forced to shut down or to operate on a minimal level by attending to only a few customers at a time.

This was really frustrating for business owners and entrepreneurs alike. Fast forward to today, these same business people have something to be grateful for about the pandemic. It is the advancement of mindsets and technology in achieving remote collaboration in the workplace.

The remote work model

Remote work is a business operation model in which one or more employees are allowed to carry out their regular activities outside the proximity of the office or business environment.

The remote work model has been in existence for a long time. However, only a very small percentage of the global work population were successful at implementing the strategy.

Some businesses have previously had the idea of remote work but lacked the confidence to implement it across board since there were not many businesses doing the same.

In other instances, some businesses were willing to implement the remote work model but lacked access to the tools necessary for achieving such out of office collaboration.

Individuals and businesses who managed to operate in a remote work model found it to be less strenuous than the typical office environment, but their cooperation with physically operating companies was limited.

Why Remote collaboration is becoming the norm

There’s a grappling number of changes in the way businesses operate. Agreeably, a lot of these changes are aided by technology and this includes the increase in remote collaborations which we are currently discussing about.

Access to content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM), internet security infrastructures, and other advanced technologies has helped many businesses open their doors to remote work.

Consequently, this gives many other businesses the courage to do the same. It is a ripple effect that has led to the growth of remote culture, especially across developed countries.

Another significant reason why remote collaboration is becoming the norm is that there are more and more discussions that expose employees and entire organisations to the mental and psychological requirements associated with the remote work environment.

With this, new remote employees do not have to struggle to keep up with productivity while new remote businesses do not have to struggle to connect with their staff or assign/monitor tasks - like they used to.

Things to consider when setting up for remote collaboration

A number of strong points exist for businesses looking to implement remote collaboration. Read along as we dissect what they are.

‍

Proper Communication:

One of the first things to consider when setting up for remote collaboration is building a strong communication culture.

Remote work environments are much unlike office environments where you could simply call out to a fellow staff member and pass information to them. As a result, working such settings can only prove effective if emphasis is placed on prompt, regular, and sound communication.

The most outstanding need for good communication from every participant in a remote environment arises from the fact that a slight communication delay could impact heavily on the project completion time as well as the quality of the delivery.

Seamless Project or Task Review Process:

On-site jobs allow supervisors to physically inspect ongoing tasks and to quickly offer their feedback or review. This is crucial for correcting errors as they happen.

Additionally, the physical environment presents a great chance of successfully completing a project, and even doing so at first attempt, thereby, saving both time and resources.

With remote work collaborations, however, there is significant limitation to the way collaborators examine each other's work. Technology is helping to curb this setback through features that prompt users to leave a review after every milestone, to grade their experience with each other through a 5-star review system, and much more.

Constant Motivation:

A work environment where you do not see your team members in person requires a strong character of self motivation. This self motivation is what will keep contributors fired up on performing their job. It is what hiring managers ask about when conducting an interview and as it turns out, they have very good reasons for wanting to know.

Teams that skip this important question in their hiring process may end up onboarding contributors who lack a personal drive. Such mistakes are disastrous in remote collaboration efforts since the concerned individual will likely end up with a decline in their performance.

Due Appraisals

You might be familiar with the office culture in which staff are asked to gather round and applaud an outstanding performance from a team or individual. The idea behind such culture is to give appraisals to deserving members of a company.

This is a concept that must be brought into remote collaborations for its sheer benefit, which is the fact that people naturally perform better when they are recognized or appreciated.  

Some of the best ways to recognize top performers in the remote space are by featuring them in your company newsletter, doing a shout out during a videoconference meeting, or setting up a celebratory card on the Content Management System which your team uses.

Personal Relationships:

A positive work relationship could help employees enjoy their career and also significantly boost their productivity. There are many kinds of these relationships. Examples include mentor, client, and team member relationships.

Personal relationships can sometimes grow out of an office environment but it is important to always keep things decent and respectable.

With good personal relationships in place, employees will enjoy swift communication, easy conflict resolution, and better understanding. A remote work environment will benefit from this by experiencing increased coordination and troubleshooting among the different levels of operation.

9 Tools that will Boost Remote Collaboration

Good service delivery always comes down to two things: the first is the skill of a professional and the second is the kind of tool they use. While we assume that your team has the necessary skills and are all set to launch a remote collaboration, we will be assisting by providing you with a list of tools you should deploy.

Basecamp:

Basecamp is a project management tool. It allows businesses to carry out remote collaborations through a unique feature of setting up different team spaces. Each of these team spaces has its own checklist, scheduling, to-do, documentation, and group messaging folders.

A typical remote company could utilise this software in creating individual spaces for its engineering, marketing, and product design teams with team members having access to resources peculiar to their field.

The Basecamp software is also a huge option for businesses since it has consistently introduced striking new features. An example is the Schedule Message option rolled out early this year to enable automatic message sending from collaborators whether they are online or not.

Another great feature is the UpNext feature that offers visibility of assignments and upcoming tasks.  

Fill HQ:

Fill HQ is a collaboration tool with three basic functions which include creating questionnaires, surveys and other business forms, appending signatures or business stamps on NDA or contract documents, and managing any of these types of documents after creating one.  

The application brings the power of document management into your hands. It supports all document formats, employs military grade encryption, offers cross-platform functionality for different devices, and beats the competition with 24/7 live support, template funnels and conversion analytic.

As well as smart document filling capabilities.

In a remote collaboration environment, the Fill HQ tool is useful for hiring new employees. It also makes the creation of purchase orders, certificates of incorporation, and investor or vc funding agreements possible.

WhatsApp:

Everyone has probably heard of the instant messaging platform called WhatsApp. In our opinion, WhatsApp is a great tool for building personal relationships with fellow remote collaborators. Text and audio visual messages sent through the platform are instantly delivered to a receiver.

In addition, messages are end-to-end encrypted to provide advanced security and there are a large number of interesting emojis and stickers to visually express one's actions or feelings.

The use cases for WhatsApp - in a remote collaboration setting - would be to provide one-on-one mentorship or personal advice, especially to lower level collaborators.

Google Meet:

Meetings are important to every successful business. For instance, business operational teams hold meetings to review their performance and to determine their next projects or milestones. Similarly, executive teams hold meetings to review company strategies and results.

Shareholders within a company also, sometimes, hold meetings to review the return on investments or to agree on how much to invest.

If you fall into any of these categories of business people and you happen to work in a remote environment, you will likely find Google Meet to be very resourceful. The Google Meet app makes video conferences and virtual meetings effective.

When a meeting is scheduled, the application automatically creates a unique link for it. This link serves as an access to the meeting and is shared from the scheduler to all the intended participants.

On the call, instructors can share their computer screens to show word or spreadsheet documents, presentations, or videos that explain what they are saying.

GitHub:

GitHub has come to be known as the place for developers. The website offers open (publicly available) source codes in many different program languages, thereby making it possible for newbies to start a coding project.

In addition, the GitHub setting allows teams to collaborate and launch projects remotely. GitHub developers can also invite one another to take a look at their finished projects or to make an input for debugging or program improvement purposes.

Guess what? Businesses that have welcomed the remote work model can use this source code platform to develop, test, and launch their software minimum viable products (MVPs). Remote collaborators can also even utilise the platform in improving the operation of their own unique work softwares through in-house coding.

Evernote:

Are you familiar with taking notes during online team or board meetings? If yes, then you probably understand - more than others - that it is not as easy as everyone thinks. Thankfully, Evernote simplifies the process.

Evernote features an attractive typing environment. It also further allows users to take pictures, record audios or device screen activities, scan documents, and even embed different types of web contents into every note they create.

Of course, notes made using this tool are easily shareable and they can be duplicated and stored to cloud, aiding remote team collaboration.

Google Calendar:

As we’ve mentioned, one of the many considerations for setting up remote collaboration is looking for ways in which your team will always keep to time. The google calendar is one application that can help you achieve this.

Some great functions available on this tool include making full length descriptions or adding notes to your scheduled events, setting day-long event reminders, and inviting countless number of selected people to share in an event.

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn might seem out of place by being on this list but it’s really something you should consider. The blue app is designed to connect professionals and businesses across similar and diverse industries. It has been doing this successfully for over twenty years.

By using this adept networking tool, collaborators in a remote work environment can quickly grow their team by accessing and acquiring the right professionals - whether for a long term work relationship or simply for a one-off project.

Moreover, having a LinkedIn presence projects a certain level of authenticity which will definitely improve the outlook of any remote team and, thereby, increase their chances of accessing partners with top industry players.

Dropbox:

Dropbox is a prominent cloud storage software that makes it quick and easy to remotely store documents. The cloud-based file-sharing service is perfect for remote collaborations since it allows multiple users to seamlessly access, modify, and store files.

It can help teams to track improvements, record incidents or monitor changes to their processes. It also allows users to edit photo and document files, for example, by adding watermarks to multiple pictures at once or by requesting or adding signatures to business contracts.

While also offering the safe keeping of authentic project data from theft or damage.

In conclusion, the remote work model proves to hold some advantage over the traditional work model and making use of the right collaborative tools will only make it more and more seamless for businesses operating in this increasingly welcomed environment.

‍