3 Productivity Barriers to overcome when managing a remote team

The method of remote working has been normalized after the co-vid incident that shook the world and what people thought could be impossible working conditions have shown to have many benefits.

Having given up commuting to work and back, productivity levels increased. The advantages don't just apply to hires alone but to employers as well. Managing a remote team grants an employer access to a global talent pool (you aren't just restricted to local talent but can dip your hand into a can of variety), saves costs (especially when it comes to office utilities, office space, and other expenses) and employee retention as it provides flexibility and a chance for them to have control of their time and work without ever leaving their zen garden.

As expected, great advantages also come with great disadvantages, as managing a remote team might be a bit tricky, especially when it comes to managing productivity, maintaining a rapport between colleagues, and maintaining a company culture.

Rocketdevs understands that managing a team of developers, product managers and other technical roles, might be more difficult when face-to-face communication is cut off and the need for constant communication when leading can not be over-emphasized.

Here are 5 productivity barriers you might face when managing a remote team and how to overcome them

1. Communication and Collaboration

This is a major reason why some companies prefer on-site working conditions or hybrid but never fully remote. Being in the office provides a sense of order and allows colleagues to collaborate even when they aren't discussing work at a particular time. Face-to-face conversations allow for effective follow-up and easier confrontation if needed , but it's much harder to do if the screen is your only method of communication.

If you're managing a team of developers who love isolation, getting them to leave their bubble and collaborate with other teams is a necessity for any project to be successful or completed without constant hiccups.

Rocketdevs, being a solution driver of anything innovative, encourages using centralized communication tools like GitHub, Slack, and Jira to ensure constant communication and collaboration between teams and supervisors to ensure quick task deliveries.

Schedule regular stand-up meetings, check-ins, and team meetings to smooth out operations and allow what we like to call the open floor method that allows every team member to express their opinions and challenges whenever they're needed

2. The Time-zone Issue

Having access to a global talent pool is all fun and good until you face the fact that your time zones are completely different which can be difficult to manage. "How do I achieve smooth stand-up meetings and regular check-ins, if my senior developer begins work when I'm getting off work?" This was probably your first thought when you read the second challenge as this can also cause a disconnect between team members leading to a not-so-easy collaboration.

Here's what we use at Rocketdevs - We identify overlapping working hours where most of the team members are available and schedule stand-up meetings and check-ins during those times.

We also have flexible working hours in place which accommodate different time zones of everyone and of course, ensures a healthy work-life balance.

When it comes to managing remote teams, rigidity has to be done away with, and you have to welcome flexibility with open arms.

3. Accountability and Productivity

You might be wondering "Working from home encourages distractions and there's no way to eliminate that." You would be right about this because working from home automatically puts your talent in charge of their time. The conversation of having a manager or supervisor is completely off the table. Uncompleted projects, carried-over tasks, and uneven workloads might become a problem, but this also has a solution.

Try out these solutions this week - set out clear expectations, lay out all goals, deadlines, expectations, and of course, reprimands if necessary whenever deadlines aren't met after a chosen number of times.

Performance reviews should be made regularly. They can be scheduled for the end of every month to provide feedback on challenges faced by your hires and what you might have noticed about their working patterns in that month. This allows solutions to be curated early and any problem faced can be curbed immediately.

Finally, you can make use of productivity tools like Lark, Jira, Asana, and the Time Doctor to ensure expectations are met and productivity is always on the increase and never on a decline.

How we might help

Being advocates of global hiring, Rocketdevs understands the many complexities that can be faced when hiring developers from various parts of the globe and managing them effectively. Being a non-profit technical hiring organization, finding solutions to certain problems such as this is our business and we take pride in the successes of our founders.

You can visit our website to let us handle your technical hiring needs for you.