Video Tips: 10 Tips for Communicating with Remote staff
In this week’s video I am going to talk about 10 tips for communicating with remote staff. Naturally, these are relevant to our line of business - working with virtual assistants - but increasingly business is global and workforces are fragmented.
Many businesses are now not only feeling the benefits of working with VAs, but also using outsourcing platforms such as Freelancer, People Per Hour and individuals and agencies across the globe to deliver tasks.
Working from home also means communication within businesses is changing. As more high profile businesses allow remote work and begin to understand that productivity does not fall when allowing employees to work remotely, so come a few challenges that, although relevant when sharing office space, often become more pertinent when separated by a greater distance.
There is no reason why working remotely shouldn't be a perfectly good way to work so here are 10 tips for communicating with remote staff:
Use a Task Management Platform.
Be EXact, not vague, in your requirements.
Read this blog post by best-selling author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss. Click here to download a Flight Booking Template.
When requesting research, Give an Example of the results you expect.
Allow remote workers or freelancers to Research Time.
Use Bullet Points to help communicate more effectively.
Use Video to better illustrate instructions or processes.
Check out this blog post which outlines ways of making quick and easy instruction videos and screen recordings to demonstrated processes.
Encourage Questions. IT will often result in better work being delivered.
Use whichever Communications Channels but make sure relevant details are in one place (see point 1).
Have Regular Calls to ensure things stay on track.
Say Thank You! it costs nothing.
Author: Thomas Smallwood is an outsourcing specialist. Having worked in companies around Europe, from the support desk to the boardroom, he founded bizee.co to help small businesses grow through efficient delegation to skilled virtual assistants. He is an award-winning blogger and a passionate advocate for mental health awareness.
Connect with Tom on LinkedIn.