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How to transfer employees to remote work: planning and control

39% of all employees of Russian companies and 55% of IT specialists switched to a remote site. This is evidenced by a new study by HeadHunter.ru. A third of respondents are more difficult to work at home than in the office. To help remote workers adapt to the new format, our project manager Tatyana Gainutdinova shares her experience on how to translate processes online and solve all problems with communication and self-discipline.

Deploy and be productive!

We knew how to work on a remote site before it became mainstream. Geographically, our employees are located around the world - from Ukraine to Thailand. When translating processes online, two main problems arise - with communication and self-discipline. I will tell you how to solve them, and share the secrets of effective management of a distributed team.

The complexity of remote work


  1. Not enough personal contact. It is impossible to consider non-verbal reactions of a person, to speak softly or strictly, there is no informal communication.
  2. A remote employee may be less responsible for work than working in an office, or it may be more difficult for him to organize himself. The worst option is when a person does not get in touch and does not warn about it.
  3. There is no motivation for development. We were faced with the fact that some remote workers are not ready to grow and correct the errors that they have been pointed out for months. They do not feel part of the team, and therefore do not want to become better and can leave at any time.

To avoid this scenario, during the interview, pay more attention to assessing the candidate’s soft skills: how he thinks, communicates, what his personal and professional goals are. Disassemble the test task in more detail, ask more questions.

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1. Organize a workplace: desk, chair, good computer, internet, surrounding interior. You need to make sure that all employees have working conditions, if necessary, help them to equip, transport and install equipment. For example, if someone has two monitors at work, it will be difficult at home without them.

It is important to prepare psychologically as well: create the most comfortable working conditions for yourself, limit communication with family members for the duration of your work, and ideally, select a separate area using the screen. In no case do not work on the couch - this will immediately reduce productivity by more than half.

2. Agree on the rules of interaction (periods of accessibility for communication, the time of meetings and meetings). This will streamline communication with employees. They will not write to you constantly through all communication channels; you will not be distracted from the planned tasks.

3. Spend a 15-minute daily rally every morning. Discuss with the employee what he did yesterday, what he will do today and what problems he faced.

How to control remote employees?


  • Do not give them privileges - do not set fewer tasks, do not simplify the work compared to full-time specialists.
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Planning your time is no less important than controlling the work of the team. To do this, follow these steps:

Formalize the tasks in the backlog. Make a list of all your current tasks and prioritize them. Talk with your colleagues what work they are planning and in which projects they count on you.

Select tasks from the backlog and make yourself a plan for the day, week, month. Separate tasks into primary and backup. In the second terms are less stringent, but they also need to be done in the future.
Use any time tracker. Celebrate the time you spend completing tasks. Do not forget to count meetings, planning meetings, meetings with clients.

Keep a public event calendar for the team.

Useful apps and services


My personal rating of applications and services for remote work and time management.

Planning:

  1. Notion (there are restrictions)
  2. Todoist (there are restrictions)
  3. Trello (free)
  4. Evernote (free)



You can use any task manager. It’s worth starting with Trello - this is one of the simplest and most convenient services, the main functionality is free.

Analysis and time tracking:

  1. Toggl
  2. Timecamp



They have a functional reminder, help analyze the time spent. Using applications will allow you to prioritize tasks and more efficiently distribute your resources.

Messengers and services for operational communications:

  1. Telegram (free)
  2. Slack (there are restrictions)
  3. Flow (paid)
  4. Teams (paid)



For calls and video conferencing:

Google Hangouts (free). The service is available in the web version, it works without failures.
Zoom (there are restrictions)
Discord (free)
Skype (free)



Checklist for quick and painless transition to a remote site:

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