With your team more reliant than ever on working from home, make sure you know how to manage them efficiently with the best technology 

1). Set up an easy communication channel

One of the easiest ways you can manage your team is by having a clear and well set-up communication line. Perhaps you already use Slack, Zoom, Skype, Google Chat or Microsoft Teams in your business. If this is the case, make sure that all of your team have this set up at their home working space or get help to set this up remotely for all of your team. 

Once you have an established method of communication, try to maintain regular meetings and utilise your outlook or Google calendar to set reminders. If you want to do a team call, you can use Microsoft teams, Google Meet or Zoom to set up a virtual meeting room. 

Whilst it’s tempting to try and monitor the activity of your team, instead set more outcome-focused goals and use your new communication tools to check in on this. If your team are more reliant than ever on home working, you might need to increase the amount of one to ones you offer. 

2). Have a clear outline for tasks and expectations

Whilst your team might have multiple projects to be dealing with, at this time you should set down 2 or 3 main objectives and check-in with each team member so they stay on track. 

You can also give them the tools they need to help priotise their work, some of which could include: 

• Microsoft Teams
• Milanote
• Google Docs
• Trello 
• Asana
• Basecamp

Within these tools as well as in your established communication channels, you can set up teams for your employees to have their own private space to discuss and collaborate on projects. In addition to this, you can also use online project boards to set goals and deadlines for reviews and completion which can then feed into your one to one meetings. 

By having a well set up project board and managing expectations for tasks, you can easily track the progress of your employees on their individual tasks. 

3). Have all of the documents and resources they need in one place 

If you don’t have this set up already, it’d be a good idea to have all of your essential documents and resources in one easy to manage and secure place online. 

By utilising cloud storage such as Google Drive or Onedrive, it’s a great way to ensure that all of your team can access the documents they need, regardless of where they are. If you’re already using or plan to use Microsoft Teams, you might want to consider using Onedrive for how easily it connects to your documents and existing projects, allowing you to easily share and collaborate on documents which are automatically stored and saved. 

Once you have this setup, or if you already do, make sure that all of your team are already working from this on their home working set up. This will ensure that you’re not likely to lose any valuable work whilst they’re at home. 

4). Don’t forget about team-building 

Whilst it might not come to mind when you think of working from home, it’s important to use technology to connect and continue spending time with your team. 

You may find that you’ve increased your video calling and one to one times, but you can also use Google meets or Zoom for virtual coffee dates, online training or team-building exercises.