The work-from-home trend has been catching on in recent weeks. Yet even before COVID-19 became a factor, an increasing number of people have been saying goodbye to their onerous commute to work. Employees of Kdan Mobile have been executing work-from-home (WFH) policies for years while managing a global team. We’ve found ways to navigate the issues many people face when working remotely and have five easy solutions to help businesses stay productive while working from home.
How to manage employees remotely?
Managing employees can be a difficult thing to do with a mobile workforce. Luckily, we live in a time where cloud-based software may help managers keep tabs on their employees’ progress and onboard new team members remotely, while Finance teams can seamlessly keep track of organization-wide business expenses without breaking the flow. Implementing payroll systems helps you manage all the employees’ activities. factoHR handles payroll operations effortlessly and benefits both managers and employees to conduct their processes remotely. We use DottedSign at Kdan to send contracts and documents to employees when working remotely. It lets our team remotely sign documents on their mobile devices and desktops and records the work time via digital audit trail. We ensure the security of the employee’s identity by sending one-time password (OTP) verification. Setting auto-reminders can also be a useful way for the HR team to track the team’s engagement.
How to track employee performance when working from home?
Tracking employees’ time and progress remotely is a top concern for leaders right now. Managers need a way to keep track of different projects’ statuses and to make sure information is flowing between different team members. Goal setting and effective communication are essential for teams like Kdan that operate on a global scale. We use the “Objectives & Key Results” (OKR) method as our internal management strategy to help team members and leaders identify and pursue specific and measurable goals. We also schedule (remote) standup meetings to share information between different team members and solve problems in real-time. These practices ensure everyone is in the loop and moving in the same direction. It is also worth taking into account a timer app. Besides measuring the time, an employee time tracking app can help your employees to facilitate work and boost their productivity.
How to communicate with a remote team?
When working remotely, businesses can experience issues when it comes to consistent communication among employees. Even when companies utilize email to business phone service to stay in touch, there can still be some issues. Now employees are meshing home and work life making it sometimes difficult to set aside large blocks of time for sit-down meetings. Communicating with a remote team can be made quick and easy by setting up task-specific chat groups with platforms that send messages straight to a team member’s mobile device. Our engineering team established an internal communication platform to help our global team stay connected better and stay on the same page. A similar service that’s available to the public and might work well for your team would be Slack.
We set up our internal communication by designating chats for things like specific projects, product management, customer support, and other areas of focus. Keeping the conversations focused keeps communication clear and effective and keeps the team in sync. Other platforms that you could use include Monday, Chanty, Notion, and Troop Messenger. Also, if you’re looking for a customer service software for your remote team, Hiver would be an ideal fit.
Looking for other great tools to optimize your remote working experience? Check out these 5 Recommended Tools for working from home!
How to secure company data when accessing internal networks from home?
It is important to ensure all employees have access to the devices and technology needed to effectively work from home. However, there is a risk of an Internet attack when accessing a company system from a private connection. We use a virtual private network (VPN) to create a secure channel for remote workers to log into our company systems. This lets us record the document usage and activity logs to avoid data leakage. That’s the reason why we recommend downloading VPN to help protect all of your employees’ devices, especially if they are working from home.
We also use Kdan Cloud to manage and share files. Our Cloud storage system gives each member of our team 1 TB of secure storage to house files, blog drafts, videos, images, and more. The Cloud also makes it easy for us to collaborate on projects by creating shareable links so everyone can work and share efficiently.
How to establish a company culture of remote working?
Keeping your team engaged and staying flexible are critical components of a successful mobile workforce. It’s important that you remain open to adjustments because working from home is a learning experience for everyone. This experience allows us to think more strategically about the new norm of working from home. Adopting successful practices early can help increase the likelihood of a successful and sustainable business in the long run. And remember! Thanking with gifts, your outstanding employees is an indispensable part of thriving your working culture as well.
In the time of COVID-19 and beyond, Kdan offers PDF document management, content creation, electronic signature, and cloud collaboration services that can support and boost the productivity of your team’s Work From Home experience. You can find more details about our services through our website or by contacting us at pr@kdanmobile.com.