Online Workgroups: The arrival of teleworking in our lives is not only our current reality, but it is the future trend that most companies will implement. This modality brings quite significant changes for workers that can cause a decrease in productivity.
In this context, online workgroups must join forces, even more, led by a person who listens to them, advises them, and finds the best business strategies so that workers can continue to meet their objectives.
Some various tools and keys help us to direct our online workgroups efficiently. Throughout the article, we will see a selection of them, but the one that makes the difference and is the fundamental factor that makes it possible for all the other tools work is communication.
Working on constant communication with your online workgroups will make workers feel more motivated and perform their functions with greater productivity. Asking them about their situation during teleworking or generating them that they can trust you are vital parts for the worker to increase their feeling of belonging in the company. Therefore they put their maximum effort into each project.
Tools for Managing Teleworking Groups
Cloud Storage Tools
Cloud storage tools allow the online workgroup to save files on the network without space limits, which will be useful for those who do not have media with extensive storage and management capacity at home. Besides, these tools allow you to transfer files and some editing so online, enabling work to several people on your team on the same document.
The best-known tool that is also free is Google Drive. Still, others on the market, such as Microsoft Teams, combine not only storage but also communication by chat, videoconferencing, and application integration.
Communication Tools
As we have mentioned before, communication is the key factor in building a relationship of trust and confidence. Thus, smooth phone calls or interactive chats and telematic meetings are the perfect tandem to be able to maintain those relationships that you previously had in the office.
It is important to note that not only do you have to promote the formal relationship but also continue working in the informal relationship of the workers, allowing you to have a relaxed atmosphere in any telematic meeting, and talking about current or personal issues that bring you closer to your workers.
Tools like Skype, Zoom, or Google Meet are ideal for a video conference. Since they allow you to share a screen to show your colleagues the completion of a task or its results. On the other hand, to maintain a fluid relationship, Slack or Hangouts are ideal since they incorporate chats where you can talk with your colleagues less formally than by email. And that allows you to create different chats, including different online workgroups.
Time Management Tools
Managing the time that each worker spends on a task is essential to measure the results in its productivity. However, this does not mean that you have to control and supervise your online workgroup strictly, you also have to understand that conciliation is much more complicated at home. Hence, you have to be much more flexible.
There are software applications that allow your workers fichen hours and out, and even breaks or moments of rest. Create Excel sheets with the time dedicated to the achievement of each project or ask that at the end of each day. And, they draw up a small list with the tasks they have done each day. And, all such tools are used under project management, like Trello Project Management Tool. These are options that will not only allow managing the time that is dedicated to each project. But, they also allow workers to feel much more organized, leading to a notable increase in productivity.
Essential keys to Leading Online Workgroups
The reality is that there is no method as such that works a miracle and perfectly manages online workgroups. But there are keys that can make your team achieve success and improve its productivity.
Enhancing each member’s best, analyzing their attitudes and skills, and distributing tasks. And projects based on these is a key that can help your team work more productively. Each individual tends to perform better in one role than in another within the same project. That is why a good leader’s job is to listen to them. And delegate to them what we know they will do with greater passion. Although sometimes it is complicated.
Another important key is to motivate the team, tell them success stories, and use methods. Such as Story Learning so that they learn. At the same time, they see how they can perform their work with the best possible productivity, based on great professionals’ experiences.
Finally, you must take time to train, learn new successful methodologies, or generate summaries. And the content of what you think may be interesting in your field to achieve those common goals that you set with your online workgroup.
These actions will gradually make online workgroups adapt to this situation. And work the same or better than when they did in the office. However, the medium-term is the best. Blended Working combines teleworking with some days of face-to-face work. So it is a flexible formula that combines both methods’ benefits, improving worker productivity.
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