3 Top Tips for Working Remotely

Whether you run a remote team, or you yourself are working remotely here are the 3 top tips for working remotely.

According to Regus, the global turnkey office space service provider [with 3000 locations in 900 cities and 120 countries],  their study showed that many (about 56%) of telecommuters who work remotely said that they concentrate better in solitude.  Another 53% of telecommuters said that working remotely gives them a change of scenery and thus avoids ‘cabin fever’. Yes, and yes. I concur.

I’ve been working remotely since long before it was necessary or trendy, beginning back in 2004. Today I’m working out of a beach restaurant in Cancun. Even though I had set up a 5,000-square-foot office with 100 workstations for my team in India, I was never there. Kiran would call and ask, “Are you coming in today?” to which I respond, “No.” He wondered, “Where are you? We need to have a small meeting.” It was an ongoing routine: “I’m at the corner working out of the cafe.”

In today’s ever-evolving digital world, we have more and more connectivity and productivity tools to make working remotely more efficient than ever. A lot has changed since the days in 1986 when my cell phone weighed 5 lbs and was the size of a small attache case. Working remotely, however, is not for everyone. Some people like the structure of working in an office. If, however, you’re like me and prefer to be on the move, here are a few setup tips.

3 Top Tips for Working Remotely

Connectivity in real-time. The one aspect of remote working that could be considered a setback is that team members are not sitting next to you, or across from you, for that instant, one-question interaction. Or for a whiteboard brainstorming session. There is no doubt that brainstorming in the same space, feeding off each other’s ideas, has a powerful impact. But it is one of the few setbacks, and with online video conferencing that lets you share screens, you can overcome it.

Provide and use productive tools. My team stays connected in real time using a set of productivity and communication tools. These include our core tools,

such as a company-branded enterprise G-Suite (now called Google Workplace), which I’ve recommended before for managing domains, email, instant chat, video chat, and collaboration tools, including calendars, documents, forms, and presentations. Beyond that, though, depending on the type of products or services you provide, you’ll likely need a project management tool (we’ve used many over the years, including TeamWork, and ZoHo (which has 40 modules), including projects, Billing, and accounting, and a CRM. HubSpot is also a powerful CRM, as is Nutshell. Additionally, you can use other tools like WhatsApp, Viber, and Slack.

Trust. There is no doubt that to run a remote-based organization, you have to trust that your people will do what they’re supposed to do. Accordingly, achieving this requires a motivated team. What are they working for, and what’s in it for them? The fear of losing one’s job if one doesn’t perform is always a motivator. But teams that thrive don’t achieve because they have to; they thrive because they want to.

Point of Sale. Before you can work remotely, you need to think through how and where you will get paid. To make this work, you’ll need to set up a bank that has mobile banking. There are still companies that will pay you by check, and you’ll need a way to deposit them. You can do so with two high-def smartphones, or with a smartphone and a digital camera—one to display the check image, the other to take a photo of it using the mobile banking deposit tool. Secondly, before you head off to the beach, please set up a mail service that can receive mail, scan it, and provide you with online access to it.